In the US, the gas tax is cheaper (47c) than the diesel tax (53.6c, presumably because heavier vehicles use diesel and tear up the road more), but not a lot cheaper. The switch to low sulphur didn't help the price any, but I'm not sure why I didn't come back down after a while. It used to be not much more than 91 octane, and for a while a year or so ago, it was a little cheaper than 91. We get 46 mpg for combined city/freeway and about 50mpg for freeway in our Jetta TDI. At current prices here in MN, $3.09 for diesel and $1.96 for regular, it's still cheaper to run the Jetta because I can't get 30mpg from my Focus (and it's actually the SVT so it takes $2.07 91 gas and only gets 24mpg when I short shift).
Probably the best part of the Jetta is the trip to South Dakota can be done on one take of diesel so it's non-stop driving (no bathroom breaks)! The next best is the thought of being able to make my own fuel, but I doubt I'll ever do that. Still, it's nice to have the possibility. Mark On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Ian McCloghrie < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Nov 13, 2008 derf wrote: > > Diesels are heavy and have a reputation for being "dirty" but they > > have some advantages over gasoline engines. > > They have some disadvantages too. Aside from the heavier and less > sporting nature of the engine (Audi R10 aside), they give off different > kinds of emissions from gasoline engines -- more soot and NOx, less HC > and CO. As I understand it, this can either be a good thing or a bad > thing, depending upon the local climate/etc. > > One of the reasons it's so popular in some parts of Europe (such as > the UK, I believe) is because it's taxed differently, making it > significantly cheaper. That's an artificial advantage, not inherent > to the technology. > > If you're worried about CO2 emissions, diesel gets more of its energy > from burning C than from burning H, compared to gasoline. It has an > "average" chemical formula of C12H23 vs C8H18. > > --Ian > _______________________________________________ > Miatapower mailing list > [email protected] > http://list.miatapower.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/miatapower >
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