Diesels will be dying a slow death in cars because the cost of all the systems required to meet smog will push it into a high end niche.
So if you pay big bucks for a status car, you want best performance, and a diesel will not give it.

Plus, any failure, of any of the systems, will wipe out any potential long tern operating cost advantage.

Gas IC car will alwys be cheaper than a diesel.

Tony can you back up your statement with research, statistics, or at least some elaborated conjecture? Are you speaking of lifecycle cost? It seems that the range of bio, waste, and syn diesel production options, the new emissions compliant diesel offerings coming to market, and the well documented longevity and superior fuel efficiency of diesel versus gasoline ICE, all point to a long life for the diesel powered vehicles at all price points. Seems that the most recent 24 hours of Le Man was won using a diesel powerplant.. Sounds like "best" performance to me.

Tony Chilling - I am a german living in the US..back in germany I have driven 600000 miles as a parcel contractor in 10 years-all with turbo-diesel vans..different brands,
Fiat, VW, Peugoet, Renault..my only problems in 10 years where 2 blown turbo-chargers..about 1000$ to fix..probably
my own fault as I went flat out after coming home from holidays(turbo chargers don't like that I was told). I have also driven privately diesels( VW Jetta, Golf and Fiat Diesel) When I consider that my fully loaden and sharp driven delivery vans had a much better mileage than my wife's subaru legacy at moderate US speeds than I don't wonder why more than every 2nd car in germany now is a diesel. Commercial vans are hardly available there in a gas version and nowbody would even consider to by a gas delivery van..
In europe you can get now very powerful diesel with 200 -300 hp (audi, bmw) and their low rev, very high torque and still good gas mileage I would prever to any gas car. If a private diesel car makes financely sense is a
different question..they do in europe( also diesel costs now allmost the same than gas), I have never calculated it here..maybe fuelprices are still to low in the US that a private diesel car makes sense...

Some surprising lack of factual statements here:

@Lucas:
>There's nothing here that Ford and GM shouldn't or >couldn't have done twenty years ago.

So that would be using the Common rail injection system that was invented in the 90s which has resulted in the biggest gains in efficiency and output while avoiding smoke and noise issues that have traditionally hampered diesels? And which was invented by CRF (Italy) and productionised by Bosch (Germany).

Oh and not using diesel fuel so poor and variable in lubricity that it destroys the modern, accurate fuel injection systems required to achieve these levels of output ie US market diesel fuel.

US diesel: Report by Bosch to CARB:
www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/gasoline/meeting/2003/022003bosch.pdf

@Tony
>Diesels will be dying a slow death in cars because the >cost of all the systems required to meet smog will push >it into a high end niche.

Well, the aftertreatment required for diesels is very similar to that required for any lean burn engine and that includes GDI. If you wish to go lean and save fuel while producing low NOx then you need a lean burn aftertreatment system. They will be substantially similar between GDI Petrol lean burn and common rail diesels so your argument is not particularly valid unless you don't care about fuel economy improvements.

@Patrick

Diesels typically run about 2/3rds of the exhaust gas temperatures that petrol engines do. This means that all diesel turbochargers have a significantly better service life than their petrol engined counterparts.

Agree MH,

Diesels will always feel more powerful at lower engine speeds than a petrol engine of comparable size. It is this prodigious torque output at low speeds that characterises modern diesels. This is why I can't understand why more USers don't go for them all that V8 beating torque with parsimonious fuel consumption. No need to buy a 6litre engine to get torque when a 3.5 litre diesel engine does just as well.

Diesels will never be big in the USA until a standard common diesel blend is produced both for onroad and offroad applications. I dont think that will ever happen. Right now, or, before June 1, there were offroad diesel blends which had a red dye in them, if I am not mistaken, to be used only offroad. Onroad diesel had a greenish tint. This "red" offroad diesel is to be used in tractors and offroad diesels. These diesel engines could date back to the 1940's or 1950's. This "red" blend of diesel will continue to be made, which means there will always be a reliability issue of using the new blends of diesel in this older stuff, and also at the same time, using the older blend (offroad "red") in the newer vehicles, creating warranty and liability issues. For this reason, I feel diesels will never proliferate here in the USA, as they have in Europe. Couple that with some recent studies which suggest diesel is one of the biggest cancer causing substances around, and you see why it will not proliferate here in the sue-happy USA.

To W2, thanks for correcting me. I didnt know I had to be that specific on this website, especially since it is green-CAR-congress.

I also understand the fine for using red dye diesel, but dont see it enforced very well, especially in my area. But I do see problems in using the older "red died" (sulfur perhaps?) diesel in these types of newer design diesels, coming to markets in Europe. Will not work here, especially with injection pressures approaching 26,000 PSI. Would hate to see something go wrong there, and have all that pressure blow off around me! Thats the liability and warranty issue I refered to. I also see problems with trying to use the newer cleaner diesel in older tractors and bulldozers built 40-50 years ago. Failing engines, and expensive fixes.

I am not against diesels by any means, I just dont know how it can be implemented. A low priced,no frills, small, light weight Cobra sized, two seat commuter-sports car, with a small diesel and a manual trans, getting 60+ mpg would be an ideal vehicle for many. Maybe I will build it myself........But I dont see how, as there is a reason that there will currently be only one new diesel car available for sale here in the US to meet the current emission standards.

A cost of a turbo, not surprisingly, is based on the temperatures and stresses it is expected to see in production.

