Filed under: Diesel, Hybrid, Volkswagen, Europe/EU, UK, Germany, USA
VW Golf TDI Hybrid: too expensive for America?
We are extremely pleased that Volkswagen was able to achieve such phenomenal fuel mileage and emissions numbers from their Golf TDI Hybrid. As a refresher, the machine uses a 1.2 liter three-cylinder diesel engine paired with a 26 horsepower electric motor and returns 69 U.S. mpg and 89 g/km of CO2 emissions in the EU combined cycle. As we've reported, the car is slated for production in Europe, but what about the U.S.? Don't we need cars that deliver high mileage and low emissions here too? Of course we do, but the question that needs to be asked is whether American drivers are ready to pay for the technology required to make these numbers a reality.
The Toyota Prius has set the standard for what consumers expect from green cars, and it is priced rather well - less than $25 grand, well equipped. Diesel vehicles have never sold as well in the States as they do in Europe, despite their fuel mileage increases. This is due, partly, to the added cost that comes with a diesel vehicle in order to meet emissions requirements. Keith Price, a spokesman for VW USA says,"From a consumer standpoint, it comes down to 'What kind of compromise do I need to live with to enjoy all this wonderfulness?'" Price is one compromise that is hard to get around, as VW's diesels already cost about $2,000 more than gasoline models. Add in what the hybrid system will cost on top of that and the Golf... um, I mean Rabbit TDI Hybrid may price itself out of the market. We sincerely hope not.
Gallery: VW Golf TDI Hybrid Concept
[Source: CNN Money]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Snowdog 7:58AM (3/11/2008)
This is clearly what I see. Not too mention that 7speed DSG is fairly hefty premium as well.
I only drive manual cars and I would only be willing to pay one premium. So either a Manual shifted hybrid or diesel, but certainly not an autoshifted hybrid-diesel.
There is also something knowns as diminishing returns. While the first tech gets you a nice boost in MPG that eventually might pay for itself, adding the second tech will be a smaller MPG boost on an already efficient vehicle, that will never pay for itself.
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Throwback 8:06AM (3/11/2008)
The Hybrid Golf is too expensive for the US. It's mileage also does not off set the 40-50 cent per gallon premium, that diesel fuel costs. At least not when compared to a Civic hybrid or a Prius. The dollar dropping daily against the Euro does not help either. I don't think building it in Mexico will help much.
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Schmeltz 8:07AM (3/11/2008)
VW: JUST GIVE US A TRY!
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snm.grr 8:35AM (3/11/2008)
Has anyone looked at the used Diesel car market in the US? People are paying high premiums for used diesel cars, much higher than the premium on a NEW diesel car. Gas here is $3.40 a gallon, Diesel is $3.99. Sell me a diesel hybrid! Please! As long as this car is price competitive with a Prius, I'd rather have the diesel hybrid. Sell to me, VW, sell to me.
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rgseidl 9:05AM (3/11/2008)
@ Throwback -
US fuel taxes are light, so the fact that diesel contains ~12% more energy per gallon shows up in the price at the pump. The differential is currently a little higher because diesel can be exported to Europe but mostly because gasoline prices are subject to greater seasonal variation than diesel prices.
Nevertheless, diesels typically consume ~30% less fuel volume per mile than the comparable gasoline variant. That means you still come out ahead in terms of fuel cost per mile. However, absolute fuel prices in the US are still low relative to Europe, so absolute savings at the pump are also low. Add to the that the higher cost of the diesel engine as such plus the cost of meeting T2B5 emissions regs and it's easy to see why analysts are predicting no more than 15% new vehicle market share for diesels in the US.
Basically, a diesel will make sense for people who drive a lot of miles every year, most of them at highway speeds. Adding a hybrid system will only improve fuel economy in the small fraction covered at speeds below 30mph.
By contrast, a gasoline electric hybrid is preferably if most of your annual mileage is in urban traffic and stuck in traffic jams.
