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From what I gathered from a quick look at Wikipedia, probably the biggest factor is that diesel engines are best used for high-torque, low-speed applications.

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This.

In Sweden 90% of the cars are diesel because they need the high-torque and low-speed in the snow, plus Sweden is big and there's only 9 million of them so most journeys are pretty long.

The 90% number is not true. Although the percentage of diesel cars has gone up dramatically, it is not that high. In 2011 only 17% of cars were diesel driven[1]. During the first two months of 2013, 63% of new cars were diesel[2].

[1] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2011A01B/FORDON_2011_v... [2] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2013M02/Trafikanalys_1...

With, of course, the usual "exception that proves the rule":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI

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