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I do believe that there is a serious negative perception about diesel in the US and combined with low availability of diesel pumps/stations + higher cost/gallo

• gojomo 17y ago
  This VW-TDI-engine-enthusiast FAQ page suggests diesel's latest engines and emissions systems are better than gasoline when all dimensions are considered -- but US regulations are still gasoline-normative: http://www.tdiclub.com/TDIFAQ/TDiFAQ-5.html http://www.tdiclub.com/TDIFAQ/TDiFAQ-5.html
  • electromagnetic 17y ago
    Diesel is widely accepted in Europe. It used to have problems, because diesel had lower emissions standards often none what-so ever and it took a while for them to catch up, this was due to the fact that gasoline pollutes so much when compared to diesel. New diesel engines like in the Ford Fiesta are considered to have almost zero carbon emissions, in the UK they don't require road tax IIRC because they're considered equivalent in emissions to an all electric vehicle. Diesel's main problem is that it releases particulate emissions (unburned carbon), however in most new diesels these are handled by autoregenerating filters (they clog up with soot until saturation point and then quite literally set on fire, burning the soot efficiently and cleanly and leaving a clean filter). However, synthetic diesel (which is produced more directly from biomaterials than oil production and ethanol production, incidentally making synthetic diesel more environmentally friendly than biodiesel and ethanol replacement gasoline) produces 30% less particulates, so not only is it more environmental to produce, but it's more environmental to burn. Biodiesel is better to burn on the carbon front, however the nitrogen oxides they release are far harder to deal with than soot (IE your maintenance would require replacing filters, instead of the autoregenerating filters for standard diesels) and they still produce soot (so you'd need the autoregenerating filters anyway, so why pay for both on a new engine?). Diesel is a lot cleaner, and can now easily perform sub-zero starts as a lot of new engines are coming with engine-block heaters (even gasoline engines are coming with this option now, both for efficiency and emission reasons, but also because in the far north gasoline fails just as easily as diesel). This is to increase the efficiency of the engine, but it also dramatically extends the lifespan as an engine wears most when cold. Edit: I forgot to add two reasons why diesels are often liked in Europe. #1 is that they're more reliable, they have no electrical system (no spark plugs), so even when the starter motor fails or you have a flat battery, you'll never need a jump start, you just need a push. They require a rebuild generally after 250,000 miles, while a gasoline will require a rebuild between 100,000 and 150,000 miles. #2 They now commonly come turbocharged, and now a lot are coming supercharged as well. This enables many diesels to outperform larger gasoline engines in both power and speed, but they also come with a better power-to-weight ratio than gasoline engines, in fact the highest power-to-weight ratio in the world (IIRC) is a V8 diesel.
    • papersmith 17y ago
      "New diesel engines like in the Ford Fiesta are considered to have almost zero carbon emissions" Carbon as in CO2?
• anamax 17y ago
  > with low availability of diesel pumps/stations There are fewer stations that have diesel than have gas in many places, but where is diesel availability low enough to matter? Trucks get diesel somewhere.