Tow Vehicles of the future

[ronsmith100]

I have been looking around at *maybe* getting a new TV. The price of fuel has gone bananas and my MPG runs anywhere between 11 and 12 pulling my egg with 01 ranger 4.0. But it appears there is good news on the horizon for green diesel. Better gas millage and cleaner burning and of course TORQUE! If I had a new ranger with the newest 4cyl 3.0 turbo diesel due to come out in Europe next year I would sacrifice little or no torque and get near 20mpg. But we probably wont get it until 2010 or later. Toyota already has one overseas... Nissan too I think.

Anyway got me to looking around the net and I found this link
http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/stor...ra/jperez.html

Apparently this company is a very big player in autos in Asia and Australia.. I never heard of them. But they seem to be on good footing if you read the Aussie press.

Anyway here is another link
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/editorial...h-diesel-power/

It appears the engine is really strong but at 190 ftlbs is still a little weak for my 3000 lbs.
However I would bet this would make great tv for lighter eggs.

What for you think?

PS Ford is due to put a 4.6 diesel V8 in the 150.. maybe as early as late 08. It would almost double the torque of my 4.0 but they have no MPG specs yet.

[CD Smith]

I like the thought of a diesel powered GM hybrid. The best of both worlds.

[Joe Z]

Diesel is really a nice way to go with power and the engine will last much longer too and i would really like to have one but the price of diesel compared to regular gas is way out of hand.... yesterday diesel $3.62 Gal .......Reg Gas $3.02Gal ....regular gas is way more to refined and diesel is nothing more than #2 oil ................Somebody is messin with us somewhere??
Joe

[james kent]

Nawww! They wouldn't do that, would they? It's gotta be the taxman.

[Patrick M.]

I believe diesel a number of years ago started being priced on energy content. So when we see these great MPG ratings, we need to ask what's the MP$ - it may be the same as the cheaper gasoline engine!

[ddayton]

Ran a Sinclair gas station in Cheyenne, WY, during the late 50s (yeah I know that makes me sound old). No matter what the price of gasolene was the price of diesel was always one half. Most often gas was 22 cents a gallon with diesel being 11 cents.

Naw, nobodys messing with us now!

Hey Ronsmith100 - used a 94 Mazda (Ranger) 4.0 to tow a Scamp 5vr that was about 3,800 lbs. In 06 upgraded to a Toyota Tacoma 4.0 Double Cab, 4x4, long bed, and there was a world of difference increase in power and slight increase in MPG. Something to think about.

Don

[ronsmith100]

Ran a Sinclair gas station in Cheyenne, WY, during the late 50s (yeah I know that makes me sound old). No matter what the price of gasolene was the price of diesel was always one half. Most often gas was 22 cents a gallon with diesel being 11 cents.

Naw, nobodys messing with us now!

Hey Ronsmith100 - used a 94 Mazda (Ranger) 4.0 to tow a Scamp 5vr that was about 3,800 lbs. In 06 upgraded to a Toyota Tacoma 4.0 Double Cab, 4x4, long bed, and there was a world of difference increase in power and slight increase in MPG. Something to think about.

Don

Well there is no reason to believe the oil industry is *not* sticking it too us as always but the published reason (and I think accurate reason) that Diesel is costly now is the transition to low-sulfur-diesel fuel. As I understand it low sulfur is the basic reason we have some "green" diesle engines today. The refineries have spent a lot of money retrofitting and are passing the cost on. Eventually I hope the refining costs will be less than gasoline again.

Ron

[james kent]

This thread and the previous on seem to have merged into one about mileage and fuel and engine types.

[ronsmith100]

This thread and the previous on seem to have merged into one about mileage and fuel and engine types.

That's true.. I didn't see the other post.

nevertheless, what do you think of the mahindra pick up? They have nearly 500 dealers signed up for 08

[Suz]

To me, it looks like it has a lot of possibilities.

[Mr. W.]

I think it is not a particularly attractive truck, but I really don't care. By all reports, it is built tough, and is reported to be great on fuel. Sounds like a great combination. I would be sore tempted to get one.

