Jay,

Still no,

Pre-detonation is something to be cautious of in gasoline engines, and air/fuel ratios is of the upmost importance. diesels will ignite much richer or much leaner than gasoline engines. And you could actually ignite gasoline or kerosene in a diesel engine. So you are wrong about the mix altogether.

What you meant to say was timing. It is important that compression-ignition engines inject fuel when the piston is at TDC, and at high pressure. Similar to the timing of spark plugs in gasoline engines. The technology of both improves at a similar rate, and neither is inherently more complex.

And I knew you'd go there with the acceleration of the Prius. That is a silly claim. The Prius has a 0-60 time of 10.2 seconds. That is an absolute eternity. Most people don't mash the throttle at every stoplight. If they did, the Prius would lose in a true dragrace against most cars on the American highways, including many large trucks and SUVs.

And the gains are just as good for light vehicles as heavy vehicles. The 2009 Jetti TDI (with US-spec emissions equipment) will get the same overall economy as the Prius.

We haven't put as much effort into clean diesel as we have for hybrids, so I don't know where that is coming from. If we did.... they would be on the road a long time ago. But 2009 will be the first model year for many clean diesels.

Electric motors don't inherently have better acceleration. All motor types, whether mechanical, electric, or hydraulic can only transfer input energy to output energy.

Electric motors are also very heavy, and waste critical materials. Speaking of heavy, having both a gasoline engine, battery pack and hybrid driveline adds considerable weight to a vehicle.

I feel sorry for the PhD candidate you are advising. I'm sorry, but you really have misguided conceptions about modern diesel engines.