put it this way, i worked on a CT50 copy china made engine, tinkered with the electrics, and yes, gasoline engines require a spark, diesel no... but there was ZERO digital logic circuits on that bike, and this was circa 2008, everything was old school 6V analog, hard switches, solenoids, etc.

seriously, those who understand, will get it when i say that diesel engines will come back in a big way for utility transport when there is too much frequency of CMEs and the gagnetic shield of the earth goes through its' flip

it's going to be so bad that even electrical devices underground will still need some tin foil to stop the gamma from toasting the ICs 

 For light duty, yes, computers started to hit the road in 1994 models with fully controlled the engines. For Ford this was called EEC-V Diesel Powertrain Control (DPC) V1. These controlled the Navistar (international) 7.3L engine. This era was my specialty. Ford started testing and writing firmware dating back to 1980 but it didn't hit the road till 94. 

Chrysler followed in 95 for common rail Cummins engines, GM followed in 2002. 

Volkswagon ran mechanically injected to 2004 iirc for passenger cars here in the US.  

 See, I was in Australia and my grandfather swore by diesel golfs. And yeah the main way to know it's computer controlled is the lower case i 

 Dunno about that - the steering column gets in the way of me working on it. 

 Column is still there. But doesn't have a shaft that connects to the steering box.  

 Doesn't matter what you own or build. The regulators can just revoke the insurance on any car that doesn't allow tracking. Then, you could own a car without tracking, but you can't drive it. 

 Is that ever happens, I'll just drive illegally. At that point, what they are doing is just immoral and I will do what I want with my own dang property.  

 well, i think that they'll all be laughing on the other side of their faces when they wake up one day with the silence of the machines 

 Meh, not really. Our electrical grid is so shit, that everyone is just waiting for the blackout to hit and putting mechanical water pumps and gray-water catchment in their yards, and adding wood-burning stoves to their houses. 

 this is the way ™️  

 indeed... i expect suddenly people are gonna see a reason why depending on electricity right now has been a bit of a mistake

btw, having the problem of the sun nuking electrical devices on a regular basis for a while doesn't mean no computers it just means that you have to stick to underground and optical network systems, and drone warfare will be ded, because once it happens a few times there will be nobody able to make them for several years or longer, and i hate to think of the chaos that will break out in large electricity dependent high density city areas... the smart people already are going to villages like your locality 

 Yeah, we don't want them here. 😅  

 don't worry, they will give up before they even leave the outskirts of the city, if they didn't get set on fire by some loonies or other with molotovs 

 i am definitely going to make sure i have myself a couple of old diesel trucks at some point, probably a 80s era lada niva and whatever is easiest to find near me, get them both overhauled fully and configured to have a full no-electrical operation capability... i expect that suddenly they are going to be worth a lot of money sometime in the next 10 years, and i intend to keep mine in pristine working condition and not work them that hard, either, so they are always available

i'm expecting a decade or three to pass with a shattered economy with severe problems with energy availability, and am planning accordingly

dreaming about my little library of essential knowledge, and other things to occupy my time in the absence of internet when this happens 

 we are living in days like those of Noah, and many will scoff until the sun turns blue and the grid goes down and it's unsafe above ground for 5-10 years 

 The farmers still drive the old diesel tractors, here. They have a big old-timer club. Guess we'll all ride Traktorbus.

https://gdkfiles.visitdenmark.com/files/450/296782_Mandbussen.jpg 

 zicher! 

 DT360s are completely mechanical and ran in US school busses into the mid 2000s 

 this kind of meaty fax is why i follow you

i was pretty sure that most diesel engines were 100% non-electrical and the electrical things have only been added since the mid 90s to do stuff like improve its cold start and such

when i was a kid, it was normal that a diesel engine would not be stopped if it was going to go again within 20 minutes or so, because restarting the engine did damage (mostly adding tar and shit to everything) and wasted fuel... not sure exact details of why, stuff about how the fuel needs to be hot, and every last bit of cold metal the vacuum-vaporised (by the high compression ratio of the cylinders) that was not at working temperature would result in poor combustion and promote tar formation etc etc

the original ICE was diesel, and it was hard to do gasoline without adding electricity, and that means, and still means a bulky battery, and there is still really no more robust battery for starter motors even today, than acid/sulfate

lithium batteries are a joke, they barely work until they are over 27`C and from about 35`C onwards they start emitting hydrogen, which only happens with a lead acid battery when it's really fucking hot

i understand chemistry and physics and that's how i know that diesel engines, even the fancy ones in most modern european cars now, can be modified to run without one single electron of electricity, just that doing so may be more tricky with some than others, just like it used to be a nightmare to work on a Subaru with their weird engine layout 

 lead/sulfate, i mean... obviously 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navistar_DT_engine. 

They stopped producing mechanically injected DT engines in 95. But I know chassis manufactures still used them for a while after, I've seen them :P. So its probably pretty rare to find one in a later chassis, but they were built to order for a while and had lagging emissions standards compared to light duty. 

A healthy Cummins 4B/T, 6B/T engines and even the DT360s generally weren't equipped with heating systems unless they were in for on-road applications. The major issue with the cold is #2 will gel up and requires mixing with #1 (kerosene) and can usually start up fine under 0*f. Starting aids were mostly added for emissions arguably. Many engines need starting aids, like International V8s, and later 4 stroke Detroits. As the engines wear though, they lose compression and injectors under-perfom and starting aids are helpful and can be required after a certain point under freezing.   

 Cummins 6BT are in equipment and bread/delivery vans, also until early 2000s :) 

 On passenger the road #2 diesel vehicles usually saw high 30s to low 50s in MPG through the early 2000s. They did great on fuel economy. Even light-mid duty diesel engines are "good" on fuel economy. We can currently store more energy in a 40 gallons tank of diesel fuel than any battery technology for the same volume. You'd have to include the volume used by the rest of the powertrain, which is fair, to be equivalent.