[Brian B-P]

....regular gas is way more to refined and diesel is nothing more than #2 oil ................Somebody is messin with us somewhere??

No, I don't think anybody's messing with us. I do think people should appreciate a couple of things:

• modern diesel fuel is not crude, it is a critical refined product (as Ron mentioned)
• all products are priced according to their market value; diesel costs roughly as much as gasoline because it is worth roughly as much, and is similarly in demand

I'm no expert, but logically I can see no reason why diesel should significantly decrease in price relative to gasoline any time soon.

[Roger H]

Ok, I'm going to commit what amounts to blasphemy among diesel lovers.

All of the things that made diesel so attractive, even ten years ago, are falling by the wayside. Although diesel has more BTUs per unit than gasoline, it is once again more expensive, so the cost per mile is about a wash. It used to be that gas engine tuneups were a frequent and pricey affair. Most engines are now out to 100,000 miles for a "tuneup". Diesel, OTOH, uses two or three times the amount of oil in the crank case. Depending on the distance one runs between changes and the type and cost of oil, the cost over 100,000 miles for oil for the diesel makes the 100,000 mile gas tuneup cost a wash.

Diesel is harder to find, and even with modern blends can be problematic in very, very cold weather (I have a Kubota diesel tractor, BTW, and love it...).

I researched diesels pretty hard recently when looking to buy my motorhome, and decided that after paying the premium cost for the diesel engine plus the wash on fuel and maintenance that the good ol' Ford V10 looked pretty good. There just isn't enough advantage to owning an automotive diesel right now to make it worth the expense and hassle.

It will be interesting to see the mileage figures and the MSRP on the Mahindra. If they can get the mpg into the 50mpg range, it might be a hit.

Roger

On edit: BTW, I changed the title from TVs to Tow Vehicles. I couldn't for the life of me figure out in the first several posts what diesel fuel had to do with the future of televisions... THEN I got it... I changed it for the ease of finding it via our search engine in the future.

[ronsmith100]

Ok, I'm going to commit what amounts to blasphemy among diesel lovers.

All of the things that made diesel so attractive, even ten years ago, are falling by the wayside. Although diesel has more BTUs per unit than gasoline, it is once again more expensive, so the cost per mile is about a wash. It used to be that gas engine tuneups were a frequent and pricey affair. Most engines are now out to 100,000 miles for a "tuneup". Diesel, OTOH, uses two or three times the amount of oil in the crank case. Depending on the distance one runs between changes and the type and cost of oil, the cost over 100,000 miles for oil for the diesel makes the 100,000 mile gas tuneup cost a wash.

Diesel is harder to find, and even with modern blends can be problematic in very, very cold weather (I have a Kubota diesel tractor, BTW, and love it...).

I researched diesels pretty hard recently when looking to buy my motorhome, and decided that after paying the premium cost for the diesel engine plus the wash on fuel and maintenance that the good ol' Ford V10 looked pretty good. There just isn't enough advantage to owning an automotive diesel right now to make it worth the expense and hassle.

It will be interesting to see the mileage figures and the MSRP on the Mahindra. If they can get the mpg into the 50mpg range, it might be a hit.

Roger

On edit: BTW, I changed the title from TVs to Tow Vehicles. I couldn't for the life of me figure out in the first several posts what diesel fuel had to do with the future of televisions... THEN I got it... I changed it for the ease of finding it via our search engine in the future.

HA! this cracks me up. I had the same reaction the first time I read a post about the TV the guy was describing over on Casita Club. I was brand new to trailer towing and had no idea what his television had to do with sway!

some points in your post to address:

1- if Europe is any indication diesel is going to be the main fuel of the future, not the secondary fuel. 50% of their new car sales are now disel and is suppsoed to grow to 70% in the next ten tears. All petrol stations over there have almost as many diesle pumps as gasoline pumps now. So I suppose the same thing will happen here and diesel will be available everywhere. Also, the European refiners started the ultra low sulfur program many years ago so the cost of diesel fuel is now a little less than gasoline again.

