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Originally Posted by sendler
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Yeah. Here it goes. I've seen this before at lots of pro electric sites and forums and from pro-electric trollers commenting at new engine article comment sections. Time for a rant. Pro electric folks are hurting their own causes by disregarding other technologies and making absolute statements that are over simplified and not full truths. I root for electric technologies too, but railing against other technologies reveals a bias and is counter productive to their own cause.
I can't see the point of eliminating an entire class of alternative technologies or engine combustion types from consideration for the future of transportation. If a type, class, or technology is inferior to others or another, then it'll lose out on it's own lack of merit without the need to exaggerate weaknesses. So what is the motivation behind so many pro electric folks pushing against compression-ignition technologies as a future alternative moving forward and singling diesels out even beyond other ICE technologies and exaggerating negatives or adding in absolutes that are not full truths?
For instance, labeling diesels as "filthy" is only a partial truth, and of course, is relative. Diesels tend to have emission profiles that are superior to spark-ignition with respect to hydrocarbons and CO; but tend to have a tougher time dealing with PM and NOx, especially the latter, since it's a byproduct of lean combustion. With respect to CO, a modern diesel will fail as a suicide vehicle of choice for carbon monoxide poisoning but will work with just fine with a production spark-ignition vehicle.
Moreover, diesels can be run on pure vegetable oil derived fuel, which has the prospect of leaving them emission free, save NOx, and there is a good argument against how "bad" NOx is to public health, since NOx has to combine with other compounds in the air (compounds not emitted by diesels) to create smog; and then lastly, there is lots of work being done by engine manufacturers researching different combustion process possibilities that is leaning more towards a sort of spark-ignition / compression-ignition hybrid of an engine that could conceivably run on either type of fuel, but would technically be at least partly "diesel", since diesel doesn't designate the fuel type, but rather how it ignites combustion. Mazda is expected to bring one or more of these to market soon, but we can already see the result of this work today. Spark-ignition engines are becoming more diesel like in their designs, and diesel engines are becoming more spark-ignition like, being built lighter, lower compression, and higher revving; but if all consumers automatically disregarded ICE engine technologies today, and started assuming we should go 100% in only one direction, i.e. electric propulsion, and then all engineering halted on other possibilities for better future products using other technologies, then that would or could be a huge cost and loss to society. And statements like "diesels are filthy" is not a statement based on anything real; just a statement used to win a debate to support one's favored technology at the expense of facts, or possibly, a better future.