All this from THE Company that single handedly soured the American public opinion for Diesel powered Autos with the ill conceived Olds Deisel onversion of the late 70's.
There has not been any legislation against Diesel autos in this country, just a long held prejudice against them stemming from that ill fated excusion that lingers to this day.
Two things are the death of diesel engines, both related to poor filtration, and that engine sufered from both and was doomed from the start. Inadequate oil filtration and inadequate fuel/water separation.
Both of these things are amply covered in all true heavy equipment, truck and marine applications and have helped to make diesel use in those fields the mainstay of those industries.
Is GM to be trusted a second time, only time will tell. One can only hope they learned from thier earlier fiasco.
It may be that it's just a little to techie in the US. Here you need to use a DEF additive to reduce NOx emissions. This may be a put off.
VW TDIs are fairly common though. Currently the Cruze ECO gas engine is a better deal economically since it gets 42MPG on regular Gas. Diesel is more $ so 42 MPG would not be competitive. I don't find 55 MPG HWY too hard to get with the Cruze ECO but I do need to be careful.
BUT, the torque could be a game changer. I think the target is the VW TDI here. Not the broad market so much.
In Latin America, it's common to see diesel Toyota Camrys and Corollas, among other small Japanese passenger cars. Any idea why the diesel models of these cars aren't sold in the US? Is there a regulatory reason, or do they just not sell well in the US?
Germany has been at the forefront of diesel engine technological advances for years. The design and application of the diesel engine takes a different mindset and also a different customer base. GM virtually singlehandedly destroyed the desirability of passenger car diesels when they "dieselized" the 350 small-block. Cummins helped bring it back with the 'B' series developed with UPS and others for small and medium size trucks but that is much too large and heavy for a passenger car. Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW have outstanding diesel engines which operate exactly the same as a gasoline burning engines to the point that your typical driver will not notice the difference until they go to a filling station. I am confident American manufacturers can adopt European engines for installation into American cars. I am much less confident American manufacturers will be able to design and manufacture a diesel engine from 'scratch' and would be extremely reluctant to buy one. Engine design seems to be somewhat intuitive and achieveing the 'optimum' design is an iterative process which needs a good starting point and years for improvement.
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