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Comment by cjrp | Hacker News Reader

> This is an area that has been slow to change over the years, due to the small amount of turbocharged vehicles available new. Most turbos are used in heavy machinery (garbage trucks, big rigs, etc.), a slowly changing industry.

I'm not sure this is true in England - most diesel cars on the road have a turbocharger.

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Most of europe, especially VAG[π] cars are turbocharged, either TDI for basically all Diesels and more and more (T)FSI gasoline powered cars.

Also look at the Audi R10 TDI [φ]

[π] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

[φ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI

VAG have a rather nice twin-charged 1.4L engine - with a supercharger and a turbocharger - the former being used at low revs and the latter at high revs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_petrol...

Indeed, although almost unheard of in the US, these twincharged engines have been available over the years in the Japan and Europe. The "special" edition cars haven't sold in large numbers but were readily available at the time of release from dealerships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twincharger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4AGE#4A-GZE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_MA_MA09ERT

Nice but AFAIK unreliable.

Well, we're on our second Golf that has a 1.4TSI and I'd happily buy another one!

[My downsizing of car sizes has seen me go from a 4.4 V8 BMW to a 2.5 V6 Turbo diesel VW to a 1.4TSI VW - perfectly happy with the latter now!]

Not due to the twin charging, but due to it being a VAG auto.

Do VW and Audi cars have the name of being unreliable in the US? Can't imagine that really..

Show me a reliable twin charging design. I dare you. I double dare you.

I used to be a mechanic. So, show me a reliable VAG auto. Experience taught me to avoid them like the plague.

Around here they are deemed as reliable as the sunset. This leads to comical situations where 10-15 year old VAG autos are sometimes priced almost the same as 5-10 year old autos from other brands.

AFAIK only real sour lemon were the 1.4 petrol engines and those dual charged engines from the mid 00's. But around here everybody knows that only true VAG engine is a diesel. That is the folk lore around here not my own opinion.

I myself drive a Peugeot as for my tastes price/performance of VAG is not as good.

Personally I would steer away from Renault (had several, only "good" car was R4 :)), and basically any American brand. I think that in the value department Asian brands are giving European and US brands quite a run for ther money. Too bad they do not make a Berlingo/Caddy/Kangoo class of a car.

Even if VAG is total shit, dual charged engines are not something you would want in your vehicle. I think hybrids are a much better and simpler option.

Indeed, updated my comment to be more accurate :)

You are right. My point was that there not many petrol or gasoline powered turbocharged autos. Diesels powered autos are commonly turbocharged. In the USA, diesel autos are not common. Thus, turbos are mostly seen in high-performance vehicles (like the 911, WRX, etc.).

In reply to cjrp (whom I can't reply to directly, strangely enough) -- it's harder to find diesel in the US than plain gasoline/petrol, but not that hard. Most trucks here use diesel, after all, and many gas stations have at least one diesel pump. It's mostly the gas stations along the commuter corridors to little bedroom communities which are gasoline-only.

truck pumps should not used to fuel cars, their flow rate is way to high and will cause damage if not bathe you in fuel. I haven't ever had an issue find low sulfur diesel on my travels, however I am mostly doing than East of the Mississippi.

Right about the truck pumps - I guess the main thing is that because trucks and other large diesel fuel consumers exist and are popular, the overall infrastructure for diesel, including refining and distribution networks, also exist. An individual pump is only a small part of that network.

Splitting semantic hairs, but I'd say that turbocharged cars are quite common in the USA, although still greatly outnumbered by normally-aspirated ones.

I've been driving various turbocharged cars for 20 years, and both cars in the garage right now have turbos. I'd be surprised if you could drive on a highway more than a couple of miles without seeing one.

So, based on my own observation, I'd says that gas-powered turbocharged passenger cars are common yet still greatly outnumbered.

Interesting. Is it hard to find gas stations which sell diesel over there as a result?

Yes, there are less gas stations that sell Diesel. Most are located around common routes used by the shipping industry. Also, the requirements for Diesel fuel in the USA is different than in Europe. Plus the price of diesel is actually higher than gasoline.

There is another phenomena around diesels in the USA. Which is the perception of the general population towards them. People often think of them as noisy, smelly, and unreliable autos. This due to the awful diesel engines produced by American auto manufacturers during the 70's and 80's. General Motors is the one to blame for the awful engineering and cost-cutting practices that led the public to see diesels as a non-option.

I think you'll find that it was actually the Rabbit (Golf) Diesel of the time that set the tone. It was (to put it mildly) a bit of a clatterbox, and it was (if I recall correctly) the Diesel one was most likely to see. And there was more than a little bit of trouble in winter as well in northern states (the fuel of the time would become like unto a solid block of paraffin at temperatures above those that normally lead to keeping a car with a block heater plugged in). GM didn't help (and Volvo certainly didn't hurt), but it wasn't the main culprit.

Yes, you are right. It was the Rabbit diesel that started damaging the public's perception of diesel. But then GM, Volvo, and Ford kept the "flame" alive during the 80s.

Ah, I see. I believe there was a time here (England) when diesel was cheaper than petrol, but it's now a few pence/litre more. Presumably that's made up for with improved efficiency though.

Funny how the perception of a technology can be tainted by poor implementation. I'm not sure how European diesels were in the past, but as long as I've bothered to pay attention (~10 years), diesel has been more popular here since fuel is so darn expensive. Will be interesting to see if the gain in popularity of Euro/Asian cars over there will have any effect on the number of diesels on the road.

Diesel passenger car engines were pioneered by companies that market cars in Europe but not in America, like Peugeot/Citroën. That's why diesel popularity in Europe is 10-15 years ahead of where it is in America. The early diesel cars from companies that sell in America, like the VW Golf and the Mercedes 300, were just terrible cars.

Diesel also has 1.17 times the energy density (by volume) of petrol/gasoline.

Come now. American impressions of diesel cars were formed by the ghastly Mercedes cars of the 80s and the Volvo DL, both smokey and pokey and unreliable. It's taken many years to shake that reputation. It doesn't help that the manufacturers refuse to market the cars here. VW is really the only mark with good success selling diesel cars in the USA.

It makes sense that diesel costs more because it contains more energy per unit volume and fuel is sold by volume.

But then on the other hand, diesel requires less work to be done to get it than petrol(gasoline) does. Both arguments are perfectly valid.

And most EU countries(with the stark exception of UK) have diesel a lot cheaper than petrol.

Define "a lot"? Here in Switzerland at least diesel is more (by about 7%, not a lot). Since most of the cost of fuel here is taxes, I assume the difference between petrol and diesel is also due to differential taxation.

One of the things that has kept diesel out of the USA until recently is the diesel fuel was good enough for heavy trucks to meet truck emissions standards but wasn't good enough for diesel cars to meet car emissions standards. This wasn't the case in the EU for some years because truck emissions standards in EU are more strict and car emissions standards were less strict compared to California. Now that you can get ultra-low sulfur diesel in all 50 US states it is becoming easier to market diesel cars in the USA. But the new fuel standards (since 2010) also make diesel cost more.

>>Most EU countries

>Here in Switzerland

The last time I checked Switzerland was not in the EU.

Well you got me there.

Maybe a little harder. But we do a lot of shipping by truck, so there is diesel pretty much everywhere, just not at every station.

At least in Georgia, most gas stations also sell diesel. That could be a product of more people owning pickup trucks (some of them have Diesel engines) and the fact that I tend to live in a more agriculturally focused area.

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