Diesel engines had to be made expensive and inefficient precisely because they used to be neither – in order to cancel one of the last remaining impediments to “electrification.”
And now it’s time to do the same to gas engines.
It is proposed – the step before it is ordered – that they be fitted with particulate traps, the same equipment that already saddles all passenger vehicle diesel engines made since about 2018 (and many commercial/heavy-truck diesel engines, too). These capture soot particles resulting from the combustion of diesel fuel.
Diesel particulate traps – and Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) injection/after-treatment – have made diesel more expensive to buy and to operate. The traps must be purged – “regenerated” – regularly and DEF added regularly. Diesel fuel is also now more expensive than gasoline. It was the reverse until just a few years ago. The result has been that diesel engines are less appealing to consumers, who once bought them to save rather than spend money. And this – along with the almost-impossibility of complying with ever-more-demanding exhaust emissions standards – is why it is almost impossible to find a new car (or even a light truck) that is available with a diesel engine in the U.S. anymore.
Burning gasoline can create soot as well – but usually this is the result of a fault, such as an overly rich air-fuel mixture, which also wastes gas as such an engine is burning inefficiently. This almost never happens with a modern gas-burning engine unless it is in very poor tune and even then, the catalytic converters (plural, almost all cars made since the early 2000s have two, even cars with four cylinder engines) will burn off most of the unwanted byproducts.
The electronic fuel injection systems all cars have had since the mid-late 1980s precisely control and maintain the optimum air-fuel ratio for any given operating condition and if a fault develops, the system will alert the vehicle’s owner to the fact via the “check engine’ light that will come on if such a fault is detected.
EFI is why a modern car might need a tune-up once every 100,000 miles or so. The spark plugs – the electrodes – will eventually wear but it is rare for them to foul – as was commonly a reason for annual (or even bi-annual) tune-ups before the advent of EFI.
It is also why a modern, fuel-injected engine (which is all engines installed in cars since the late 1980s) produces very little in the way of harmful emissions – i.e., the byproducts of an out-of-tune engine. One of the great secrets – deliberately kept – about modern fuel-injected engines is precisely that they produce hardly any harmful emissions. To the tune – if you like – of better than 98 percent of what comes out of the tailpipe of a new or recent-year car being other than harmless water vapor and carbon dioxide. The latter oilily re-defined as an “emission” so as to re-set the bar for what meets the standard of “zero emissions.”
A standard that – conveniently – only electric cars can meet.
And now gas-burning engines have a soot problem, too.
A problem created by direct injection (DI) which has largely replaced EFI . . . as an expedient to help automakers comply with increasingly impossible-to-comply-with fuel economy standards. These latter have become so onerous that any new car that doesn’t average close to 36 miles-per-gallon is a liability for the automaker in that it drags down the automaker’s “corporate” or fleet average miles-per-gallon number, derived by averaging the city-highway numbers achieved by all the vehicles it makes. Thus a difference of as little as 2-3 miles-per-gallon can make a big difference in terms of complying with the “corporate” or fleet-average fuel efficiency requirements.
DI is responsible for that difference. Also, another one.
Soot.
Direct-injected engines produce more of it, especially if they are also turbocharged (increased cylinder pressure) which most are. Which increases “blow by.” Which is made potentially worse by very light-weight oil, which is what most modern engines use. And if they do not have an additional EFI circuit to spray gas on the back of the engine’s intake valves, which will crud up with carbon if not. In an engine fed gas using EFI, the injectors – which are placed above the cylinder, typically just behind the intake valves – wash down the backs of the valves as the gas is injected into the cylinder. This solvent action keeps the backs of the valves from crudding up and keep soot production to a minimum. EFI engines do not need particulate traps.
But direct-injected, turbocharged engines do – or so they say.
In a direct-injected engine, the injector sprays fuel directly into the cylinder, under extremely high (2,000-plus pounds) of pressure (as opposed to the usual 30 psi or so in an EFI system). There is no solvent-washing effect, which is why some DI engines also have a “dedicated” EFI circuit in addition (or rather on top of) DI that is there only to spritz the intake valves with gas, to prevent them from crudding up.
But the relevant thing is the exhaust of a direct-injected, turbocharged engine using very light oil tends to produce soot in the exhaust stream. Not so much that you can see – or that causes any tangible harm – but enough to serve as an excuse. The one that is being used to “call” for particulate traps to be made mandatory for gas-engined cars. They already are in Europe – and what’s happening there is likely coming here.
