Seen on Jalopnik:
I believe the problem with the diesel-electric hybrid is the law of diminishing returns. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the best gas-electric hybrids are not running an otto cycle ICE, they're running atkinson cycle, or maybe one day miller cycle. These combustion cycle offer efficiencies much closer to a conventional diesel, and can be used thanks to the electric portion of the powertrain compensating where the ICE portion of the powertrain is weakest. There wouldn't be much additional benefit to using a diesel over an atkinson cycle engine
Hybrids, even the super mild GM variety, are somewhat reliant on turning the ICE on and off with great frequency. A diesel is NOT well suited to this, as it requires an even bigger starter, and more warmup time. The Prius uses a coolant thermos to try to keep the engine warm so that they minimize the number of cold starts. Having to heat a gigantic diesel block with some leftover hot coolant would be an even more significant challenge.
Diesels also cost extra money over a gasoline ICE. This number is definitely coming down, as gasoline engines have started to adopt things like direction cylinder injection, and diesel engines production has ramped up, but diesels are also significantly heavier. Given the marginal benefit at best by combining the diesel and electric drive-trains, the added weight and cost of a diesel hybrid over either a gasoline hybrid or a straight diesel, really makes the whole thing uneconomical. The only time this sort of thing seems to make sense is in super heavy duty equipment, where the weight of the powertrain is relatively small anyway, and they're generally already using diesel engines - like buses, for example.