The diesel really is a dirty engine. Granted, carbon dioxide levels are lower than an equivalent capacity petrol engine but I'm more concerned about the emission of their carcinogenic particulates and oxides of nitrogen which are particularly dangerous in urban environments.
So, in addition to a cat converter, the modern diesel engine requires a particulate trap and now AdBlue to control its emissions, all of which add to development, manufacturing and maintenance costs. With modern DFI petrol engines giving improved fuel economy, lower emissions and more power and torque (using injector technology developed for the diesel engine), I wonder how much longer we'll be seeing the advance of the diesel in the UK?
Speaking to a salesman at the Hatfield PC launch of the Macan yesterday, he said that 80% of the Centre's 50 allocated cars were diesels, so whether or not we'll continue to see the "dieselisation" of the SUV sector remains to be seen. Unless you're doing a very high annual mileage or are bogged down continually in traffic (less of an issue now with stop-start technology), I can't understand why anyone would choose a diesel engined Macan over its petrol engined equivalent in what is supposedly a "sporty" vehicle. Much as I admire the low speed pulling power of the diesel, its nice to have a reasonably torquey engine which will rev to 6,000rpm rather than hit the limiter at around 4,000rpm. And over a 3-year/30,000 mile period, I doubt very much that the overall running costs of the diesel version will be significantly lower than that of the petrol.
Jeff