2- I was never considering the cost of fuel when thinking about a diesel. I was thinking about the cost of torque. A gasoline engine's MPG falls off in proportion to the load being carried/towed. So does a diesel but the slope of the graph is shallow in comparison. An example: a 6 liter gasoline V8 may get 18mpg highway with no load and only 10 mpg highway pulling a 5000 lb trailer load. The same size diesel engine in the same size truck will get 18mpg hwy too. But pulling the same load it will get say 15 mpg highway. The bigger the load the greater the gap in millage between a gasoline and diesel truck. Also to consider is the driving comfort... there is soooo much torque available that you dont have to pay too much attention to shifting and RPM etc. Those guys just boggie along.

3- this works in reverse too. Since torque is my major concern (not necessarily horse power) then this opens up opportunities for smaller four and six cylinder turbo diesels to produce the same amount of torque as their big brother gasoline V8s. Most of the load carrying utility trucks in Europe are Ranger size four cylinder turbo diesels.

Anyway... I think the cost of torque will be dropping soon.... we'll see. But I don't think that Mahindra pickup will get anywhere near 50mpg.. it is a high performance engine... I suspect it could pull 3000lbs and get 25 maybe.. I don't know. But it will certainly out perform any gas V6/V8s

Ron

[GeorgeR]

1- if Europe is any indication diesel is going to be the main fuel of the future, not the secondary fuel. 50% of their new car sales are now disel and is suppsoed to grow to 70% in the next ten tears. All petrol stations over there have almost as many diesle pumps as gasoline pumps now. So I suppose the same thing will happen here and diesel will be available everywhere. Also, the European refiners started the ultra low sulfur program many years ago so the cost of diesel fuel is now a little less than gasoline again.

2- I was never considering the cost of fuel when thinking about a diesel. I was thinking about the cost of torque. A gasoline engine's MPG falls off in proportion to the load being carried/towed. So does a diesel but the slope of the graph is shallow in comparison. An example: a 6 liter gasoline V8 may get 18mpg highway with no load and only 10 mpg highway pulling a 5000 lb trailer load. The same size diesel engine in the same size truck will get 18mpg hwy too. But pulling the same load it will get say 15 mpg highway. The bigger the load the greater the gap in millage between a gasoline and diesel truck. Also to consider is the driving comfort... there is soooo much torque available that you dont have to pay too much attention to shifting and RPM etc. Those guys just boggie along.

3- this works in reverse too. Since torque is my major concern (not necessarily horse power) then this opens up opportunities for smaller four and six cylinder turbo diesels to produce the same amount of torque as their big brother gasoline V8s. Most of the load carrying utility trucks in Europe are Ranger size four cylinder turbo diesels.

Anyway... I think the cost of torque will be dropping soon.... we'll see. But I don't think that Mahindra pickup will get anywhere near 50mpg.. it is a high performance engine... I suspect it could pull 3000lbs and get 25 maybe.. I don't know. But it will certainly out perform any gas V6/V8s

Ron

<span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%">Ron, excellent comments.



Recently I was at an RV dealer and discussion turned into engines. He just blasted diesels: smell badly, fuel is expensive, loud, shake and nobody is buying them anymore. I was just waiting for him to tell me that diesel spark plugs are also very expensive. After his sales pitch I said then I would only buy a diesel vehicle. I think that this negative sales buzz about diesels is normal. Vehicle price is a key driver impacting vehicle sale and one way to lower it is to go with gas.



Recently we were looking to sell my wife’s 04 VW Beetle TDI and were shocked how good a resale price in comparison to gas Beetle was (KBB.com). Over 20% advantage of TDI over gas. The $3000 advantage difference in resale compares well with $1000 diesel’s price penalty we paid in 04. In California the resale is even higher. The diesel fuel is 10% more expensive but gas mileage is 30-35% better. Gas mileage, resale or longevity makes economy math easy.


George.</span>

[peterh]

Some observations from my crystal ball.

