"Why can't we have modern diesel cars here?"
 

I live in California. We have plenty of government here. We even have our own little EPA called the California Air Resources Board who actually know better than the federal government, what is good for America. They have made it illegal for me to have a new MB diesel car. I can buy a S600 that actually makes twice as much pollution as a S320 CDI, but it is the pollution argument that is used to stop new diesel cars from being sold here. It is more likely that entrenched economic interests are in control.

Europeans are buying new diesel autos faster than gasoline powered autos. If it were just the Frech, I would accept the simple 'cheaper fuel' explanation. But just about everyone is buying diesel cars, even the richest of the rich. There is more to this than meets the eye. If the diesel revolution has not started in the US yet, it may be time to start it.

I hope you enjoy what I write and I hope that you will engage in criticism and discussion that will help guide my research. Here is the first installation:

http://home.comcast.net/~mr.diesel.3/Whats_The_Deal.html

Don't listen to anyone in the U.S. who tells you gasoline is better. Desiel is cheaper, this is why they try to sell gasoline more and make stupid laws to stop production of deisel cars. This way the consumer has no option but to choose gasoline veichels.

I was in Europe this summer and noticed that yes, Deisel is everywhere!
I also noticed that people who have gasoline engines dont throw it away and get a deisel. What they have done is converted there cars from gasoline to just propane gas. The kinds we use for BBQ grills!

I found that is the cheapest way to go and its great!

I rode in a propane gas powered car and It ran just fine. MP(?) was great. LOL

He filled up a 20 gallon tank to full, and it lasted about 5 days. It is so much cheaper.

If you noticed Mercedes just released a Deisel and so will BMW in 2006. This means something and not nothing. Diesel is coming back very quick.

For the people who live in California they will just have to wait for some change, for the rest of us we can go buy a deisel car from Europe and bring it over if you want one so bad. I really wish BMW would hurry!

All we need is for carmakers to just start making deisel cars and suvs.
This way the government will have no choice! Ha!
:eek:

There is a simple answer to this: The people (generalization) of Kalifornia are not very smart. They elect idiots to lead them. These idiots appoint the equally ignorant members of CARB (thats right, they are appointed not elected-and they know whats best for you) CARB then makes policy (law) which you must obey. Incidentally, I don't think that CARB is all bad, they have done much to improve Kalifornia air quality. They do however admit to having an agenda, and that agenda doesn't include diesel vehicles. How open minded of them. RT

I live in CA as well, and it's BS that we can't get new VW TDI's or MB CDI's that get high mpg here, yet people can drive their Hummer H2's and get 9 mpg. Seems like it's the big rigs that are the bigger polluters, not the passenger cars... i dont see big clouds of black smoke coming out from even our 20 year old Benzes, of which i see a lot of actually.

Ignorance is quite annoying, isn't it?.....

They'll have to come around eventually. With steadily escalating gas prices, and the amazing advances in recent years that have made diesel engines even cleaner, quieter, and often equal to and/or superior to gas engines in performance, it is just going to be undeniable, even for morons like the CARB members. Of course they've always been more durable and reliable than gas engines.

How can they just ignore the fact that nearly 50% of the cars and trucks in the rest of the "civilized world" are deisel-engined vehicles? Idiots.
Public demand will force them to change their backwards thinking eventually.

Mike

Applicable quote
 

"Anything worth having is worth cheating for."
W.C Fields

"You can't handle the truth."
a Jack Nicholson movie line.

So, cower down and accept the fact that those in power in the Republic of Kalifornia know everything that is good for you.

The Golden Rule applies here.

Whoever has the gold, makes the rules. :(

Just hang on for another year or two. The problem right now is our fuel. The sulphur content is too high and will foul the latest emissions control equipment. New regulations to lower the sulphur content in our fuel are phasing in starting in 05 or 06. Then we'll get the latest emissions equiment that will pass CA regs.

The answer is simple. Blame the tree huggers and the nutcases from Berkley that your fellow Kalifornians voted into office over the last 40 years. What you have now is the results of letting liberals be in charge for way too long.

