bagwell

AndyDuncan

DoctorNine

Greg A.

Zagato7

Solo_Racer

I saw "69 mpg" and got all excited, what with the Golf being a real car with decent comfort and safety features and whatnot. But really, my brother-in-law's US spec TDI Jetta gets "only" 42 mpg, so I just extrapolated and assumed 69 mpg was quite a bit better than that. True, a 5 year old Jetta is not the same thing as a 2009 (or later) Golf, but still...

lascauxcaveman

sos10

I had a '68 bug that I drove all over the Appalachians with 3 people & a big dawg inside and camping equipment lashed to the roof. Great sport!

smoke~

if your dad's beetle couldn't climb a hill, there was something wrong with it. and I mean wrong with it beyond being a 72 beetle!

abgwin

Screw the hybrid, just give me the diesel!

CEman

I'm moving to Norway so I can cruise around on this:

[www.hydrogencarsnow.com]

b33g33

Of course, I'd also like an 8th gear and no speedlimit on my commute... if we're talking about what I'd *like*.

RocketScientist

mzs

My folks had a tdi version on a vacation to the Croatian islands a couple years ago. For the driving they did--little villages and "highways" up to 50mph--my dad said it was as good a vehicle as you could hope for.

Put those kinds of cars on big interstates/autobahns/autostradas, though, and you might run into trouble

Ash78

camp6ell

weatherman

Turboner

TPSreports

You usually have to do a ton of around-town miles or like 35k mi/yr to have the fuel savings cover the price premium for hyrbidization.

Until this is a plugin, I'd be happy with a normal TDi + DSG.

Mad_Science

Evodico

abgwin

VW has been building inline three diesels for some time now and sticking them into the Fox and Polo. There just hasn't been a hybrid so far because it adds a lot of cost over and above the diesel engine. The absolute gains in fuel economy are more modest than for a gasoline base engine, so a hybrid is harder to justify financially. Nevertheless, VW apparently decided that a gasoline hybrid would be a me-too proposition with little marketing value.

Expect relatively few of these to be built and sold in Europe. Consumers there are prepared to do their bit for the climate - an asset held in common - only if most everyone else is as well. Environmental bragging rights - a key purchasing criterion for the Prius crowd in the US - play a subordinate role in Europe.

It's unlikely that VW will ever offer a hatchback with a limp-wristed inline three diesel in the US, if only because meeting T2B5 emissions is expensive. However, perhaps the hybrid tech and DSG could also be married to the 2.0L inline four in the '08 Jetta diesel. It depends mostly on whether there is room, i.e. on where in the drive line that electric motor is located.

rgseidl

turbofreak

duckbutter

Tomsk

I'd probably buy it.

abgwin

Man, I want a V-10 Audi SO BAD. But I also want Jessica Alba to do certain things to me, and that ain't gonna happen, either.

A 3-cylinder VW diesel hybrid makes so much sense that I'm really surprised that these haven't been available in Europe for years, where diesel is so commonplace.

lascauxcaveman

@ash78: What ever do you mean, I'm typing this up on a new in-car VW computer prototype and it works just [***imtxt.exception***] [***sensorconnection.lost***] [***coredump***] [***restart.failed***]

eltonito

sos10

NICKNICK

DoctorNine

AndyDuncan

Hipsters only really flocked to the Prius because there was no other choice. VW has 10 times the cachet among this crowd than Toyota could ever hope for, so hopefully it'll be a nice combo. Throw in a MacBook Air and an iPhone and charge a $5k premium. The simultaneous smuggasm will throw the earth off its axis.

Ash78

B

stevecmh

I think that VW has a real viable Prius competitor here. The cost to build can't be onerous, as it's basically the standard GOLF platform for which the tooling must be in heavy depreciation by now. The new bits (3-Cyl engine, batteries and what-not) will probably add $5K to the price, but that still provides a car in the low $20s which is very reasonable.

graverobber- Same great taste, new low price!

badco/LoJ

Buckster

Imperial it's a whopping 83mpg.

Maybe Hillary can push us to convert to Imperial, since it's an instant increase!

Ash78

Unfortunately, they really did un- every last vestige of pimp out of it.

boosted-lego-wagon

camp6ell

Murph

grzydj

wookie1901

weatherman

B

Ash78