Mazda bets on diesel-only car for Japan

Yes, and diesels have a longer life than gasoline engines and require less maintenance in the long run.

Torque me, baby!

I bought a CX-5 with diesel and will never drive anything else. Massive power in the ending, 20 yen lower price per liter for fuel = win!

CX-5 with diesel, yeah the huge torque from the 2.2L diesel is similar to a small block V8 gas engine. with the price of diesel in Japan im also considering the same car, or even the 1.5L diesel Demio for the wife.

Although I support the move, not in Canada, we have crazy gas prices and sometimes disel is more then reg gas.

I've been driving diesel cars for many years now and have had no problems with them. Actually my present car, although it is badged as a Ford, is actually a Mazda underneath. I think she's really cute, has a frugal thirst compared with the Peugeot I had before switching to Ford Fusions (the euro variety, not the US beast), and performs really well. Actually the only moan I have is that Ford/Mazda have replaced it with the atrociously styled "B-Max". Looking at a pic of the CX-5, I can see where the design influences came from. YUK!!!

Diesel are like cancer, they are not clean at all, the steam that they produce is a way worse than the gasoline ones. I hope mazda doesn't have any success with that strategy.

They are gonna have trouble selling cars in Tokyo because you can't register diesel vehicles.

New diesel engines are much better than the engines of old. They are much cleaner and require less maintenance. The next step for Mazda should be to include biodiesel models and create a refinery and filling stations. There are tonnes and tonnes of vegetable oil disposed of in Japan everyday. If this was turned into biodiesel it could drastically reduce Japan's dependence on fossil fuels. Biodiesel can also be made from the Thousands of tonnes of rice stalks that get chopped up and used for animal feed or just burned in huge piles. Biodiesel makes much better economic and environmental sense than hydrogene fuel cells.

It is the same in other major cities too....

They are gonna have trouble selling cars in Tokyo because you can't register diesel vehicles.

Is this still the case with "clean diesels"? I'm considering diesel for my wife's next car, this one looks good.

@gobshite

no need to worry, the law in Tokyo is aimed at commercial vehicles built before 2000.

They are gonna have trouble selling cars in Tokyo because you can't register diesel vehicles.

That law applied to vehicles without DPFs - diesel particulate filters (ironically the ones that could be run on recycled restaurant oil).

Modern diesel cars with DPFs can only be run on commercially-available mineral diesel.

In many markets (EU, for example) "petrol/gas station" diesel includes a small percentage of vegetable oil - ask a homeless orang-utan where that comes from.

Interesting move.

I'm not a fan a of diesel engines, since they are more contaminant and stinkier than gasoline engines, but if Mazda can fix that with filters or some other technology i'm up for it, right now I'll buy a Mazda 6 in my country, so maybe when it is time to renovate (we'll see in 6-8 years) that technology would reach overseas