"Clive" wrote in message
...
In message m, Martin
Underwood writes

I wonder how diesel-engined trucks manage in the low temperatures. Must
be a real problem for them. Maybe they have heated fuel tanks.

I'd always presumed that the cheapness of petrol in the US was the main
reason why diesel-engined cars have never taken off as they have in
places where fuel is much more heavily taxed. Also, I notice that over
here, very few diesel-engined cars have automatic transmission - diesel
and automatic seem to be mutually exclusive.

Yes truck fuel tanks are heated, but if you tried this in a car you
would flatten the battery before starting.

Although I believe in very cold countries (eg Canada) it is quite normal to
plug cars into an electricity supply when they are parked, to prevent the
cooling water freezing. I imagine that a truck's fuel tank heater would be
powered in the same way while it is stationary and from the alternator once
the engine is running. In principle, the same could be true of a fuel tank
heater on a diesel car. Either a truck or a car would need an extra-capacity
battery if that needs to power the heater while stationary.

Locomotives with both
electric and Hydraulic (an advanced automatic to you) have been around
since trains first started to use diesel engines. Please do try and
keep up.

I was trying to keep up. I was stating a fact - that in the UK, very few
makes of car (certainly of the Ford Escort size) are available with both
diesel engine and automatic transmission. I surmised (perhaps wrongly) that
there may be technical reasons for this, and that the possible lack of
support for automatic transmission with a diesel car may be one of the
factors for them being less popular in the States.

I know about diesel-electric and diesel-hydraulic transmission on
locomotives, but I imagine that the size and weight of these types of
transmission make them rather impractical for use in a car.