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Come now. American impressions of diesel cars were formed by the ghastly Mercedes cars of the 80s and the Volvo DL, both smokey and pokey and unreliable. It's t
by thrownaway2424 13y ago
Come now. American impressions of diesel cars were formed by the ghastly Mercedes cars of the 80s and the Volvo DL, both smokey and pokey and unreliable. It's taken many years to shake that reputation. It doesn't help that the manufacturers refuse to market the cars here. VW is really the only mark with good success selling diesel cars in the USA.
It makes sense that diesel costs more because it contains more energy per unit volume and fuel is sold by volume.
- gambiting 13y agoBut then on the other hand, diesel requires less work to be done to get it than petrol(gasoline) does. Both arguments are perfectly valid. And most EU countries(with the stark exception of UK) have diesel a lot cheaper than petrol.
- thrownaway2424 13y agoDefine "a lot"? Here in Switzerland at least diesel is more (by about 7%, not a lot). Since most of the cost of fuel here is taxes, I assume the difference between petrol and diesel is also due to differential taxation. One of the things that has kept diesel out of the USA until recently is the diesel fuel was good enough for heavy trucks to meet truck emissions standards but wasn't good enough for diesel cars to meet car emissions standards. This wasn't the case in the EU for some years because truck emissions standards in EU are more strict and car emissions standards were less strict compared to California. Now that you can get ultra-low sulfur diesel in all 50 US states it is becoming easier to market diesel cars in the USA. But the new fuel standards (since 2010) also make diesel cost more.
- gambiting 13y ago>>Most EU countries >Here in Switzerland The last time I checked Switzerland was not in the EU.
- thrownaway2424 13y agoWell you got me there.