Boy! has the auto companies missed the mark this time; oil just hit $100 a barrel and these guys are selling powerful, very expensive, high tech, but very ineffecient, ICEs...performance automobiles that are better suited for the track and not the streets and roads. Anyway you cut it, the ICE car is no better than 30% efficient at the rear wheels. I don't think any amount of PR BS will fix the fact they are building Diesel ICEs when they should be building BEVs.

@ Lad -

is anyone actually selling an affordable high performance BEV yet? No. BMW and others will indeed have to scramble if and when start-ups and/or competitors figure out how to build batteries that are up to the job. We're just not there yet. BMW is helping to advance the state of the art through its contribution to the two-mode hybrid project.

Meanwhile, diesels are at least a good deal more frugal with our $100/barrel oil than gasoline engines are - and thanks to T2B5/LEV II, they will be sufficiently clean as well. Btw, peak thermodynmic efficiency for a passenger car diesel engine is almost 40%, though your figure is close to the average in real-world duty cycle featuring a high proportion of freeway driving.

IMHO,it's always good to have more than one arrow in one's quiver. If nothing else, relatively heavy vehicles such as RWD sedans, minivans, SUVs and pick-ups will continue to rely on ICEs for many years yet, because of the great expense of batteries.

To help bring that down, I'd suggest that owners of such vehicles also purchase electrically assisted bicycles to use on relatively short trips when the weather is nice. Heating up the block of a high-displacement ICE just to travel a few miles is wasteful plus, a little mild exercise might be a good idea for a lot of people. Also, cutting the annual mileage on your car by a few percent reduces depreciation, wear and tear, engine oil consumption, fuel cost and CO2 emissions.

An interesting option would be an integrated solution in which the (relatively small) Li-ion battery of the folding bicycle can be plugged into the car's electrical system when it is stored in the trunk. That way, it could support a start-stop system with intelligent alternator (BMW calls this EfficientDynamics).

I want to know why BMW will not commit to bringing their 2.0 L twin turbo 4 Cyl diesel to the US. The 520 would help reduce their CAFE fines and not require urea for after treatment.

@Craig

Good point

The recent launch of the 1-series in the U.S. is an attempt to reach/create a new market segment for BMW (That being the upscale, high performance, micro class). The 2.0L twin turbo is ideally suited to such a vehicle.

Perhaps car companies assume that Americans are still hung up on displacement? For the most part they are, but I'd imagine that a buyer looking at a diesel would be willing to overlook displacement (esp when they see the torque curve).

Where Regular Gasoline in our area ranges from $3.13 - $3.59 per gallon, Diesel prices range from $3.62 - $3.90 per gallon. Fuel economy savings are offset by the premium price tag for the diesel option and higher fuel prices.

The ~10% higher price for diesel is reasonable given that it has ~10% more energy (and carbon), neither does it fully cancel out the 20~30% improvement in mileage of the diesel versions over the petrol ones.
It's the higher purchase price of diesels which counts against them for me (low mileage driver)

You're not going to be running regular unleaded in your BMW!

In the U.S. at least, currently diesel vehicles compete with gas models using premium gasoline, so essentially no fuel price difference.

...not to mention the option of biodiesel...cleaner and much more sustainable...one could imagine a day when the only ICEs on the road would be diesels (and diesel hybrids) running biodiesel...then maybe we wouldn't have to worry what those fundamentalist middle eastern whackos think or do, they will have no more sway in global oil/politics, also many politicians, wall street robber-barons, and cia double agents will be forced to retire...

In city driving, diesels can get much better mileage than gassers.

I doubled my MPG (18 -> 35) going from a gasser to a TDI, driving the same all city route, no change in driving style. The
TDI weighs 10% less and has less power but again I drove the same.

Craig, I do think that BMW could introduce their twin-turbo 2.0-liter turbodiesel for the 123d, probably coming some time in 2009. It'll probably be rated at 185 bhp (SAE 08/04 net) but with a really high torque peak. We might even see this engine in the BMW 3-Series, probably called the 323d model.

Its great that BMW and Mercedes are announcing T2 Bin 5 compliant turbo-diesels. The Dodge Ram T2 Bin 5 turbodesiel Pickup available for the last year, was becoming a very singular expression of this technology.

Its nice to see other vehicles and automakers using this technology enter the marketplace, and confirm the viability of this approach. It has been a wait for these almost clean diesels, but the wait has been worth it.

T2 Bin 5 deisels may not be LEV II or SULEV clean, but it at least they match the the gasoline standards that are only now being surpassed in America,even as they exceed the lax EU standards. They are not a major step backwards in the quest for clean air, unlike what Europe chose to do.

VW TSI technology showed that patrol engine technology can further improved.

Without tax insentives in some European countries, the Diesel would not be popolar there.

In tests, TSI undercut emmissions of the TDI but giving a more refinet engine.

But I hope for Europe, that "clean" US-Diesel made by German industry are brought to Fanco-Germania or EU as well

@ Stan -

the whole point of T2B5 compliance is that this EPA bin is exactly equivalent to the minimum requirement for CARB LEV II, i.e. meeting it means a manufacturer can sell the vehicle in all 50 states.

Clean diesel engines are not as clean as the cleanest gasoline types (PZEV etc.), but for now at least, they are clean enough to satisfy even CARB.

@Rafael,

Thank You for confirming that the new-old US emissions levels are what the diesel T2B5 equates to. These have been exceeded by the PZEV California "psuedo-standards", though; even if not combustion emissions regulations, precisely, as they regualte the emissions from a vehicle while it is just parked and not operatring.

Now I agree that Diesel fuel is a lot less volatile than gasoline, so a T2B5 diesel vehicle should have fewer emisions of volatiles, "VOC" emissions compared to a gasoline vehicle while just parked there naturally.

Unless PZEV compliant additions are made to isolate the gasoline fuel supply that really are the essence of PZEV "psuedo-standards".

I am truly puzzled at the delay in Europe in setting cleanup emissiosn standards that are fully met in an important export market. I could see allowing the manufacturers time to obtain more supplies of the equipments that make the Destined-for-America vehicles, as opposed to the polluting machines they foist on the EU citizens; but I wonder why the delay? Its not like in America, where some dolts in the "green" movement, think it's all a conspiracy, if technology does not exist to accomplish all their wishes, at the mere snap of their fingers.

In this case, the technology does indeed exist, and America's needs forced its development.

I have no way of knowing from where you hail, but I suspect from hints in your posts that you are in the EU, am I correct? If so, do you have a view of the indecision and delay of the EU pompous "Greens"? Is it pure cynicism, or is their some other basis?

Two problems could make the Volkswagen TwinCharger engine difficult to sell in the USA:

1) The engine is mechanically much more complex than a turbodiesel engine, due to the use of both a turbocharger and supercharger.

2) The engine requires the use of above 91 pump octane gasoline to prevent serious engine "knocking" problems.

Volkswagen's upcoming US-legal 140 bhp TDI engine may not have the 170 bhp peak of the 1.4-liter TSI engine, but the torque peak of the diesel engine is definitely higher.