Fuel oil is the end of diesel

This is the end of a myth. That of a life to be rolled not too expensive, not too quickly, by using black smoke, without suspecting the harm to health and the environment. Diesel motor cars (we also say diesel, even mazout), architective since the early 80s in France, still acclaimed by 73 % of new vehicle buyers in 2012, went in 2017 below 50 % To reach 47 % of the acquisitions of new cars, according to the committee of French automakers of automobiles. The backlash of "dieselgate", this scam of several manufacturers who faked the antipollution software of vehicles before being caught in the exhaust in 2015. This decline should increase with the announced increase in the price of diesel (7.6 cents per liter in 2018) which aims to align the prices of various fuels within three years. A first manufacturer took the lead, the Japanese Toyota which indicated to Auto plus being about to stop its production of diesel vehicles. Nicolas Hulot, the Minister of Ecological Transition, does not hide that this is a political objective: "We aim for the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040." After more than thirty years of unconditional support for diesel, it is a backtracking towards gasoline, perhaps waiting for the takeoff of alternative, more ecological fuel.

D like Dada

If the diesel ignited in France, it is thanks to a VIP up to the bitist, a former adviser to Giscard who had his puppet at the Guignols de l'Info, caricature of the boss of the CAC 40: Jacques Calvet. The president of PSA Peugeot Citroën between 1983 and 1997 wanted to push Japanese competition. His speech: the French car is better. Why ? Thanks to diesel, the whole world envies us. "We must see that the [engine] diesel has a lower maintenance and fuel cost, pollutes much less than a fuel engine without a controlled catalyst, and [it is better] for the national economy," said -Al. The government is delighted with this outlet for Mazout stocks, initially intended for heating but whose French no longer want since oil shocks. The car becomes a "boiler on wheels" ... magic effect: the diesel argument relaunches the sector, and therefore maintains the use. And even if Calvet still removes 50,000 positions, governments give in to its economic and patriotic blackmail, granting bonuses to encourage the purchase of new vehicles, synonyms of diesel. With the European Commission, it's different, Calvet breaks his teeth. Europe continues to prefer petrol, we wonder why.

I as inventor

Diesel, as a guillotine or trash, is first of all a family name.That of its creator, Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913), a German engineer born in Paris, who developed at the end of the 1890s a "heavy oil engine" supposed to walk in vegetable oil, and not to petroleum.The yield is greater than that of petrol systems.First devices with this find: trains, trucks and even ships (it will be necessary to wait for the post-second world war to produce cars with diesel engine).Overxities, governments and industrialists are fighting to put the grapple on the patent.Is it a coincidence?Mr. Diesel mysteriously disappears while he was going by boat in Great Britain-he would have thrown himself over board in the middle of the night.Ruined, tired by various pressures, Rudolf Diesel had published in 1903 Solidarismus, a book in which he advocated a society between communism and paternalistic capitalism.

E as an exhaust

We come to the subject that makes cough. Diaras vehicles cause 10,000 deaths per year in Europe according to a study by the Environmental Research Letters review published in September. The fault of the fine particles, about which Professor André Roussel already alerted the Ministry of the Environment in 1983, advocating to "reduce the emissions of particles as much as possible [fine particles, note] due to carcinogenic risks". At the time, France was changing in diesel and, therefore, Roussel's recommendations were ignored. But the alarm signals follow one another, launched by certain doctors or associations. In 2008, the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) relied on forty scientific studies carried out since the 1980s, which confirms the increased risks of cancer for subjects professionally exposed to diesel fumes (especially drivers bus, taxis, trains, heavy goods vehicles, etc.). New ladle in 2012: Diesel engines emissions are classified in the category of carcinogens certain by the International Center for Research on Cancer (Circ). This organization, which is part of the WHO, says: "Scientific evidence is irrefutable [...]: the fumes of diesel engines cause lung cancers" a link with bladder cancer is also strongly suspected.

S as a sport

It was worth the blow that Peugeot slams as many millions in the improvement of its diesel engines: it is the German manufacturer Audi who becomes the very first to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a diesel racing car on June 19, 2006. This Sports and technological prowess puts an end to the supremacy of the essence which has lasted since 1923 all the same. She avenges the previous aborted attempts of diesel, whose very first - in 1949, on a Delettrez model - resulted in abandonment shortly before halfway, due to fuel breakdown ... In 2006, the three victorious pilots , Emanuele Pirro, Frank Biela and Marco Werner, are ahead of the French team Sébastien Loeb. They hammer in interview that they "enter history". By its performance, the Volkswagen group (which owns Audi) demonstrates to the general public the effectiveness of its TDI injection engine, a secret weapon that it has been refined since the 80s and which is supposed to provide more comfort to driving on engine diesel.

E as an escape

The type with mustaches is an adventurer with a big heart. Discovering a baby dog ​​stuck in the snow, he puts it warm in his 4 × 4 khaki green diesel and leaves looking for the dog. The 4 × 4 looks proud with its "Shell Formula Diesel" can hanging outside the cabin (and which, it is crazy, does not freeze). Another miracle: the mustachioed hero finds the mother (a very beautiful female dog-up) and can make her puppy lost. The violins sing. The 4 × 4 moves away at a sunset. This TV clip for diesel at the end of the 80s shows how fuel merchants want to associate diesel with escape, nature, large spaces, in the absence of speed and comfort (that's the 'essence). A more glamorous universe than at the beginning of diesel cars, if we think that the first model (excluding taxi) was a Mercedes 260 D, launched from 1936 and soon requisitioned by other types with mustaches: the Nazis, especially Gestapo agents.

L as software

To limit the toxic releases of a diesel engine and comply with environmental standards, the manufacturers have equipped their cars with calculator software, which activates an antipollution filter. Problem: the use of this software leads to overconsumption of fuel. Hence the idea of ​​fraud: manufacturers (helped by Bosch engineers) add to the on -board an algorithm which allows the engine to be "unbarmed" in normal times and therefore rejecting more bad gas than authorized . In the event of a technical control, the software recovers to function perfectly, and activates the filter, suggesting that the vehicle is "clean". The "dieselgate" scandal, revealed by the American authorities in September 2015, is the scandal too much for industry. First aim, the Volkswagen group (12 brands) which equipped 11 million cars with its fraudulent device between 2009 and 2015. Subsequently, General Motors is also accused. In France, the management of competition suspects Renault, PSA and Fiat Chrysler of "aggravated cheating", which companies questioned deny. The image of a lesser polluting will have taken a hit ... really no pot for diesel.