It may not be very surprising that Volvo’s V60 Plug-inHybrid was originally set to target the European market. North Americans as awhole strongly prefer gasoline powered vehicles over diesel (equipped withdiesel fuel pumps and diesel injectors). They also usually prefer SUVs overwagons. But what is the difference between diesel and gasoline, and why do weprefer gas?There are chemical differences between the two as they areboth derived from oil at very different temperatures, but I won’t bore you withthat. The main reason that American’s tend to prefer gasoline over diesel,although diesel engines get better gas mileage, is because gasoline burns muchcleaner. Diesel engines are also known to be much louder. Because gasolineengines have a low compression ratio they require spark plugs to ignite thefuel. In addition to a spark plug they need electrical support from an electriccoil, a distributor, and an alternator. A diesel engine has a much highercompression ratio and creates enough heat to ignite the fuel at injection, thereforeeliminating the need of a spark plug and additional electricalsupport. Both engines create energy in afour stage process (although differently): the intake stroke, the compressionstroke, the combustion stroke, and the exhaust stroke.
In the past years there have been many improvements in dieseltechnology and it is being used more commonly than it has before. In regards toVolvo’s diesel wagon, they have recently announced the XC60 plug-in hybrid asthe gasoline alternative and it will be headed to US markets soon. Thisvehicle can travel up to 35 miles running on just electricity and is said to get about100mph in Hybrid mode. What’s more important to you, better gas mileage or loweremissions?
