Anyway, if we wanted to save more money on fuel, we'd buy more Cavaliers and Focuses instead of TrailBlazers and Explorers.
And in certain part of the world (California, primarily) there are sane people who use the words ''carcinogen'' and ''diesels'' in the same sentence. Diesels might then be even less appealing to buyers if they were found to be the root cause of the guests on the Jerry Springer show, but not much.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, I believe that North Americans think diesel is an old-world, old-time technology that belongs in the last century, not this one. Consumers seem to think that the replacement solution for gasoline isn't diesel, but hybrids or -- longer term -- fuel cells. And they may well be right.
Whatever the reasons, all those earnest folks at Delphi and Jaguar and a whole bunch of other places should probably just give it up and worry about getting better cupholders into their products. Now that, that's something you can get a North American excited about, and if they can get Europeans to accept that technology in greater numbers, they could amortize that development cost better.