Prius-Diesel Face Off

Sure, when they're brand new and running well. Give it a few years and they'll be smog buckets.

And another negative diesel post from a country where fuel costs over $8;

Petrol prices edge up in the last month says AA | Mail Online

If it's not viable as a fuel here as a fuel with our fuel costs, it'll have no chance in the US. Sorry.

 

The reason I asked about the concern about effectively requiring particle filters on petrol vehicles is because it states in the linked article in GC's post that the Ford Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost and the VW Polo 1.2 TSI would be better in short stint driving. Both are turbocharged gasoline direct-injection (GDI) as far as I know. They may be a better choice in that type of driving conditions at this time, but may have the same issues as diesel in the not-too-distant future with respect to particle filters.

Europe has apparently decided to limit particle number emissions from GDI, although there appears to be an order-of-magnitude relaxation of the diesel limit for the first three years of the Euro 6 regulation (Emission Standards: Europe: Cars and Light Trucks). A recent report from the European Commission (Athanasios Mamakos; Urbano Manfredi, "Physical Characterization of Exhaust Particle Emissions from Late Technology Gasoline Vehicles." European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport, 2012) states that current GDI vehicles exceed the diesel PN limit by one and a half orders of magnitude. It may be difficult for them to meet even the relaxed limit for the first three years under Euro 6.