Diesel: Not Just Shaq
Wired has an interesting story about the difference in popularity of diesels between the US and Europe. (Actually, it seems to be from Forbes, but I can't seem to find it on the Forbes site. Media consolidation confuses me.) Half of Europe's new car sales are diesels--who knew? I wouldn't normally have paid much attention to the story, since my main memory of diesels is of my grandmother's old Mercedes, which belched smoke like a factory, shook like a Magic Fingers bed and was routinely trounced off the line by Volkswagen Beetles, Yugos, and assorted turtles.
Last week, though, I had occasion to ride in a modern diesel (in Seattle, since most of them don't meet California's emissions standards), and I was pretty impressed. It was a Jeep Liberty, and I wasn't even entirely sure it was a diesel until I got out and saw CRD on the back. It was quiet, smooth, and seemed to have a fairly broad power band--not just the low-end grunt that makes diesel engines popular in large trucks.
Diesels definitely face an uphill battle in the States--like I did, most people still think of the old, underpowered Mercedes and Volkswagen engines, or Oldsmobile's explodingly inept entries--but a diesel engine has moved from "Pshaw!" to "Hmm..." in my book.