The Road To BioDiesel

My tried and true 1991 AWD Honda Civic was recently rear-ended, causing my search for a new car to be accelerated by about 6 months. The Honda was not really on its last legs, even though it had 245,000 miles and was starting to burn oil, but it seemed as good a time as any to contemplate something new. I had had my sights set on a Toyota Prius for a long time, since it came in a hatchback (practical), got good gas mileage and qualified as a "green" car (economical and ethical), and had all the modern safety features I was looking for in my next car that the Honda Civic did not: airbags, anti-lock brakes, and so on. But what made me balk was the price..new Prius models were selling in the mid to upper 20k's, while used models were selling under 20,000 but one then had to factor in the 3,000$ battery change at around 8 years. The Prius and gasoline/electric hybrids were just not making the economic sense I wanted them to.

During my research into cars I had stumbled upon a used Volkswagen TDI Golf that ran Waste Vegetable Oil using a Frybrid Grease system. I had never considered a diesel of any sort; like most Americans my concept of diesel was that of a dirty fuel, but unlike most Americans I have spent alot of time in Europe - my parents live there and my dad owns an Audi A4 diesel - and the more I read the more I realized that eventhough diesel and biodiesel especially is not the answer to all our woes, it serves as a possible bridge scenario to better technology in the future. Diesel engines last a long long time. Running biodiesel in your diesel vehicle reduces emissions, severs some of the ties to the petroleum industry, and makes the car smell better (which is very important)! True the cost of the fuel is higher, but that isnt as important to me as the other benefits. There are a lot of pros and cons to owning a diesel, and even plan on running biodiesel. These are outlined fairly well in various places on the Internet: biodiesel burns cleaner than petroleum diesel and has other benefits, but biodiesel is not the answer as an alternative fuel for every car in America or the World, so running straight biodiesel in every vehicle will not happen in 20 years time. But its something.

In the future I don't envision homogenous fuel use and a homogenous fuel distribution system as we have today with gasoline and to a lesser extent petroleum diesel. I envision something like a fleet of pure electric vehicles for city dwellers and hybrid vehicles that use a variety of technologies to charge batteries for long distance use. Perhaps one vision is of a hybrid electric vehicle that can be plugged into the grid overnight, but has a spare SVO/WVO/biodiesel fuel tank for extended trips. The possibilities to innovate here are endless. It's really a shame that we have not had more vision from Big Oil and automakers in this direction. The pace of innovation in automobiles seems to be extremely slow. The Prius should be a shining example to automakers that consumers want change, want to be able to get much better gas mileage at the cost of performance. Not every consumer will buy into the idea, but the cultural shift towards conservation and economy cannot be igored.

Long story short, a few weeks after starting my research I committed to buying a used 2003 Volkswagen TDI diesel. This will be my 6th car and second Volks (the first being a 1968 Westfalia bus), but my first diesel. I am a bit nervous as the Volkswagens I know have gotten poor marks for reliability, but am willing to give it a shot. The TDI Volkswagens are in very high demand in my area right now, so I know if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, someone else will be happy to take the car.

It's actually taken me a while to switch to biodiesel. Driving the car away from the dealer the tank had been filled with petroleum diesel. I drove for two weeks on this tank, 600 miles, before it was empty enough to justify a trip to find biodiesel and fill 'er up. The car's tank is only 14 US gallons, the same as my Honda, and yet I was getting literally twice the range. That is an adjustment that will take some time to get used to.

I am hoping that within 5-10 years I see a diesel electric hybrid on the road (one is being testing in Europe now, the Opel Astra) that can also be plugged into the grid overnight to charge batteries. At the very least I want to see technologies like regenerative braking make it into the mainstream and be standard equipement on all cars..why not? Add a slightly larger battery to the standard car and get all kinds of flavors of "hybrid". My commute to work is only 6-7 miles, so charging a battery off the house outlet for zipping around town for me makes sense. On the weekends the nature of the car would change somewhat, shifting to hybrid mode where I drive long distances at farily constant, high speeds.