What is this European fetish for diesel engines? One can understand in the context of India, where the fuel receives subsidies and thereby is cheaper than petrol and so Indians look to diesel to save a few precious bucks. But the Europeans? In many European countries diesel is more expensive the petrol where prices are decided based on calories and diesel is calorifically richer. However to get diesel to be environmentally friendly greater investments go into the refining process and diesel engined cars to match petrol engined cars have to use greater number of components such as turbo chargers and intercoolers, that push up the price. Still the Europeans love diesel. Porsche shocked the world first by making the Cayenne an SUV based on the Volkswagen Touareg platform. Then it shocked the world further by adding a diesel engine to the engine options for the Cayenne. Now Porsche seems to have decided to administer yet another shock by announcing a Panamera with diesel engine options. The Panamera like the Cayenne was shocking, whoever thought Porsche would want to make a four dour family car? Anyway we are now bracing ourselves to hear the news that the iconic 911 will be available in diesel.