Alternative Fuel G or No G?
I wonder if 2015 will be the death of the G.
Mercedes has recently release their "Road Map for Sustainable Mobility" which states that they will stop making petroleum powered automobiles by then.
Blogs are buzzing with the news but I have yet to see an official press release. They will start weaning their customers from petrol powered vehicles in 2010 when they launch their first electrics vehicle and will have invested €14 Billion in alternative fuel technology R&D.
Although I would think that surely a vehicle that is made for use in remote locations by various NGOs and militaries would need to still support the use of fossil fuels.
Also that means that the yet to be released and very costly DiesOtto will have a short life...
Article is goodread, 2015 is too ambitious. Diesotto engine sounds amazing. Why should they invest and develop an engine as good as that
which will be used in the 5 years coming and stopped in 7 years. Does not make sense.
I wonder if we would be able to change the engines in our G wagens.
True our engines are not very good in terms of economy but G chassis and running gear are marvellous. So, off we go with the old lump and there comes in the new Diesotto engine. And imagine running that with CNG or LPG (if still available)
I say engine swap is the future for us. G wagens will still be Good and practical even in the future. The build quality as you all know is #1 and these vehicles can last another 50 years or more with their unique usage and build quality.
Alternative fuels will include LNG and bioethanol which according to Merc you can use in your G- now. The downside of bioethanol is fewer miles to the gallon though with a higher octane so not ideal for a 2 and a half ton truck but ok for a light weight sports car.
I don't see it....
Where is all that energy supposed to be coming from?
Electricity? Still more than 70% of all electricity on a global scale is made from burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas).
Most diesels can run on vegetable oils and most petrol-powered cars can run on alcohols with a small conversion, but would there be enough supply of these stuffs to fill the tanks of all vehicles worldwide?
Never (not enough arable land and too much pressure on food prices)
What about aeroplanes, ships, cranes, etc? Are they going to be powered by camel's poo?
see here for details on how it works:
http://envirofuel.com.au/2008/03/08/mercedes-benz-diesotto-engine-explai...
see here for details on how it works:
http://envirofuel.com.au/2008/03/08/mercedes-benz-diesotto-engine-explained/
That is the best explanation I have seen for it.
It is pretty stunning that a tiny 1.8 litre engine can respectably power something the size of an S-class and put out such low emissions. The performance is suppose to be on par with a 3.5litre V6 and yet get over 44mpg.
That is just using high EGR (well holding back charge) to lower temperatures + Nitrogen di/monoxides .. the clever bit is getting auto iginition simultaneously at lean levels which is very neat trick .. no way can you LPG such a delicate process with individual pressures sensors. Such an engine has been kicking around for a while.. it is sensor cost/ECU control that is the cost factor...
Trouble will be.. yes you can get get emmisions.. if you drive like a saint.. but most of the time is it still going to get caned as a normal engine .. so fuel economy will not be much better as it operates as a high boost petrol engine to give the power and only reverts to diesotto when allowed .. think of the original direct injection petrols.. offical consumption/emmisions where +30% better but real world returns were +3-5% as people use power when given it...
.. a 1.8 single turbo can already give 240 hp and 240 ftlbs easilly (got one) .. which is pretty much a MB 3.5l Naturally aspirated I suspect..
I had wondered why it reverted to spark ignition at higher revs, if the "diesotto" bit works so well, why not simply limit the revs?
I can however understand the need to warm up on a spark.
But why petrol?
Does the swing to diesel for most cars and all haulage, heavy, construction, stationary, uses etc make someone think that petrol will almost become a "byproduct"? of diesel production.
Marcus
Anyway I got just over 60mpg on a return trip to Belfast this morning, 100 odd mile, 46mph ave, driving at about 55mpg, ie with the trafffic flow.
Checked milometer against the motorway posts about 2.25% overeading, ( tyres nearly done) so knock that % off my figures, plus 3% for the trip computer error( measured) still over 50 mpg over 80 hours at 32mph ave, ie 2500 miles.
Not bad for a big motor
ps moved a couple of full loads of bods plus three 2000kg trailers of scrap to Coleraine too during this period.
Concept is lean simultaneous auto ignition (ie diesel) with high EGR and low temperatures with very high compression ratio (relative to spark ignition). This gives the 40-70 hp required for cruising and some very nice headline emmision figures to crow about...
However it will not supply the 200hp the customer expects without reverting to a standard petrol/spark igntion with reduced compression .. you might manage to get a diesel to run like this but not sure how well diesel simultaneous/multi ignites in a lean burn situation which is what the Diessotto is exploiting; diesel traditionally ignites from "hot spots" in a one place ignition instead of multi site.. and as it is so hard to ignite unlike petrol.. it may only do it a very particular ratios.
Now as the E11 research car doing 200mph average over 24 hours returned 15 mpg with the tweaked 617a ... I should be able to get my 300GDt to do 30mpg at 100 mph :roll:
Any of them "tweeked" 617a's lying about?
Not really relevent but our local injection pump specialist bemoaned the switch to / relience upon electronics as he felt there was a fair bit of room for improvments to the inline mechanical pumps.
jat
Marcus
Yes but the C111 also weighed very little and was aerodynamic unlike the brick we call a G.
And Marcus what did you get 60mpg on? Certainly wasn't a G.
Oh dear Max,
I should blush :oops:
On my dear old 1998 TDI Galaxy of course,
6 seats / 1.5 pax,
nicely run in :roll:
187,000 miles, on the origional injectors and exhaust too.
but not really 60mpg only 57.5 when adjusted for measured errors in calibration.
And this has been consistent over the last few multiples of 99 hours 59 minutes running time , the trip 2 readout resets then.
marcus
I will not risk cocking up my previous post
So
Other Figures extracted from photos
May 181567 miles @ 47mpg over 95:44 hrs, no ave speed recorded
June 183491 miles @ 52.8mpg over 60:47 hrs @ave 29mph
and
June 184598 miles @ 50.7mph over 99:24 hrs @ ave 29mph
and as above photos
July 187331 miles @ 53.1mpg over 83:31 hrs @32mph
better figs as multiple ( 5 No?) runs to hosp in Belfast being 100mile round trip
:roll:
Its getting sweaty in this anorak :oops:
:idea:
is there a Galaxy / Sharan / Alhambra forum anyone would care to recommend
Computers.... they all lie :wink:
Sniff
only a little
and not when calibrated against a number of absolutly brimmed tank(s) against recorded milage over a couple of thousand miles, milage calibrated against motorway milemarker posts, repeatedly and on different stretches in both directions, at about 10 miles each stretch to minimise the start finish error.
Que?
:roll:
Its that anorak again
JOIN THE GWOA
This website and forum are provided for the benefit of enthusiasts and owners of all Mercedes Benz off road vehicles, in particular the G Wagen. The costs of development, upkeep and provision of the site are met entirely by the annual subscriptions of club members. If you are using the site and are not a member of the G Wagen Owners Association please consider joining. You will have access to areas on the site that are not open to non members, to club trips and meetings and to technical assistance. In addition your contribution (only £25 annually) will help us maintain and develop our website for future users.
Who's new
- Roscoe25
- RozzaTS
- Awon
- f.ecoheat
- ImportBry
I would be surprised if you can readily convert a diesotto to LPG. From what I have seen LPG conversions on diesels are not readily/reliably available and a diesotto uses diesel technology once running.
Plus I imagine that if the world does shift away from petrol and diesel than governments will remove the reduced tax rate on LPG which would negate any worthwhile advantage. They are already removing the C-Charge discount for LPG.