Some fuel economy-related news, and how diesel comes up trumps again. Over in the UK, the annual 2012 ALD Automotive / Shell FuelSave MPG Marathon held last weekend saw a Ford Fiesta ECOnetic 1.6 TDCi clocking up an amazing 108.78 mpg over a 370-mile route involving tough, real-world driving in challenging weather conditions.
That’s 38.50 km per litre (on an Imperial gallon measurement) over a 595 km course, or 2.59 litres per 100 km, for you metric-minded folk.
The Fiesta was coaxed round the course by former rally drivers Andy Dawson and Andrew Marriott, though they were not the first team to break the magic 100 mpg barrier on the day. Earlier, three-times former winner Mick Linford brought home a Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi eco with a 102.21 mpg (36.17 km per litre) reading, the first time in the history of the event that a vehicle had crossed the 100 mpg mark.
When it came to refueling to measure, the AA fuel marshals couldn’t get more than 3.4 gallons (15.45 litres) of Shell FuelSave diesel into Dawson’s Fiesta, sealing a remarkable win for the Ford-backed team. Third place went to another diesel job, a Peugeot 208 e-HDi clocking 93.4 mpg (33.05 km per litre).
The MPG Marathon – organised by UK’s Fleet World magazine – is designed to be a “real world” test that demonstrates the benefits to the motorist’s wallet by employing simple, smarter driving techniques. Only two of the 20 cars competing in the event failed to beat the manufacturer’s official Combined MPG figure, event organisers said.
Of course, temper the imagination that this is nothing more than a benchmark. “Manufacturers have done a tremendous job in improving the fuel efficiency of all new cars and vans, but motorists should see their published fuel consumption figures as a target to beat, not the maximum achievable,” said event organiser Ross Durkin.
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This will NEVER come to Malaysia as government wants us to use more fuel. More fuel would mean more taxes LHDN can collect from the oil companies. You use this diesel marvel, your fuel bill will become half. Oil companies will get half revenue and LHDN will get half revenue from corporate taxes.
that’s quite a bold statement though it does make you stop and think for a while…and it actually makes perfect sense…plus our national automakers aren’t capable of producing fuel-efficient engines just yet…let alone turbodiesels…
I feel that’s a wrong perception. The government is ‘subsidizing’ on fuel, and we’re going to be net importer in 6 years. The fuel you save can be sold to other countries with people thinking like you, and the money comes back to Malaysia. What is saddening is that the diesel variety doesn’t come in to Malaysia. After 6 years, you’ll really start feeling the pain of taxes on fuel :)
Battery EV, maybe in the future.. Diesel is the moment now, Petrol hybrids are losing to Diesel alone.
I think its time Fuel companies re-branded their diesel fuel. Name it something else because thousands here still believe that diesel = minyak lorry.
So the government is still bitching about the amount of subsidies (what susidies?? we produce oil!!), why not do up proper diesel up to european standards and let us have proper new cars without high excise and import taxes.
You save on subsidies, and we save on cars…. and still your normal consumption is 1/2 that of an equivalent petrol car.
but wait..its not going to happen. Why?
These big GLCs, are plenty happy milking the rakyat as it is not to bother changing the status quo.
Why would they bother investing in new engines, when we would still buy 10 year old 1.6 petrol engines?
I think this has to do with The government’s business strategy. Diesel quality is kept purposely low because our sweet crude oil is traded with other types of crude oil. Sweet crude contains less sulphur and has better market price than other crudes. Malaysia imports the cheaper crudes to process and sell. Thus the diesel will always be of poor quality compared with euro. Apparently this is way is more profitable than processing our own sweet crude. Well that is my half baked theory.
The story about Dr M’s ‘wine for beer’ (selling sweet crude for sour Middle Eastern oil is not the reason why higher quality diesel is not produced. The real reason is simple and it boils down to subsidies. By forcing fuel producers to a fixed price, it trims profit margins that can be used to retool and make changes to the process to produce the better diesel – which can cost millions and is hard to recoup the costs if the price of fuel is fixed (remember it has to do with reducing the sulphur content into the millionth of parts). So which do you want? More expensive fuel (without subsidies) but better quality diesel or cheaper fuel (subsidised) but poor quality diesel. Blame the oil companies, blame the government for playing politics (election year), blame the rakyat on insisting subsidised fuel but at the end its all about profits.
Better quality diesel please……longer service interval……