Source: Diesel Users Getting Little Relief on Prices | TheDetroitBureau.com Soon after getting a Prius in 2005, diesel advocates came visiting various Prius forums and VW USA encouraged it with commercials and stunts. It didn't make sense except they were not penetrating the traditional car buyer market. So they went after Prius 'early adopters. I remember (and still have) several studies about Jetta performance dating back to 2007 when diesel and gas were at price parity. Per fuelly and EPA self-reports, the smaller TDI Jetta TDI was coming in at ~85% MPG of the Prius. Only at the high-side of highway speeds did the TDI Jetta reach MPG parity. Understand there is no joy in a fuel price differential putting diesel sales at risk and VW has handled diesel sales poorly. Bob Wilson
Clean diesel helps keep the price elevated. IIRC, the number of refineries that can process clean diesel is rather limited. So, the old "supply and demand" theory kicks in. Indirectly we all pay for the higher price of diesel: The U.S. moves by diesel, be it truck, rail or ship. My 2000 7.3 diesel is great for hauling and towing, but NOT as a DD. The Prius takes the job as the DD and does it extremely well. If and when I need another heavy duty truck, it will bre a Superduty, maybe with a Diesel, if I can justify the additional 8k for the motor. DBCassidy
Well, there's also the issue of diesels polluting more than gasoline, even the cleaned up version of it. Look at Europe, who has a huge diesel market, and the complaints of smog in the big cities. And now many of them are trying to promote EV's in order to reduce the pollution caused by millions of diesels on the road. London’s Dirty Secret: Pollution Worse Than Beijing’s - Bloomberg
...so diesel fuel price is dropping rapidly but not quite as rapidly as gasoline prices dropped, so forget about diesel? I guess they gotta write about something.
Emissions are no longer a legitimate issue with current-technology diesel engines. On average, most regulated emissions from current-technology diesel engines actually tend to be lower than from gasoline engines. This doesn't even take into account the higher upstream emissions from gasoline itself. Previous generations of diesels may have had relatively high emissions, but this issue has been addressed, based on a myriad of formal studies, as well as verified by EPA testing.
The issue in Europe is that higher fuel prices with more efficient diesels, plus some countries favoring diesel with taxes or other programs, means that they have a large legacy fleet of the older, dirty diesels on the road. Promoting EVs in the cities could improving the air quality there quicker than focusing on removing the old diesels, but the latter is what needs to be done long term.
