Rudolph Diesel was born in Paris and lived in London during the Franco-Prussian war.
But it was in Munich that he studied engineering before finding work in the Sultzer factory
in Switzerland, where he built refrigerating and steam motors during the 1880s. Years
later Diesel achieved his dream of building a motor in which fuel was lit by compressed air in its cylinders, instead of a spark as in petrol-powered engines.

Advantages
The first motor began working in 1897. Once perfected, the diesel motor harnessed some 30% of energy used while a steam engine harnessed just 10%. Petrol-powered cars currently harness just 22-24% of energy consumed.

Not only did it perform better, the motor was more robust because it was built with less pieces and was able to consume heavy oil, far cheaper than gasoline. In the early 1900s, diesel motors were reserved for navy and merchant boats, train engines, heavy trucks and tractors. In 1924 the first diesel-powered lorries were developed. In 1936 the first diesel powered car was manufactured, a Mercedes 260D.

From noisy to clean and essential
Although cheaper and longer lasting, diesel motors were famed for being noisy, coarse and more expensive than petrol motors. But with the introduction of the first direct injection motor by Audi, the triumphal march of the diesel engine began. Not only was it cheaper, it also polluted far less. In Western Europe in 2003 almost 44% of all new cars were diesel powered, 3% more than the previous year. In 2005 the figure is set to near 50%.