Don't get me wrong, I little enviromentalism is a good thing, But like most things too much of it makes it a bad thing.

i'm not real sure, but i think you can buy a diesel car in another state and still register it here cant you? I've seen a couple almost new CDIs for sale here, I just dont think you can buy it new here.

High sulphur content in fuel is certainly a problem for the very latest common rail diesel systems, but frankly the car buying public shares much of the blame.

Gasoline is so apparently inexpensive that we act as if it were limitless, it never occurs to people that there is any reason not to burn it like it was going out of fashion. If burning less fuel were important to car buyers they would purchase more fuel efficient vehicles. The only way to make burning less fuel important to the majority of people is to make fuel more expensive, it is as simple as that. Most people are fundamentally selfish, and until something hurts them personally they won't give a crap about it.

We get to the UK once or twice per year, and each time we go it irks me that we are not able to buy some of the really neat looking vehicles on sale there. Cars with a small road footprint that offer amazing interior space with versatile seating, and efficient, powerful, diesel engines that get great mileage.

Kevin

I think his point is Kalifornia...................we got them elsewhere but the treehugging minority is holding everyone hostage and refusing to allow it to be sold there.

I agree with you, except for those two statements. Replace "not very smart" with "idealistic to a fault", and you're right on the $$. ;) The ultimate goal is utopia, from the best I can tell.

Re: the second part, CARB's agenda specifically does include diesels...and getting them off the road as soon as they possibly can. :mad: I think the CARB's ultimate goal is the complete shut-down of industrialization and going back to horse-and-buggy and candlelight. I do agree with you that they've done a lot of good (cleaned up L.A. quite nicely), but as with all things, there's such a thing as "too much", and we're wayyyyy past that point...

Conspiracy Theory
 

I've voiced these maxims before.

1. No U.S. design team can seem to come up with an efficient, powerful
automotive diesel.(It's like "Military Intelligence" , No Call for it)
2. Even if some MAVERICKS attempted a project like AN DIESEL/ELECTRIC
Hybrid the Oil Companies and "Detroit" would shut them down.
3. The average I.Q. of the AVERAGE U.S. voter must be in the 60-65 range
, How else to explain an electorate so fixated on being ****** (taken
advantage of) by scum bags elected to office who serve only their
Corporate Masters ?
4. Yea, Yea, Yea; Haliburton is fighting a war in the middle east,and any
ONE who speaks against it is a traitor.

Because
 

California is the LEFT coast.
Balance or moderation are BAD words to those appointed to tell you how to live.
The CARB's agenda specifically addresses diesels; getting them all into the scrap yard as soon as possible.
The CARB's ultimate goal is bicycle, walking and telecommute.

"Diesels are dirty", don't you irresponsible polluters understand, we know best, and you will OBEY!!!

My understanding from articles that I have read in various newpapers over the years, (Not that makes the content factual or accurate in anyway) was that USofA and California regulatory agencies take a different approach then their European counterparts.The Europeans overlook some of the pollution output of diesels in exchange for their efficency, where as our regulatory agencies (EPA, and CARB) tend to be more restrictive concerning the range and quanity of pollutants emitted from cars in general and especially diesels.

It seems that each subsequent study of diesel particulates, finds that they are worse then previously thought, and that certain size particulates thought to be relatively "inert" are pretty harmfull in how and where they lcan odge in the lungs.

I am just sharing the "Big picture" that I have gotten from the mass media, wether it is correct, factual, etc. I have no idea, but it seems to be pretty consistantly repeated.

As for the issues mentioned by many poster in this thread concerning CARB and the EPA, you may be correct, all I know is that when I use to visit/drive in LAX region in the early 80's, I physically would get sick, and you could rarely see the mountains around L.A. even when you could, you could not take a picture of them, as a camera could not pick the image up, through the smog filter. It am told it was common place for CHP officers to get a "Black Lung" type disease from breathing in all the pollutants present on Southern California freeways. Having lived in L.A. in the late 90's I cannot believe just how much cleaner the air appeared at that time. This improvement came with more people crowded into roughly the same area, far more cars on the road, being driven more miles then before. Something has made a dramatic improvement in the quality of peoples lives in this region of America.

Not trying to start a pissing match here, just some food for thought.