Nothing’s really changed here, but Dieselgate has affected oil burners’ popularity
We all know why one would buy a diesel car over its equivalent gasoline (or petrol) powered variant: more efficiency, more range, less CO2 and more torque in more usable places in the rev range. Disadvantages include higher acquisition price, more heft (which dulls handling in some cars) and more particulate emissions which are known to cause health problems in humans.
Diesels in Europe have enjoyed a few decades of rising popularity, but are now fading again in the wake of the Dieselgate scandal caused by Volkswagen. So now, in light of recent developments, Mat Watson from carwow reanalyzes this old debate to see what’s changed.
Experimenting like this needs two identical cars but with different power plants and here a pair of Renault Kadjars is chosen: one uses a 1.5-liter dCi diesel engine, a staple of the Renault range for over a decade, while the other uses a new downsized, turbocharged gasoline engine displacing 1.2 liters.