Anybody who knows anything about diesel engines and fuel will know that diesel engines are engines of choice in Europe and India. Most countries of the world prefer petrol engines and Honda despite being forced to develop a 2.2 litre diesel engine a few years ago for its European Accord and the CR-V had said that it will stop pursuing diesel engines and concentrate on petrol-electric hybrids for the future. But the prohibitive cost of those engines and with no significant development in battery technology that is cheap, Honda has been forced to look at a lower capacity diesel engine.
This engine is part of the Earth Dreams technology that Honda has decided to adopt and is according to Honda the lightest engine in its class while it develops class leading 118 PS of power and very low C02 content in the atmosphere. This engine is expected to debut in Europe in the Civic at the end of this calender year. In Europe diesel is the preferred fuel because of its high calorific value that makes it very fuel efficient but in India diesel is subsidized and therefore is cheap. But Indian diesel is not very well refined and Honda has therefore been saying that it is with holding its diesel engine debut in India. It remains to be seen if this will be the position that Honda will continue to maintain.