The Diesel Driver has published a detailed look at diesel sales (versus petrol) in Germany for last year (2011), with breakdowns by every major manufacturer and vehicle category (SUV, compact, etc.). 2011 Diesel Sales Report: Market Share in Germany Hit 49% By Christian Stampfer Read the full story »
Over 85% for mid size class 2 and SUV, that is really high. Out of 2800 land rovers only 11 were not diesel.
It's because people were told diesels are green because they emit less CO2 than a petrol and do more mpg. What they didn't say was that they emit more smog forming emissions - even with the latest Euro5 emission levels. Now London and other UK cities are failing pollution limits on a very regular basis. I dread to think what London is going to do for the Olympics. I looked into the emission levels of a popular diesel taxi and my Prius and the levels of NOx etc was 25 times higher in the diesel! In my thinking that means you could have 25 Prii taxis to create the same pollution as the diesel. That was based on the latest 2011 diesel. If I compared it to a 2009 diesel (my Prius is a 2009) then it emitted 200 times more pollution than the Prius! And that's before you note that the Prius switches its engine off in slow moving traffic and the diesel doesn't. Sad, mad and unlikely to change anytime soon. I have some friends from London who all suffer from asthma, yet what sort of car do they drive? Have a guess . Madness!
...thank you Grumpy for mentioning the downside of diesel. As far as why diesel in EU, it is a chicken and egg argument. Refineries in EU were simpler compared to USA (where much more of the crude is cracked to gaso). Not to mention a preference for diesel engines in EU. So infrastructure just developed that way historically. If USA had had historic preference for diesel, can you imagine the soot, given our heavy use of auto fuel?
