Why Don't Americans Drive Diesels?

This seems to be the most popular question.  

Go to almost any other country and you'll see tons of diesels running around.  Come to America, and there's the odd Audi TDi or BMW 335d, but outside of the major German brands, there's virtually no diesel passenger cars.  

Of course, all our big commercial trucks run on diesel and diesel pickup trucks are always popular, but even then, diesel pickup trucks are a fraction of the sales of their gasoline powered relatives.   It's exceptionally rare to pull up to a consumer gas station and see someone filling up with diesel.  Why?

Let's step way back in time, back to the 1970's.

Diesels were virtually unheard of in the US before 1973, except for commercial applications.  Gasoline was cheap, plentiful, and lightly taxed.  Then the oil crisis hit.  Suddenly, gas prices mattered and that meant that fuel economy suddenly mattered.   Diesel had always been more expensive, but increasing prices brought fuel closer to parity than ever before.  Due to the overwhelming advantage of diesel in regards to fuel economy, for the first time in America, consumers really wanted diesel.

Diesel cars that didn't exist.

Detroit, who controlled the overwhelming majority of the US market at the time, struggled to meet demand.  They hadn't built diesels before, and unfortunately, these were the darkest days of the US auto manufacturer, a time where they had little competition and little fear of releasing inferior or poorly designed and tested products.

To say these first diesels were terrible is to put it mildly.  Almost without exception, these motors were noisy, smelled bad, and were fantastically unreliable even by the already abysmal standards of the 70's domestic market.   They were low on horsepower and slow -- again, even by the already abysmal standards of the mid-1970's.   About the only thing they did well was go a long ways on a gallon of fuel.   At least, they did until they broke and left you stranded.

While some of the European diesel imports were good, they were usually rare and almost all luxury makes like Mercedes-Benz.   Even if you were fortunate enough to see one or even drive one, you still found that they smelled kind of bad, were still noisy, and didn't really want to start when the weather got really cold.

Before long, gasoline prices fell and by the 80's gasoline was cheap again.  Diesel was still more expensive than gasoline, and taxes were far higher on Diesel than gas.  Interest in diesels waned.  The US manufacturers were glad to ditch a product line they never had much success with and consumers had such bad experiences that they didn't want them either, no matter how good the gas mileage might be.

A few Euro manufacturers tried to keep selling diesels here, with little success.    We didn't get the variety that was being sold in Europe, and low sales figures were an excuse to cut the number of models offered with a diesel even further.

Eventually, diesels all but disappeared from the US consumer market.  Since no one was buying them any more, we were left with the horrible memories of bad 1970's diesels.   In our minds, diesels are still noisy, smelly, and belong in trucks.  Due to the vast amounts of black smoke produced by commercial big rigs, they were also mistakenly believed to pollute more.  

The only place you routinely found them was in very large pickup trucks.  They were popular there, as all the low-end torque allowed them to haul a lot more weight.   Of course, they were large diesels intended for work and that meant they were noisy and smelly, just like all the old diesel cars everyone hated so much.  The only real difference is that they were fantastically reliable, often going half a million miles or more.

Really, that's where we are today.   People have a mistaken notion that diesels aren't very good or are just meant for trucks.  They cost more to buy and the fuel they consume costs more, even if they go further per dollar spent.   Gasoline still remains fairly cheap and we have no taxes on engine displacement, so large gasoline engines remain popular.    Even though they're more popular than they've been, there remain few choices and most cars are not offered with a diesel option -- even when one exists in other countries.   It's a self-perpetuating problem -- people believe diesels are bad, so they don't sell here.  Because they don't sell here, manufacturers don't offer them.  Because there are so few to buy and so few that want to buy them, few get sold and few people get to experience diesels enough to change their perceptions.  Since the perceptions don't change, no one buys diesels and the cycle continues.