Thank you for saving me most of the trouble. Also, due to the amount of battery power and related weight, wear and tear, and cost, really large Diesel engines (generally anything bigger than a 16 liter OTR) do not have glow plugs.
Diesels operate by in taking only air, compressing it to insane pressure and heat, and then power misting the fuel into that environment, which causes it to explode violently (much more so than gas). In fact, diesel fuel is essentially non combustible in regular air and burns slow and relatively cool.
A cool experiment is to soak paper towels in both gas and diesel and see the difference in how they burn. (GML is a professional idiot and does not condone doing this at home and is not responsible for the results)
Anyway, in cold environments, smaller diesels use a device known as a glow plug to preheat the relatively small combustion chambers sufficiently to cause auto ignition within a second or two of spinning. Larger ones don't, and can result in the engine spinning for up to several minutes before it ignites, pumping raw diesel into its exhaust system, which can sometimes ignite if it gets stuck in the wrong place, and is certainly not good for the environment. The ignition requires a vet rich mixture. It can take a gallon or more of fuel to start a prime mover.
In cold climates it needs to be done with the unit plugged in and is something of a production. 18 wheelers sit idling for long periods for much the same reason.
A cool problem on older mechanical diesel Benzes, (almost every car I've ever owned) is that the engine directly drives the fuel pump. To shut off the engine, they used a valve controlled by the extensive vacuum system (it also controlled windows, door locks, and in the W140 S-class the glove box and center console locks), which had a hundred feet of tubes, any inch of which could and did spring leaks. The failure of vacuum in the system caused this automatic valve to become inoperative, so the car would not shut off. As a result, diesel Benzes used to have a cool anti theft feature: a valve under the hood that you manually closed to shut off fuel to the engine.