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Diesel is very interesting, that's what field I'm currently in with Heavy Duty. It is more efficient and burns cleaner as well. People have that bad picture in their heads of Heavy Diesel trucks with black smoke coming out of the stacks. That may have been true decades ago but nowadays, they are very clean, especially compared to gasoline. Diesel also delivers much more torque on the lower end than gas, hence why it's used for trucks for towing huge loads.Any downsides to diesel besides speed and price of fuel?
As for downsides, one main one is that you can't use the same engines that drink gasoline. The main difference between diesel and gasoline is that gasoline needs a spark (think match) to combust and to deliver power to the vehicle. Diesel auto-ignites, meaning that if you get it to a high enough pressure (think higher compression ratios), they automatically combust without assistance from a spark plug.
With that being said, diesel engines are much different than gasoline engines. Diesel engines require greater durability because you are compressing the fuel-air mixture so much more, causing a greater "explosion" in the cylinder. Combine that with a lot of exhaust treatment that needs to be done in order to pass emissions, and the cost of the vehicle running diesel is a couple grand more. That's one of the main reasons why you don't see diesel cars. There are tradeoffs, extra vehicle cost vs. fuel economy savings. The Volkswagen TD models are great. They are a tad bit more expensive but I do know that the government offers rebates for higher fuel efficient cars. And the great thing about them is that they have the same engine (correct me if I'm wrong) as their gas counterparts in terms of displacement and number of cylinders. This means that you are getting a fuel efficient car that has the same kick as a regular vehicle. You're not going to be crawling around everywhere because they are actually fun to drive
And one last note. The price of diesel is more expensive than gas but not THAT much more. From my experience, Diesel has been sitting around $4.00 for a while now. Also, here is a link to the eia website regarding fuel prices: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
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