Including more expense – both to buy (only another couple hundred bucks added to the MSRP!) and to drive.
This won’t benefit anyone except those peddling – and pushing – electric vehicles, those supposedly “zero emissions” vehicles. Which are that in the same way that what is taken out of every paycheck you get is a “contribution” to Social Security. The point of it is also similar, in a sense.
That being to impoverish you by taking something away from you – in this case, affordable cars that aren’t electric cars.
. . .
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I’m a Honda/Acura tech and we pull the intakes on the 3.5 when we do the 105k service. The DI versions (2014+) always have filthy valves. Not enough to set a check engine light or cause driveability issues. It has to reduce air flow. I imagine the computer just keeps dialing back the fuel trim to compensate and performance suffers.
I’m told Honda has some sort of ‘shop tool’ to clean the valves but it’s wildly expensive and our shop does not have one. I’ve seen people on Youtube videos do it with something like a bottle brush and a shop vac but that seems pretty sketchy.
I’m still a big fan of Honda products but the Toyota system of using ‘both’ EFI and DI to keep the valves clean is the superior system by far.
Not a fan of DI in general. Adds more complexity, it’s noisy, and the fuel economy gains are negligible, at least with Honda products. Also noticed the oil drains out a LOT dirtier than the old EFI systems.
General Motors had a ridiculously unfunny ad with Will Ferrell promoting their eeeeeveeees. “GM is going electric and giving EVs the stage they deserve. Once you feel the thrill of electric, there’s no going back.”
Ain’t that the truth. There is no going back, so you guys are hedging your bets in the form of a new 350 V-8.
Apparently, Netflix will have a glorified golf cart/exploder in every one of its new series going forward. Will be interesting to see how they shoehorn one into Stranger Things set in the 1980s.
Hi dr. –
The “thrill of electric”? Really? What is it, exactly? Other than quickness, there is almost literally nothing else. No sense of machinery, of individuality, of anything at all. Just silent and quick – which gets old, fast. Who gets excited about riding an elevator?
I get NO thrill from EVs. I drove a Tesla 3 and I felt as enthused as if I used my power drill to put some hooks in the wall for my kids’ jackets. It was leaden and boring. The assembly quality was dodgy to the point where I felt it’d been put together in a garage somewhere. It was the antithesis of fun.
Reminds me of that part from Mean Girls:
Gretchen: “That is so fetch!”
Regina: “Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It’s not going to happen!”
To paraphrase, GM, stop trying to make EVs happen! They’re not going to happen! No real car person or for that matter, any thinking person, wants one of these contraptions. When I tell normies about how long it takes to charge one, the threat of fire, how rapid charging wears down the battery, they’re shocked. Pun intended.
Amen, dr –
EVs are one-dimensional. Quick. It’s hard to maintain interest – connection – based on one thing.
Machines can and do have character.
In ages past, I found the Remington 700 to have a lot of it. A Browning ABolt, on the other hand had very little. Yes, this is a matter of personal preference, by it’s my preference.
Hi Dr,
I saw that ad too. It could be argued that GM is doing the EV equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig given what we KNOW about EVs that establishment media and the government are trying to HIDE from the public.
As for “The thrill of electric”, how long until “That thrill is gone”, to paraphrase an old song, when people who bought EVs start having problems with them?
Hey Doc,
Did you notice the scene from that commercial from inside the vehicle where there was smoke pouring out from the floor of the vehicle? It’s like they were admitting that they catch on fire!
About 15 seconds in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-OvQfALf8
As someone who drives a late 1990s truck, I’m curious if the Biden Thing’s call for E15 ethanol in gasoline was ever implemented, as I’m concerned about increased ethanol content in gasoline and whether it might negatively impact vehicles made before the 2000s.
Good article Eric, but if you pardon my insolence, I’d like to add a bit more info here, as I have done plenty of engine teardowns in track cars.
Modern engines, of the direct injected, turbocharged variety, like the ubiquitous 2.0L 4-cylinder turbo, run under very high pressure. On the low end, we’re looking at somewhere around 1bar (~12psi) of boost, while high end engines, like Daimler’s 2.0L’s that make 600 HP run close to 40psi of boost. These high cylinder pressures create a lot of blowby in the piston/sleeve seal, which shows up as pressure in the crank case. Crank case pressure used to be vented into the atmosphere, but it’s very dirty, so now, it’s circulated back into intake for a second pass around at being burned up. This is one big source of this soot. Naturally aspirated engines, even of the DI variety, see much less of this problem.
