The End of Diesel in Several Years, by Jonathon Stearns.
European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said the EU has had a “breakthrough moment” since Germany-based Volkswagen AG admitted in 2015 that it fitted diesel engines with software to cheat U.S. checks on smog-causing discharges of nitrogen oxides. This deeply affected “the emotions in society toward emissions and cleaner cars,” she said.
“Diesel cars are finished,” Bienkowska said in a May 24 [2018] interview in her ninth floor Brussels office. “I think in several years they will completely disappear. This is the technology of the past.” …
The issue has been politically thorny in Europe because around half the cars in the region are powered by diesel — which causes more urban pollution than gasoline while having less global-warming impact — and because many member states have struggled to meet clean-air goals meant to reduce human sicknesses and premature deaths.
Soon to be extinct
Diesel Engines in the Crosshairs, by Frank Holmes.
A damning study on diesel engines was issued in June [2018] by the very same group that blew the whistle on Volkswagen’s emissions scandal back in 2015. According to the study, conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), even the newest, cleanest diesel vehicles failed to meet Europe’s strict emission standards in “real world” driving conditions. …
European sentiment of diesel was already in freefall, but momentum is increasing. … Between 2016 to 2018, diesel’s share of new vehicle sales in the EU plunged dramatically, from nearly half of all sales to just under a third.
Diesel only ever looked better than petrol because of cheating by European car manufacturers. Particulates from diesel are a known and potent carcinogen. Are diesel cars the new cancer sticks?
David Archibald adds:
I must take issue with you on the subject of petrol and diesel.
The most carcinogenic thing in petrol is benzene at about 1%. It is highly carcinogenic.
There is no benzene or anything else carcinogenic in diesel. The supposed problem with diesel is particulates.
But this is a minute fraction of what people who smoke put in themselves. And a lot of Europeans smoke. Reducing particulates from cars is going to do very little for average European particulate intake.
Particulates from cars and trucks are unlikely to be carcinogenic.
Taking lead out of petrol decades ago was a good thing.
Taking sulphur out of diesel for vehicles means less particulate matter which is a good thing.
