Looking at any gas station on the roads it is easy to see that diesel is more expensive than gasoline. Yet Jet A is less expensive than 100LL, why?
Quantity and regulations.
100LL is a very expensive fuel to make, and represents such a small percentage of the total petroleum used that it is considered a "specialty chemical" rather than a fuel. Combine this with all the annoyances that come with processing and transporting lead (100LL requires its own distribution network that cannot be shared with automotive gas), and you get a lot of cost from all of that.
By comparison, Jet A represents one of the highest-consumed fuels. The fact that so much of it is used allows for the distribution network to be larger and therefore cheaper per gallon than 100LL.
I'm sure that taxes and such have some impact as well, but the real root of it is that 100LL is not car gas (well, at some level it's similar), but requires even more checks and a more strict distribution network, with very few gallons used relatively.
For some reason the us consumer has been hornswaggled into believing that diesel is bad for the environment....worse than gasoline. Not sure how they managed that bit of marketing.
The prius is a joke and so are most of the hybrids. My VW Jetta averages 42+mpg city and highway. A prius is lucky to get into the high 30's on the highway. A prius with a diesel might actually make sense but with a gas engine....
Your Jette is doing better than mine. My 2009 TDI is averaging 36.9 city/highway. That is taking into account each and every tank of fuel since purchase for about 28500 milesMy VW Jetta averages 42+mpg city and highway.
Your Jette is doing better than mine. My 2009 TDI is averaging 36.9 city/highway. That is taking into account each and every tank of fuel since purchase for about 28500 miles
http://www.fuelly.com/driver/scott16b/jetta
I get about 44 on the highway. My driving is mostly city. If you look on that link I posted you can see my last highway trip in July. Really got a bounce on the ole mpg!Interesting... We just bought a 2012 Golf TDI. A bit too soon to tell, but a recent trip of +/-950 miles (mostly highway cruising) gave us an overall 46 MPG for the trip.
The Prius is a pretty bad car for the environment. Crappy highway fuel economy, decent city. But to get decent mileage, people accelerate so slowly they get run over (and/or create traffic hazards), and the batteries create such environmental havoc it outweighs any potential benefit from lower fuel consumption.
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I get about 44 on the highway. My driving is mostly city. If you look on that link I posted you can see my last highway trip in July. Really got a bounce on the ole mpg!
I look into the recall. It is almost time for the 30k oil change anyways.
Why do you feel that is a phenomenon limited to the Prius? I see people doing that in the TDI VW's too.
And I don't see highway fuel economy in the mid to high thirties as "crappy." Worse than the TDI diesels, yes, but much better than most of the cars in that weight and size class and equal to many cars in the class smaller such as the Yaris and mini Cooper. I guess everything is relative. Like the "havoc" from NiMH. Toyota claims a large percentage of each battery is recycled and/or neutralized before disposal.
I just picked up my lunch from the local Mexican restaurant. I parked in back near the grease storage thing. I could not help but notice it had a lock on it, so I asked them why? I mean, who the heck would want to steal nasty old restaurant grease?
It seems that people who own converted diesel autos are ripping it off to power their cars for free. Who wooda thunk?
John
I didn't mean to start a pursefight between diesel and so called green cars....
Diesel particulate pollution keeps the carbon in solid form and while its a bit annoying for some it is much less toxic than the waste from the lithium battery used in the so-called "green" hybrids. Waste produced when the battery is made and more waste when its life is up.
My VW is a 2006 TDI with the PD injection system. It seems each new iteration of the injection setup has dropped the mileage a bit. The earlier mechanical injection pump actually got better mileage than mine and the newer common rail setup seems to get less. We all still beat the prius in both highway mileage, acceleration, load carrying capability and room/comfort. I've only run this particular TDI for 80K miles and have achieved as much as 49.8mpg and the lowest has been 39.5mpg. Its takes a lot of work to get the mileage below 40mpg. 45+ is the norm for the highway.
In any case, removing sulfur from the fuel is one big reason given for the diesel price being higher than gas. Wintertime tends to drive the price up too since home heating oil cuts into diesel production.
Frank
I'm going to chime in a little here on hybrid vs diesel. It all comes down to usage. You drive a lot of highway? An efficient diesel is the choice for MPG. You do a lot of stop & go driving? The hybrid will do better. How's that go with buying planes again? You buy a plane to fit the mission. The same should apply for cars, right?
People get clouded over the whole green issue. They think it's good or bad. Well it depends on the application, like anything else.
One day I will get shot by a Prius driver who actually carries..
Yeah let's burn coal to produce electricity less efficently (because of loss in transmition over power lines) so I can not as good gas mileage on the highway in my $24,000 prius as an $8000 chevy caviler. FAIL The only viable 'green' way to power a nation of electric cars would be with more nuke plants. We COULD run ethanol which is 90% cleaner than regular gas but NO its not perfectly emissions free so we can't use that as a step down. (Cellusoic ethanol does not use the edible part of the plant and has 35:1 return not 1.3:1 like common advertised by oil companies). I can't really talk though, I drive a turbo-charged Subaru that because of the way I have it tuned gets like 20mpg at best. It fun to f with that Prius driver in the left lane though. When they spill their coffee all I can translate from them through the window from their angry lip movements is "Damnit Maverick!" Or "I hate that guy.." One day I will get shot by a Prius driver who actually carries.. IF they can catch me LOL Its funny to if you get on to the highway all slow and then punch it at last second to merge into traffic and they are stuck risking their life trying to merge at like 30mph ROFL I'll bet though you could trick out the computer to waste the entire batterie in one short spurt and get some amazing torque.. if your a hacker AND a car guru AND you have a prius..?
<---<^>--->
Shoot back.
Just like a Japanese Zero, no self sealing fuel tanks, no pilot armour, flimsy, lightweight construction due to being underpowered. One round, and it will blow up.
:wink2:
Your Jette is doing better than mine. My 2009 TDI is averaging 36.9 city/highway. That is taking into account each and every tank of fuel since purchase for about 28500 miles
http://www.fuelly.com/driver/scott16b/jetta
... now that it's had $13000 in repairs since new...two new intake manifolds
I saw the first of many local Prii with winter snow tires on it this week. Those "low rolling resistance" tires that allow the high gas mileage get taken off every year about this time, around here.
They look pretty awful with cheap steel wheels on them, too. Even more like a kid's go-cart.