The second source of soot is exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) which is used to cool cylinder temperatures and avoid making nitrous oxides (NOx). EGR pumps some exhaust back into the intake, because it can’t burn again, so it’s considered an inert gas. However, in an engine which is more sooty, you’re blowing more soot back into the intake.
Even without these two systems, though, random volatile compounds evaporate from the crank case and go into the intake to be burned off. People install catch cans for these, which work ok. but they need regular draining and maintenance, so manufacturers don’t generally install them. On track cars, people just dump crank case vent to the atmosphere – I don’t particularly like this because it is quite dirty, but there’s got to be a better way.
What we have today is this vicious cycle of things that make each other worse. DI makes soot, soot fouls valves, fouled valves make for worse combustion, which makes more soot. My Ford Focus RS, a high pressure DI turbo engine, had a stupendous amount of soot after only about 15,000 miles.
It’s frustrating. A dual injected, naturally aspirated engine would be truly amazing at cleanliness and efficiency, if it stayed around 0.5L/cylinder (eg, 2.0L 4-cyl, 3.0L 6-cyl), but it wouldn’t do as well in the EPA test cycle, though it would probably do quite well in the real world. The test cycle isn’t like normal driving, it’s more like a blind centenarian driving to Sunday services.
hi OL, your comment is quite interesting. on your point of simple bigger engines – in the UK we have a website called honest john and they have a section of “real MPG” where people enter what they get in real world driving and compare to the stated numbers.
Cars which do best are always cars like the Land Rover Defender (the old one), or the Mustang GT, some Toyotas – but the one thing all of them have the naturally aspirated, bigger engines!
Hi Nasir,
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth a repeat. By installing an overdrive transmission with a deep (.067) final/OD ratio in my ’76 Trans-Am, I’ve managed to get about 18 MPG out of it – which is pretty good when you consider it’s a carbureted 455 (7.5 liter) V8!
That “tall” OD ratio takes advantage of the one thing about that Pontiac 455…it’s a TORQUEY plant. Slightly undersquare (4.1525″ x 4.21″), it’s a good “lugger”, and I’m surprised it didn’t find its was into gas-powered GMC trucks. I’ll bet in “top gear” (LoL), you’re probably turning about 2,400 RPM at 75 mph with neutral wind. You oughtta know better than I, but that’d seem to be where the 455 SD is “happy”!
Hi Douglas,
You’ve got the RPM at speed almost exactly right! The 2004R has a .067 OD and it really cuts the revs down. The TA’s 455 is fast idling at 70-75.
The reason the bigger engines get better actual mileage, especially when working hard, like towing, is that they have less work to do. The little engine with a big turbo has to compress a lot of air with that turbocharger, generating a lot of extra heat that it must purge – that’s what intercoolers are for. Where does all this extra heat come from? It comes from the energy content of the gasoline.
In some cases, turbos can be more efficient when compression losses are offset by larger gains in combustion efficiency, but it’s difficult to gain that much efficiency in a high compression, naturally aspirated engine.
Sorry, typo. I meant it’s hard to gain that much efficiency relative to a high compression NA engine.
Good stuff in return, OL!
The whole thing’s batty – but also malicious, in that “emissions” are tiny thing now and they know it yet the continue to push for “less” – with the real point being no cars other than EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees.
Today is National Military Propaganda Day, aka The Super Bowl.
The satanic half-time show was indoctrination. Purdy much sucked big time. Who wants to see anything like that?
Another Black Sunday is what you saw.
Where’s Bruce Dern?
The eagle flies until the Native American chief from the Kansas tribe captures the eagle resting on the ground.
If you have never seen a bald eagle standing on black soil with snow drifts in the background, the eagle is entirely camouflaged, if you aren’t paying attention, you won’t see the bald eagle 100 yards on the ground right in front of you.
The tribe of Kansas made it possible.
Everyone west of the Appalachians and east of the Front Range of the Rockies are happy the eagle’s wings got clipped.
You know the Chiefs are going to win, the Eagles had no chance.
You know Philadelphians lost a lot of money.
Another great day in America.
Not that anybody cares anymore.
RE: “If you have never seen a bald eagle standing on black soil with snow drifts in the background, the eagle is entirely camouflaged”
I have seen that.
