During the last years, the preservation of the atmospheric environment has played an increasingly important role in society. The Diesel engine can be considered an environmentally friendly engine because of its low consumption and the subsequent carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction. However, in the near future it will face strong restrictive emission standards, which demand that the current nitrogen oxides (NOx) and soot emissions are halved. To comply with these restrictions new combustion concepts are emerging, such as PCCI (premixed charge compression ignition), in which the fuel burns in premixed conditions. Combustion noise is thus deteriorated and consequently end-users could be reluctant to drive vehicles powered with Diesel engines and their potential for environment preservation could be missed. In this paper. Diesel combustion is addressed through the analysis of performance, emissions and combustion noise in order to evaluate the suitability of PCCI engines for automotive applications. The results show that PCCI combustion offers great possibilities to fulfill future emission restrictions, but the engine noise is strongly deteriorated. The great sensitivity of users to this factor requires vehicle manufacturers to focus their efforts on the optimization of passive solutions for implementing the PCCI concept in passenger car and light-duty engines, even with the subsequent increase in the cost of vehicle. This aspect is less restrictive in heavy-duty engines, since the great benefits in emissions reduction compensate the deterioration of engine noise. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.