Ah, I see. I believe there was a time here (England) when diesel was cheaper than petrol, but it's now a few pence/litre more. Presumably that's made up for with improved efficiency though.

Funny how the perception of a technology can be tainted by poor implementation. I'm not sure how European diesels were in the past, but as long as I've bothered to pay attention (~10 years), diesel has been more popular here since fuel is so darn expensive. Will be interesting to see if the gain in popularity of Euro/Asian cars over there will have any effect on the number of diesels on the road.