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I will Grant-53.
The only response I can give to Sendlers railing against diesels is that the world doesn't end today (hopefully), and so, just as I described earlier, a diesel today is not like a diesel before 1992; not even close; and not even like it was in 2006 or even 2010; and exhaust treatment techniques don't end today, and so, while it's true that making a diesel U.S. compliant today with PM and NOx reduction is a very, very tough thing to do, it is no tougher than what engine manufacturers were going through at the end of the first muscle car era when they went to unleaded gas and catalytic converters. Cars and pickups were very unreliable, due mostly to these new components and techniques for meeting newer, tougher emissions standards.
But that doesn't necessarily relate to the future. America's number one selling vehicle will have a diesel in Spring 2018. The future prospect of diesel power trains may in fact die in North America, but if they do, my prediction is that it'll be a temporary death, because technology doesn't end today, and compression-ignition is considerably more economical from a fuel economy stand point than spark-ignition for several reasons; not all having to do with the difference in fuel density. Like I stated, Mazda plans to have a part diesel next year; just because it will burn gasoline doesn't make it a spark-ignition engine; actually, it'll be a hybrid of both, so diesels aren't going to die over here, and the prospect for one on a motorcycle may be a tough prospect today, but it is no indication of the future. There may one day be a breakthough that makes near-zero emission diesels simple and cheap and fuel efficient; we just don't know, because we don't know what engineers will come up with in the future. MB produced the first massed-produced diesel car. In some European markets, diesels are 70% of new auto sales.
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