# diesel & the U.S.



## Jason (Dec 30, 2001)

Ok, popular mechanics states that in Europe 50% of all vehicles sold are diesel. Now if you looking for a vehicle in the U.S. why is it so hard to find a diesel? It seems they do not exist here. I've found a few high end BMW's, but way out the price range of the average citizen. Jeep has a Grand Cherokee with diesel. Maybe I'm just not searching correctly, I'm not sure, but it seems unless you get a big truck, you are out of luck.


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## 40sondacurb (Jan 14, 2005)

Because the market would be segmented by states like California who ban the sale of new diesel cars. They've been banned from sale because of their pollution factor, but with the emergence of biofuel this policy isn't make a whole lot of sense.


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## Jason (Dec 30, 2001)

But newer diesels produce less pollution then the gas counter part. Plus if I remember correctly diesel takes less resources to produce.


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## ashumann12 (Mar 18, 2007)

Bio-diesel is great for small cars and light trucks, but today's big rigs won't run right on it. Well ok, they will run, just can't pull anything!


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## bulldog54 (Aug 9, 2007)

I don't think Jason is interested in a big truck. He just wants to go diesel with his every day car, right? It hasn't really caught on in the U.S. as much because we are really behind on the whole climate change/less pollution/less dependence on petroleum issues. Look at who is running this country!!


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## 40sondacurb (Jan 14, 2005)

Jason said:


> But newer diesels produce less pollution then the gas counter part. Plus if I remember correctly diesel takes less resources to produce.


Yup, but the law isn't written with the silly notion that *technology advances!* in mind.

Biodiesel actually has zero to negative emissions because the plants used to make it remove as much CO from the air as they emmit!

The environmentalist lobby screws everybody here. They got the courts to cut off a key water supply for the farmers that will probably make many go bust over some delta smelt or something.


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## EnglishPaul (Sep 10, 2007)

According to my memory, the acceptance of diesel hasn't been a particularly smooth one in England.
When I first started to drive in the early 90's, diesel was cheaper than petrol and I believe this was in part due to the fact that diesel engines were more efficient and thus better for pollution.
But then opinion seemed to swing. I guess cats had cleaned up petrol car emissions, and at the same time the really small dust given out of a diesel engine was implicated in rising levels of asthma. Diesels still seemed to be quite rare: they were used by frugal high mileage users, and people that needed lots of torque (trailer/ caravan users), but the notion of diesel on an average car would have sounded silly.
And now, for reasons I haven't spotted, diesel is now more expensive here than its more refined petrol counterpart, and diesel engines seem to be offered in most ranges of car produced.
For the record, biodiesel isn't so common here, although I believe it to be in mainland Europe. And our government insists on taxing the farmers who make their own biodiesel for their own use with the same (huge) duty tariff that is put on retail fuel.


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