This combination – somehow impossible, or?

No, it isn’t: In Europe, Chrysler sells it’s T&C with an superb Diesel-Engine. Nearly 90% of all sold T&Cs are powered by Diesel. I really love this car!

WRT to diesel being a byproduct, it’s actually a petroleum product just like gasoline, kerosene & jet fuel, asphalt, fertilizer, and solvents. It takes less energy on an absolute basis because of fewer refining steps, but that’s an academic argument because refineries don’t throw out the gasoline when they produce diesel, or vice-versa. At any rate, the total energy required to produce diesel (and gasoline) is lower than ethanol in relation to the energy it can produce.

The real chemistry kicks in on the combustion side where diesel product more millijoules of energy per molecule than gasoline, and diesel engines have a more efficient combustion process that result in less energy being lost as waste heat. Non-exotic automobile engines lose over half of their energy thermally, about 30% of the energy is converted into heat and sucked right out of the tailpipe and the rest is converted into heat and absorbed by the engine oil and cooling fluid, as well as the heat absorbed and released by all the parts. In diesels the amount of energy converted to rotating force on the tailshaft is pretty high, about 41% and that means that not only is a molecule of diesel creating more energy than gasoline to begin with, but more of the energy is converted beneficially into propulsion.

BTW, what mileage are you getting on your Lexus?

Having said that, I’ve never been clear on the real world benefits of diesel at higher utilization rates, given the higher energy requirements to produce a gallon of diesel than a gallon of gasoline. While diesel remains a byproduct of gasoline production, it appears there’s no real issue, but if we turned over to diesel in a much higher proportion, unclear on the math in terms of the loss in efficiency on the refining side.

I can instead happily drive my hybrid and ignore the environmental and other impacts of the 400 lbs of NiMH cells in the trunk.

I will disagree with you about the sound, a diesel exhaust note is never going to warm my soul the way that the quad-tipped AMG exhaust in my CLS does!

Sad about the name change, I thought of you when I read that news release. I wouldn’t recommend that you boycott them, this is a fight that won’t be won as most shareholders and consumer are rather indifferent about it. No sense punishing yourself by driving an inferior automobile!

In other news, despite our protest, the Benz name will not be restored…This means that I will be boycotting them when buying my next car.