With the great current debate about the types of engines in vehicles, it is not surprising that certain doubts also arise about why UTV vehicles are designed to work with diesel engines.
Throughout this article we will review the main advantages that these have and why other alternatives are not as suitable; at least, today.
Engine torque and efficiency compared to gasoline
We will start by differentiating between diesel and gasoline. Although both are fossil fuels, the composition is very different and, therefore, their way of providing energy is also different. In fact, spark plugs are needed to make gasoline explode, while diesel is more volatile and when pressure is applied to the pistons mixing it with air, it explodes without the need for sparks.
The diesel engine is capable of generating a higher engine torque and, with this, being able to move larger loads, although the way of performing the power is not “as explosive” or direct as those with gasoline. Furthermore, the fuel consumption is noticeably lower in a diesel.
The UTV vehicles They are designed to help you perform work tasks, as their name suggests (Utility Task Vehicle). That is, it will be important that they be able to move the largest possible loads. And if they consume less fuel, you will save on labor costs.
Additionally, work vehicles will not accelerate abruptly. Therefore, that advantage of the gasoline engine would not apply.
Noises and vibrations
To be completely objective, it should also be noted that a gasoline engine produces less vibrations and noise in general. However, these are drawbacks that can be minimized if necessary.
Noise, on the other hand, can be avoided simply by adding noise absorbers or soundproofing systems. In any case, keep in mind that UTVs will normally operate in work environments where the machines and tools themselves already generate a lot of noise. Therefore, The decibels produced by these vehicles rarely affect the environment or the driver..
And as for vibrations, there are also ways to reduce them, such as the balancing that the engines always have, or including vibration absorbers in the chassis itself. Although, yes, it is impossible to eliminate them completely.
The positive part, once again, is the fact that the UTV will work on narrow terrain. Although comfort is significantly increased with the prepared suspensions and the cabin, you can imagine that it is not possible to prevent vibrations from being transmitted to the driver. So, Diesel engine vibrations are practically imperceptible in most cases.
But won't it pollute more because it's diesel?
Here it is worth highlighting the difference between pollution and the greenhouse effect. Both diesel and gasoline engines emit CO2 through simple combustion and at similar levels, CO2 being one of the greenhouse gases, such as water vapor or methane, among others. In that sense, current restrictions and technology have decreased emissions in percentages even unthinkable a few years ago.
If we talk about pollution, we are referring to the particles that the diesel engine expels and that gasoline does not, simply due to their different compositions. These particles affect people's health when there is a huge concentration of them, such as in large cities. But in the land far from the city center where the UTV will work, The concentrations of these particles are far from putting health at risk. of people.
So why not use electric motors?
At the beginning we already said that we can only talk about the technology that exists today. The electric vehicle has a drawback which is the capacity of the battery. Even if it is more efficient and saves large labor costs by not consuming fossil fuels, having to wait for the batteries to charge would mean that you would end up losing money due to breaks.
As an alternative, the company would have to buy two electric vehicles to charge one while the other works (greatly increasing the initial cost) and have generator sets to charge those batteries when they are far from the prepared electrical grid, which will be in the vast majority of cases. In this way, the generating set would be the one that would consume diesel and we would be losing the advantages of the electric motor.
