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Archive for November, 2010

The Evolution Of The Diesel Engine

The talk about finding new alternative energy sources for our cars is not new. In fact scientists and car engineers had begun finding ways to either use energy sources or to optimize existing engine solutions back in the 1970s.

People saw that big engines were very inefficient and they started looking for new solutions. The answer to the large gasoline engines were rather small turbo powered diesel engines.

Until then diesel engines have been used mainly on heavyduty machinery and large trucks but scientists began to install them on small cars for their fuel efficiency and cost savings.

Diesels are still considered by some people as noisy unreliable and expensive to maintain but things have evolved greatly since the early days of the diesel engine. General Motors was among the first companies to fit diesel engines to cars like Chevrolet Caprice and the Oldsmobile but these engines were shaky and very unreliable. GM soon admitted they had been doing things wrong and refitted those cars with normal gasoline engines. It was a large image hit and that is why consumers are still very reluctant to buying a dieselpowered car today.

Diesel engines also cause a bit more pollutant than comparative gasoline engines and with the taxes on polluting cars growing every year no body wants to pay more taxes for their car if they can buy a gasoline engine car and pay less from the start.

Car companies also have looked at how they can optimize power output of modern diesels and how these engines can be made greener and they have came out with modern solutions.

European carmakers have been putting diesel engines in their cars for many years now and in Europe more then half of the cars sold are diesel powered. Manufacturers like Volkswagen Mercedes or BMW are selling their large limousines mostly with diesel engines for their power efficiency and cost savings when it comes to mileage. However not only large cars have been fitted with diesel engines in Europe but also sports cars. Audi for example is producing a 500horse power sports car fitted with a V12 diesel engine. In addition they claim this engine to be more powerful greener and more efficient than its gasoline counterpart does.

Car manufacturers especially in Europe and Japan have been fitting large SUVs and 4×4 with diesel engines mostly for decades now. Fitting a gasoline engine on a large 4×4 would mean that its mileage would be extremely bad and its taxes would overcome its owner.

However modern diesel engines are very powerful and a lot more reliable than they have been 20 or 30 years ago. Car manufacturers all over the world offer the same warranty for its dieselpowered cars like they do on their gasoline cars and this proves that modern diesel engines have the same reliability as gasoline engines have.

In most countries the cost of the diesel fuel is lower than the price for gasoline and this combined with the better mileage of dieselpowered cars means significant money savings.

American car manufacturers are looking into installing diesel engines in their cars and it is only a matter of time until you will be able to buy your favorite car with a diesel engine.

About the writer:  Dennis runs Car Dealer Check which has reviews on Missouri Car Dealers including Kansas City Car Dealers.

Outside a broad downright rots the laughing luxury.

Forecast Of Auto Electronics Market

The worldwide automotive electronics market is predicted to grow at 9 for a total of 173.7 billion by 2013. Sales for 2008 are estimated at 114.5 billion. Strong growth is estimated in driver assistance car safety systems and entertainment while the nonentertainment sector consumer retail powertrain and body electronics segments will see different growth rates. According to a new research on the nonentertainment automotive electronics market the global market of nonentertainment automotive electronics is estimated to touch US52.1 billion by 2010. The forecast of this growth is estimated to be equally distributed among all product segments and regions. The biggest demand is expected from the emerging markets in Asia and East and Central Europe.

• The powertrain electronics will continue to dominate and it constitute 32 of the global market in last few years. It will sustain till 2010.

• The body/chassis electronics will continue to rise at an average growth of 9.4 per year till 2010. During this period the global market will increase from US4.0 billion to US6.3 billion. The manufacturers are looking to enhance the performance and reduce overall system cost so the trend to fully integrated systems will continue throughout the forecast period.

• The safety and convenience constitute almost 50 of the global nonentertainment auto electronics market at the current time. It was estimated to be at US18.5 billion in 2005. Overall safety and convenience accounted for 50.3 of the global market in 2005 at US18.5 billion. Multiplexing/electrical distribution body controllers and navigation all of them are fore casted to grow at a rapid rate till 2010. The navigation market combined with audio and entertainment will be one of the fastest growing section of the auto electronics market. The driver supporting systems like night vision collision avoidance and lane departure warning is also expected to show strong growth.

Toyota Motor Corp. is the undisputed leader in hybrid car manufacturing market. Honda Motor Co. Ltd is at second spot trying hard to grab some of Toyota’s share. General Motors Corp. dominates in the United States market and has the broadest portfolio in the hybrid market. However it lags far behind in the competition in terms of sales. With the continuous improvement in hybrid technologies and decreasing manufacturing costs the powertrain segment should experience higher growth.

About the writer:  Pattrick is working as an industry analyst in the electronics and electrical industry for last fifteen years. He is working on a blog where you can get a lot of information on electronics industry news innovations trade shows etc. http://myelectronicsblog.blogspot.com/. He is associated with one of the best electronics and electrical industry marketplaces http://www.digitivity.com/.