First up, 35+ mpg is very obtainable. I've had several cars that get better than 35 mpg, including Lynne's current '97 Toyota Corolla DX (36 mpg), my old '84 Honda Civic (38 mpg) and '92 Geo Metro (42 mpg), and there are several current model cars that get 35 mpg or better, including the Volkswagen Beetle Turbo Diesel that some people are using to pull a 13' trailer. Also remember that 35 MPG is the target average and not the minimum; there will be lots of vehicles that get less than 35MPG, many of which can easily tow a trailer. (Especially a fiberglass trailer!)

What the call to 35MPG really represents is a call for right-sizing the vehicles we drive. Consider the BMW Z4 Roadster Convertible and Dodge Intrepid SXT (and others), wich come with six-cylinder 255hp engines. That's more horsepower than a base-model Ford F-150 pickup truck with a rated tow capacity of 8000 pounds, and 2-1/2 times the horsepower of Lynne's 105hp Toyota Corolla! Way more power than anyone needs in a passenger vehicle.

How often do you see someone with a small family -- or even a single guy or gal -- driving something that makes the Titanic look petite? The Cadillac Escalade is not the worst offender in this category, but Lynne and I parked next to one while shopping last weekend, so it's on my mind. It gets 14 mpg, and I see a lot of Escalades, Excursions, Expeditions, Hummers and other super-size SUVs on the road with just one or two people inside.

Right now Ford is running ads about its Escape Hybrid SUV, which gets 34 mpg. True, the Hybrid Escape isn't recommended for towing (the gas-only version is limited to 1000lbs), but if all those single drivers who only use their bloated Escalade-like tanks to drive a couple of people around town drove an Escape Hybrid instead we'd see a huge jump in fleet average MPG.

That's what I think the new CAFE standards are all about: recognizing that there are vehicular extravagances we can no longer afford or allow. I think we could easily improve fleet efficiency -- without new technology or even going to hybrids -- by five and perhaps ten mpg just by right-sizing our vehicles. (Current CAFE standards require 25 mpg, but don't include SUVs, minivans, or light trucks. After taking these vehicles into the equation our fleet average is somewhere between 21 and 22 mpg.) Throw in hybrid and other new and yet-to-be-developed technologies and I think 35 MPG is a goal that we can not just meet, but easily surpass well before the 2020 deadline.

There are things we should not expect to see, like super-duty trucks that can tow 8000 lbs trailers that get 30 mpg. Mother nature has set down rules of the road that don't need policemen to enforce them. Tires, for example, will always have rolling friction that must be overcome by the application of engine power; indeed, a tire with no rolling friction would be pretty useless because it would spin freely instead of pushing against the road to make the car go. Newton's three basic laws will always require that more energy is required to move a big, heavy truck (and trailer) than a small, lighter one. The laws of thermodynamics will always place limits on the efficiency of the engines -- gas, diesel, or electric -- we use. And the energy required to overcome wind resistance as you speed up from 50 to 70 miles per hour will always double, so don't expect to be able to drive or tow at 70mph and get the same fuel efficiency as when you drive slower.

So what is reality? My guess is that we'll see Chevy Colorado-sized pickups that can tow 4000lbs and get 28-30 mpg by 2015, a 49-58% increase over current models. I think we could achieve that kind of MPG by combining hybrid technology with a traditional diesel or rotary gas engines using displacement-on-demand technology that deactivates (and disengages) cylinders that aren't required except when you're accelerating or climbing up a hill.

But what do I know. The crystal ball I use is an upside-down fish bowl with a HotWheels car inside.

--Peter

[Byron Kinnaman]

This is all very interesting but nobody, in my opinion, has really mentioned the basic problem. I think it has to do with the American business model. Think about this for a moment, everything you buy has to be bigger and better than the previous version. A bigger house, a bigger car or SUV, a bigger truck, a bigger RV. A more expensive dinning room set, bedroom set, etc. It's ingrained in our society. The manufacturers and sales guys push it, television pushes it, advertising pushes. Why, because profits and sales commissions are based on selling price. You add to that the "keeping up with the Jones" syndrome things will go up in size and cost. What does this have to do with MPG? Energy usage. Bigger house requires more energy to build and maintain. Bigger vehicle requires more energy to run, etc., etc. Of course the energy providers like this because it's more profit for them. One big viscous circle going the wrong direction. A small change in MPG requirements are nothing compared to the overall problem.