…I caught the end of, ‘The Game’ on the TeeVee. The games on, ‘Friday Night Lights’ were better. … The games at the old high school football field in the before the Before Times were even better than that. It was without security cameras, and great suspicion or general division of The People like what we have now. You could feel the ‘Life’, it was much like what I imagine it was for that fella here at EPA who described, ‘the music’ from passing a motorcycle while leaning perfectly.
In tune.
Oh man, I caught a commercial from the Super Bowl from Dodge Ram & it was a mock EV Erectile Dysfunction commercial.
…It left out, Winter.
They are desperate. …And, dweebs.
Hi Helot,
I saw that commercial too. EV dealerships might ask prospective buyers of the Dodge Ram EV truck if they want a “Range extender” or if they have “Premature electrification dysfunction.”
Another reason why they don’t mind the “harmful emissions” produced at the power plant is because it is easier to strong-arm the power plant owner into compliance. To him, the combustion engine is a revenue source, not a necessary mode of transport. If Uncle says to install a fart collector, that’s what he’ll do. In fact, he’ll claim a deduction on taxes for the plant upgrade, and maybe demand a subsidized price for installation. “We’re all in this together,” so look for a rate increase too. Just the cost of doing business to him, a little less left over at the end of the month for you.
Then, when it’s all installed and reducing “emissions” by the scientifically determined ideal amount, the plant owner can post a feel-good story about saving the world on social media for ESG points too.
man these DPFs are such a hassle for a normal run city car. Just had one on my car out here. Wont get into the details, but cant imagine if they put them in petrol cars as well. Also, the other thing is the dealers will want to make you REPLACE them for any reason – which is like a 3k upwards fix (ofcourse if you have the right mechanic there are ways around it :). Such a hassle for such a small reduction in “pollution”.
And on the other hand the same government which is so concerned about pollution sees it fit to send an F-22 up and shoot a rocket -to pop a balloon…..
I remember when DEF first were rolled out back in 2010. I was shopping for a TDI at the time, so really doing research. VW/Audi had to put them on the Q5 TDI to make the numbers. I happened to read the owner’s manual instructions. At the time you had to go to the dealer to have the DEF tank refilled. If the tank ran dry the ECM would allow for 3 more engine starts so that you could get to the dealer, after that it would not start. The DEF tank had a specific fill inlet that reqired a special spout, and of course the service department would reset the ECM as part of the refueling process. I wouldn’t have bought one anyway, I wanted a Jetta (which used a different system) but that removed the Q5 completely from consideration.
My guess is that someone at VAG was worried about compliance issues pointing back to them, since they were always fighting the chip tuners.
So what happens when these become common and people won’t comply? Will the government dare arrest people for not using DEF, or diluting it, or just pissing in the tank? Will cops set up random checkpoints to test your DEF? Probably not. But they will force the manufacturer to make it harder to bypass these systems, and add language to laws that make it illegal even if there’s no investigatory process, so that if you’re part of a police investigation and they find your mods they can charge you with that too.
Lord help you if you’re in an inspection state though.
They already are RK. In my deep blue state, they are going after diesel owners who ‘deleted’ all this crap. Lots of diesel owners delete this crap, and report higher MPG as well. But the one’s who boast about on social media get a letter in the mail that says ‘show us proof of restoring your diesel back to EPA standard or you must destroy the truck and show proof of such’ not kidding.
I know a young man that this happened too. I advised him to take it to the mid-west and sell it. He elected to scrap it, as the re-do cost was $5-10K.
Another owner that got caught parted out his entire rig, all while the ‘state’ kept saying he can’t. I don’t know what happened in the end.
all owners who have deleted their trucks are now on to the game and have shut their mouths. But then cops started pulling over any diesel truck that was ‘showing’ aftermarket exhaust. Literally pulling them over, cheicking under the hood, and if no emissions, they impound the truck on the spot. Not kidding again. So again, all responded with putting stock looking exhuasts on.
Not sure where this all is at the moment, as I haven’t been paying attention lately.
Every government is founded upon its assumption of authority to kill you if you disobey. So get your particulate filter, or die mother effer. There is no end to the depravity a government psychopath will inflict upon you, since they are delighted to see others suffer, whatever the excuse. That pleasure from the pain of others is a part of their psychosis. They would starve to death in a free market economy. Which is why they want to hammer you down. To make damn sure they don’t have to endure one. The only reason such edicts are handed down is because they can be. So they are. And eff you.
