Once again, we are back to the same topic of whether one should go for petrol or diesel. Yes, we know it’s a repeated topic and with petrol rates hitting an all time high of Rs 65, its not that hard to checkout whether a petrol or diesel car would suit you more. Everyone have their mindset skewed towards diesel cars. Forget the initial extra money that you have to pay to get a diesel car, but it still makes sense. Recently a conference held in India promoted the value of having diesel cars over petrol ones and how diesels have become cleaner over the years and no longer are they the fume spewing thing that they were earlier. This conference was called as “Advancement of Diesel Technologies”. It’s a surprising fact now that many of the petrol engined cars throw up more of the harmful emissions stuff than some of the diesel cars combined.

The Conference also had a discussion on that international manufacturers setting their foot on the Indian soil should actually bring in diesel engines which are more suited to the Indian climate rather than just bringing in the western era ones. There were as many as 7 speakers in the conference and each one turn by turn stressed on the need for having more diesel cars in India. In the west, diesel is costlier than petrol by a fair margin and hence people in Europe or the US are more inclined towards “gas”. Director of ARAI, Shrikant Marathe, in a recent conference held on April 2011, said that Indians should rightfully switch to diesel cars. This would ensure that the manufacturers bring in their best and there would be a healthy competition. It’s the end user who would actually benefit from all this competition. Diesel as a fuel has been used widely in India since the time trucks were used for transporting goods around. Even in the US, from the Diesel Technology Forum, Dr Allen Schaffer says that they have tried to promote diesel in the US aggressively. His point was that the negatives of diesel are few but then the positives far outweigh them. Diesel cannot be called as an entirely clean fuel however it can be called as clean as some of the alternative fuels used. Performance, efficiency and also concern for the nature are to be viewed when considering a diesel over petrol car. By the way, both these energy reserves are important in their own right.

Indian economy has been influenced in a big way by the subsidizing of diesel fuel since India’s backbone in the trade sector within the country is diesel fuel. In US, Japan or even western Europe, a rapid increase in the market share of diesel as a fuel increased rapidly with the low sulphur diesel been eventually phased out.

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