A total change in direction and attitude needs to be made before inroads can be made into energy usage. I also think I'm preaching to the choir. Many here are moving to smaller rather than larger, although I bet that there's been more sales of the larger fiberglass trailers than few years ago. Example, Scamp started production of their 16' first, then the 5er and finally the 13' if I remember right. I know the 16' was first. What that tells me that the bigger is selling better than the smaller. So we still have a bit of a problem, but not as much as the 40' Class A guys.

Bottom line -- Energy usage has to be reduced, MPG is one way, but only one way and by itself won't help much.

[peterh]

. . . I think it has to do with the American business model. Think about this for a moment, everything you buy has to be bigger and better than the previous version . . .

Yes, that's part of the problem, but I think it has less to do with business models than human nature. Simply put, it is harder to sell people on the idea that "less is more" than the idea that "bigger is better." I myself used to write a monthly magazine article about communications technology called "Bigger, Better, Faster . . ." That "bigger is better" seems almost self-evident to most people. Why else would "super-size" fries and drinks sell so well when we know those extra fat-laden, waistline-expanding, artery-hardening calories are bad for us? Convincing people that the better buy comes in a smaller package is hard sell even when we know better. Corporate America, Corporate Internacionale for that matter, is really just going with the flow and catering to a common human failing. The car industry calls it "giving consumers what they're asking for."

This tendency is not going to go away anytime soon. Individuals will always reach for the bigger piece of the pie and forget the big-picture consequences that may occur somewhere down the road. Unless the threat is right in front of us, we ignore it, just as first-time smokers ignore the known risk of addiction leading to heart disease, cancer, and just plain smelling like an ash tray. That's why "market based" solutions don't work, that's why we desperately need regulations like the one that was just signed into law.

--Peter

[Brian B-P]

"Full size" pickup trucks tend to be offered with a range of possibility for wheelbase; choose a cab, choose a box, and get the resulting wheelbase... with some limitations. Compact trucks, on the other hand, tend to be offered with a single wheelbase: choose a cab, and that determines how much is left for the box (the Ranger is the exception). In both cases, modern trucks tend to have the same rear overhang (axle to bumper) regardless of cab and box choice, and SUV variants are on shorter wheelbases than the pickups.

Mahindra Truck and SUV specs from Global Vehicles USA

At first glance it looked to me like the Mahindra followed the compact-truck pattern (one wheelbase for all pickup variants), and in fact it does. The SUV is significantly shorter.

My concern is that the Mahindra's wheelbase looks too short, or the overhang too long. At 119.7", the wheelbase is

• the same as my Sienna minivan
• longer than a regular-cab Ranger or regular-cab Colorado
• shorter than a Super Cab Ranger, Extended or Crew cab Colorado, any Tacoma, or any Frontier

To get a substantial box length with this wheelbase, the rear overhang appears to be quite long (it is not specified by Global Vehicles). Both short wheelbase and long overhang are bad for towing; the ratio between the two is perhaps the most suitable single measure. It would be interesting to get a real spec for the overhang.

[Brian B-P]

Although the payload of this truck is supposed to be high for the size, the diesel engine is the reason for all of the attention. It particularly caught my attention at first because some sources (including a magazine, which I think was Truck Trend) quoted a displacement of 2.2 L and unusually high power output for an engine of that size; since that was incorrect, and the real specs are unavailable, there's no reason to believe that there will be anything interesting about the engine.

Since every manufacturer of small pickups currently offered in North America could sell them with a small diesel (supplied by their European or Asian divisions or suppliers), I don't see why - as a buyer - I would want to deal with new entry in the market, or why they would be successful. Maybe they think they've found their niche, filling a so far unserviced market.