Is Diesel Dead?

Hintza

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/7166444/Is-diesel-dead.html

Probably worth a quick read, if only to help with some background information and give a more informed choice on the benefits or otherwise of Diesel.

oldagetraveller

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel

LandyAndy

If you distort the market by government intervention you get a distorted market, appears to be the conclusion. Well, well.

Not sure I'm too impressed with an article that finished with 'Our 5 favourute diesel engines'.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Diesel will be killed, if at all, by increasingly strict emissions regulations.

lilac_lady

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Diesel will be killed, if at all, by increasingly strict emissions regulations.

So why do some diesel cars have a £35 annual road tax? I thought the new ones were eco friendly?

Dr.Shoe_2

Diesels are more expensive to maintain and buy but more economical and more reliable. Some modern ones can performas well as petrol in terms of acceleration and emissions...

AdrianHi

Dr.Shoe wrote: »

and more reliable.

No way, not since we started clamping down on emissions and trying to make them perform like petrol engines. All to complex and full of compromises. It's not the engine block that's the problem, it's everything around it.

tomstickland

On the other hand, Diesel engines have a higher intrinsic efficiency due to the higher compression ratio. No throttle and they can run on very lean mixtures, unlike petrol engines.

The argument in that article that small cars favour small engines and this means petrol doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'd expect a 106 Diesel to give amazing mpg figures.

flyingscotno1

Title of the Telegraph's article is misleading but the article is not bad. States a few facts (why cars bother with DMF I don't know!), but things like particular filters have done more damage. I wonder how that will work out, perhaps the ad-blue additives like Peugeots and buses have will be better than regeneration using exhausts?

I think we are seeing a bit of a strange car market what with business cutting back, scrappage and too early to call comparisons.

Interestingly they state small cars suit petrols but their top 5 is the 1.3 Fiat/GM Multijet engines used in Corsas and Pandas. The Multijets are excellent diesels rightly.

pitkin2020

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Diesel will be killed, if at all, by increasingly strict emissions regulations.

A lot of the new diesel are far better on emmisions then the petrols, which is why they have the £35 per annum tax band.

As for that article its a load of rubbish really as it is only looking at the scrappage scheme purchases, which a lot of those purchases have been made by 1st time new car buyers who have bought the bottom of the range cars. The petrol range starts at a lower price than the diesel range which makes them more attractive to the average user doing only a few K per year.

A line from the article, It would be premature to be calling it the death of diesel, but one thing the scrappage scheme has done is highlight the limits of diesel's growth. Had the diesel range of cars been priced equal to the petrol range I suspect the results would have been very different!!

alo6

the scrapage scheme was targetted to people to buy new cars, the dealers reduced their low end petrol models to rediculously low prices on top of the scrapage.

so is it any wonder petrol car sales has risen over the last year?