In addition, if you go for the cheap turbo you are advocating you cannot make the benefits that this engine does.

In order to make torque you need fuel and in order to use the fuel without making smoke you need boost. Early and at low speed. A modern diesel lives or dies by its turbo technology

If you then throw all the turbo technology out to get a cheap turbo, you throw out all the advances that make the new improved diesel what it is.

I wasn't implying you were hiding anything, rather that if you simplify the turbo arrangment, you throw the bay out with the bathwater.

A VNT does do a very similar thing to the above twin parallel device but is very much more expensive to make than two relatively simple turbos and a control valve.

The above device looks hideously complex from the picture but it just two relatively ordinary turbos packaged very closely side by side to one another.

Nothing all that complex at all! Good bit of engineering though

The turbo I was thinking of (in the $700 range) is perfect for this size of engine. I have never dealt with diesels so I'm not sure of the specific application but a 2.2L or engine which uses the amount of air required to support roughly ~175hp would work great on a single Garrett T25 with a bit of lag (full boost wouldn't be reached until around 2200rpm with a proper setup) and the T25 would provide the air very efficiently (low heat for the amount of pressure and volume flow) in the 170 to 200 hp range on a gasoline engine.

I could see using something like a Mitsubishi TDO3- 9b used in a twin parallel configuration such as this with an controller getting a feed line off the rpm sensor to activate the solenoid controlling the gate to the second turbo. Not counting my labor for programming the controller and welding it together the parts could be had for $1500 and would potentially work just as well. Of course, unless there are some benefits to this over a single turbo (what, a tiny bit of lag removal?) it adds unnecessary weight, creates a second point for possible failure - just see what happens if an oil line to the center cartridge fails...in this case you have two center cartridges and two oil lines. If it is water cooled that is even more complexity.

Oh dear.

Andrey, you really think about some things:

>mostly city driving
>advantages of diesel engine are irrelevant

Oh really?

Then you say this:

>unlike diesel, gasoline engine looses a lot of fuel efficiency at partial load (closed throttle) and at idle

So in fact diesel's advantages are *precisely* what is required in city driving.

You then appear to go off on an slightly ill-informed rant against Euro cars and taxation policy:

Euro vs US Autos? Modern autoshift manuals were developed to get the benefits of a full torque converter autobox but without the cosumption penalties. ie no converter losses, no high pressure pump losses etc etc. We USED to have the same autos as the US then we progressed. Poor driver gear selection, yes I'm sure that is true in the US where few manual are used and drivers are not taught to use them but you cannot extend that argument to most European countries. Europeans tend to view full automatics with disdain, expecially in small cars hence they are not sold. This is where the new generation of ASM gearboxes comes in. Not for the reasons you give at all. It's about what the market wants and it's about people not wanting lazy, slow, poor shifting, slushy feeling, inefficient US type automatics!

You appear to need all that torque multiplication as you keep insisting on wanting more torque but then buy petrol engines!! Just buy a torquier more efficient engine and then use a more efficient transmission and save fuel twice ie better engine and better transmission.

Diesels are more expensive, this is true but they are also generally more durable. Your arguments are incorrect about the life of the engines as noone would build a petrol engine to the same strength levels, what would be the point. You also need to look at the effect of modern common rail injection with multiple pilot inejctions on diesel noise. Finally, in this country they also cost less to insure than an equivalent petrol engined model too. Not how you came to this conclusion.

Overtaxed and underpowered? Hmm, not sure where you've been but the latest diesels are hardly underpowered! 170hp in an Golf? Underpowered? Not really. The latest Ford Mondeo 2.2 Diesel makes over 150hp and has susbstantial torque. Try looking at the big German A8 and 7 Series limos with Diesels, that just shows that the skie's the limit.

Diesel vs Hybrid. There is not some conspiracy going on here: diesels are used widely and this has been the case for more than a DECADE! And not just because diesel has a lower tax in a lot of European countries but because fuel generally is highly taxed: Market forces therefore ensure that people wish to save fuel so they buy an economical engine choice (ie they don't live in countries that have 5% of the world's population but burn 43% of the world's petrol) They do not have to compromise on peformance to achieve this aim though.

This is a good thing, Europeans have been buying cars that save fuel for a long time before hybrids came along. As they have really on achieved critical mass in the last few years, most people look on them as expensive, slightly odd, show no real benefit over the diesel they already own and ignore them. It's a different marketplace, one that can embrace a range of fuels and solutions on the basis of benefit rather than long held misconceptions and misinformation.

I really don't think you have any grounds to make out that hydrids are a panacea when so few exist in the US as a proportion of the national fleet, when diesels are a significant part of the Euro market helping millions to save fuel every day.

I actually agree that hybrids are a great thing, just that one should be careful not to become overly fixated with one solution to the exclusion of all others.

Ruaraidh:

Well, emotions and personal opinions aside, pure numbers:

Same subclass of vehicles, same EPA tests, same country (US), both vehicles imported:

Honda Civic sedan, gasoline engine, 5 speed AT:

140 hp, 1210 kg, 15600 US$, 30/40 mpg.

WV Jetta sedan (the only one diesel sedan in US market), turbo diesel, 5 speed MT:

100 hp, 1440 kg, 21600 US$, 36/41 mpg.

You do the math. And yes, it is the last year WV diesel is sold in US – can not comply with emission regulations.