I’ve been thinking lately. We pretend out government gets its authority from the people.
Yet, the government declares themselves to be sovereign, with all the intendant privileges that come with it.
But how can an entity that derives its power and even its very existence on something else be sovereign? How can our own creation claim the authority to tell us what choices we will make at the barrel of a gun?
It is merely the great fiction that the few use to control the many.
Hmmm…modern [gasoline]engines burn oil. Used to be if ya burned a quart every three thousand miles, it was time to rebuild the motor, and in more recent decades if you were burning such oil you were accused of being a polluter. Now it’s considered ‘normal’ -factory spec- for a new or low-mile car to burn a quart or MORE in 3000 miles…..a perfect excuse for “need” for particulate filters……
Why even devote our time to bitching about all of these things though? We all know that The Beast is legislating and codifying and controlling every last vestige of what was once life in the Western world, and it’s apparent that no one is going to stop it because the majority of the population have been indoctrinated into wanting it so; so really, instead pointing out every little detail of the tyranny which besets us -like someone who dwells in a swamp pointing out every last mosquito- why not instead concentrate on what we can do to preserve our freedom and escape from this matrix, so as to actually be able to continue living a normal life, which we KNOW is becoming impossible here?
Sit around and bitch endlessly, or make a plan to get out or to somehow otherwise preserve your liberty? Sitting around and bitching just gets old…and accomplishes nothing- like a smoker who constantly points out how COPD and lung cancer are killing him, but continues to smoke.
hmmm, i agree, however some prospective. I just towed a 5K trailer 1300 miles with my 5.7 hemi in a 2020 ram pickup, singing magical music at 3000-5000 rpm most of time, and it burned zero amounts of oil. At least according to the dipstick.
I will add that I hammer my engines from the day it leaves the dealers lot. I believe it seats the rings on a new engine. Been doing it for 20 years, 5 trucks, gm and ram. my 1 ford, i bought used with 12K on it already and it burned 1qt per 4-5K miles. but I also learned that that ford 5.o engine had sprayed on nikosil cylinder liners, unlike the typical steel liners we are used to. who knows……………….. does it matter anymore?
At least the singing magical engine music I just experienced was great.
For sure the Honda V6 will consume a ton of oil thanks to cylinder deactivation. The vaccum draws oil past the rings and into the combustion chamber. Then when the cylinder is re-ignited it burns. Some people report having to add a quart every fill up, I guess if they do a lot of highway driving. There are defeat devices available. Honda says this is “normal.”
I have a 2012 Acura TL with 195000. Doesn’t burn any oil. I bought it with 177,000 on it. I change it every 5000 miles with varying brands of synthetic and a 10k mile oil filter. So far so good.
The Trap has been sprung…slowly at first…
The Noose is tightening…regulation by regulation…
As each CONgress meets, intentionally passing painfully expensive and over-burdensome laws…
The prole Frogs continue to swim, but some notice the water is becoming warmer, and wonder why…
And some Frogs have left our pan, are now swimming in other pots altogether!!!
GovCo is like kudzu, you bring it in to a situation and before you know it, it has completely taken over and is impossible to get rid of.
Regulators are like a bad case of herpes.
Wanting to be a government regulator should be an automatic disqualification for the position.
Wanting to be a government regulator should be grounds for life in prison. Keep them away from anyone’s life.
Regulators out of control. Not about protecting the environment at all.
Never have been, except by accident.
Meanwhile..
“Supply of battery metals such as copper, nickel and lithium is likely to be insufficient when measured against expected future demand, analysts say.”
https://www.miningmx.com/news/battery-minerals/50519-volkswagon-to-enter-mining-businesses-in-effort-to-secure-battery-metals/
From the linked article:
In July, Tesla founder Elon Musk urged more entrants to the mining sector saying that producing lithium for use in battery electric vehicles was a license to “mint” money.
“I’d like to once again urge entrepreneurs to enter the lithium refining business. The mining is relatively easy, the refining is much harder,” Musk was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying.
“You can’t lose, it’s a license to print money.”
Any sensible person, hearing ‘you can’t lose’ rhetoric, will clap his hand onto his wallet and flee forthwith. But mush-brained Volkswagen, out of ‘Tesla envy,’ drank the Kool-Aid.
Just as Volkswagen’s cucked leftist government went along with boycotting Russian gas. Here’s where that ends up:
https://ibb.co/stZDPV6