Over half the new vehicles sold in Europe are now diesel; and high-quality diesel fuel is of course available wherever gasoline is sold, the pumps being on the same service islands as the gasoline pumps. Some stations even provide disposable gloves which customers may don to pump fuel. Make sure you do not mistakenly pull up to a truck diesel pump. The size of the nozzles for the truck pumps versus the motorhome/car pumps is different. A truck fuel nozzle is too big to fit into a motorhome or car's diesel fuel pipe, and the flow rate is much greater. LPG (i.e. propane) pumps always occupy their own island.

In a diesel engine, the fuel — which inheres more free energy than gasoline — is pressurized in a "common rail," an intake pipe leading to all cylinders. Electronically controlled injectors allow a precise amount of vaporized fuel to squirt into the cylinders. Consequently diesel engines offer great work capacity — which is of course good for larger vehicles, heavy loads and mountain driving — and they consume less fuel while in like measure producing less exhaust.

Admittedly, diesel exhaust long ago gained a reputation for being sooty and smelly. (As if gasoline doesn't smell too!) Yet certain other important pollutants — especially sulfates — have always been considerably less present in diesel exhaust than in gasoline exhaust. And technological improvements in diesel-engine efficiency and especially in the filtering of diesel exhaust have rendered the diesel engines of today considerably more eco-friendly than gasoline engines. Gone is the remarkable sootiness. Gone, too, is the darned glow plug (in contrast to spark plug); now you can start a diesel as quickly as a gasoline engine. Moreover, all these Renault diesels are turbo charged such that their acceleration approximates that of gasoline-powered vehicles.

Given the native demand for diesel engines in Europe, diesel fuel is available there wherever gasoline is available, and the diesel fuel is of a higher grade than that sold in the United States. Likewise, fuel stations in Europe provide diesel pumps on the same service islands as the gasoline pumps. Plastic gloves are even provided so you need not dirty your hands!

BEWARE: A diesel fuel pump nozzle (for cars and motorhomes) is considerably wider than either a leaded gasoline pump nozzle or the even smaller unleaded gasoline pump nozzle and indeed will not fit into either such tank. Consequently a gasoline nozzle will fit into a diesel tank. Therefore, be careful not to put gasoline into a diesel tank!!! Even a liter of gasoline added to the tank of a modern diesel campervan or motorhome can cause irreversible damage to the injection pump and other components due to its relatively low lubricity. (Diesel in a gasoline engine — while creating large amounts of smoke — does not normally cause permanent damage if it is drained once the mistake is realized. Similarly, older diesels using completely mechanical injection can tolerate some gasoline, which has historically been used to "thin" diesel fuel in winter.) A green pump holds unleaded gasoline or else diesel, a blue leaded gasoline. Diesel pumps are sometimes colored black, sometimes green. Diesel pumps are chiefly signified linguistically, either with the very word diesel or with one of the equivalents: gas-oil, gaz-oil, gasolio, gasóleo, dieselolie, mazot, motorina, or nafta.