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joe cross 9:28AM (3/11/2008)
Once you eclipse 45 mpg average it becomes very hard to recoup the investment.Even at 25k mi/yr and $4/gal 69mpg costs about $1400/yr compared to $2100/yr for the 45 mpg car.It would take 10 years to recoup a $7000 price difference.Many yaris owners are already reporting this kind of average mileage and soon Toyota and Honda will introduce 1.3 gas motors to the US allowing more consumers to enjoy this efficiency from a sub $15,000 car.
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gsolman6 9:51AM (3/11/2008)
There may be a $7k price difference between a Yaris and a Prius/Golf TDI hybrid that takes 7 years to make up but in the case of the latter you are getting more in the way of content, safety and comfort that really makes it equivalent to 3 or 4 years.
Also don't forget about the hybrid tax credits that would most likely apply to the Golf.
Also wasn't the Passat TDI a few years back just a few hundred dollars more than the regular one?
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david 10:31AM (3/11/2008)
You can't compare a cheap car like the Yaris to the Golf. In that case, my $350 bike gets way better mileage than the Yaris. I currently drive a TDI Passat. I already paid a premium for the TDI on this car long before $3.50 per gallon gas. If I were to buy another TDI, and for an extra $2K I could increase my fuel economy to 69mpg, I'm all for it. For a lot of people, including Prius drivers, it's not about the pay back, it's about paying a small premium to help the environment and use less fuel.
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why not the LS2LS7? 7:33PM (3/11/2008)
To refer to CO2 as "emissions" is to pervert what emissions means here. It generally means trace emissions, like NOx, which Diesels are not good at.
When used as here, it is not only confusing, but redundant, referring to mpg and CO2 output back to back. They measure the same thing, in fact US mpg tests use CO2 emissions to calculate fuel used.
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stevejust 8:17PM (3/11/2008)
An added problem for VW is that they'd have to warranty the thing for B100 in order to ensure people like me would buy it. I've been wanting a hybrid diesel for years 'cause I'd love to be making my own biodiesel with used WVO. However, I can't see any car manufacturer honoring a warranty on a car for someone making their own fuel. Can't exactly blame them, either. But if B100 was more widely avaiable that met applicable ASTM standards, then maybe they will one day they will warranty B100.
I would defnitely have to consider this car if it came to the US.
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Michael Hippenhammer 2:37AM (3/12/2008)
Why does every journalist mention that hybrid cars always out sell diesels when there aren't any diesels cars to be bought? In 2006 VW produced 30,000 extra TDI's for import to the US and guess what every one of them sold and people still wanted more of them. Now it's 2008 and VW will bring them back with better emissions controls including nitrogen emissions controls. Not only VW but, Audi, BMW will be adding diesels to the line up and in the next few years Honda, Subaru, and Nissan plan on bringing diesels to the US. These will be larger luxury cars that will achieve sub-compact mpg. Most people, truly, will be looking for better fuel mileage as more important than emissions since fuel prices will be going up. They don't want to and do not need to drive clown sized vehicles to get better fuel mileage. My TDI averages 43mpg the same model gas version goes 270 miles less (25 mpg average) on the same size tank. Simply put, I don't visit the gas station as much.
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Curt 7:32AM (3/12/2008)
The Prius was subsidized by Toyota for several years.
If VW wants to lead and dominate this market segment, they will have to do the same.
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Duodenum 11:19AM (3/12/2008)
Come on, it's not just about the money, folks! What about using less fuel? Since it uses a diesel, it could even be converted for biodiesel usage. It's about having less of an impact on the environment. My GTI gets 28MPG or so. This car would get double that, or better. Half the fuel usage? Sign me up!
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MarcT 12:11PM (3/12/2008)
People see the 69 mpg and 89 g/km CO2 and lose all sense of reality.
The numbers themselves are only mfr estimates. Euro mfrs seem to base their CO2 numbers directly on mpg, the EPA rates greenhouse gase emissions on a much more realistic scale, taking into account the extra greenhouse gases emitted in the production of diesel fuel.
Of course, all this technology will be too expensive for such a small car. The diesel adds a couple thousand over a gasoline engine; the hybrid system- conservatively, $3000; T2B5 compliance, another couple thousand and a decrease of efficiency (drop that 69 a couple points, raise that CO2 a couple).
Now what about performance, a small diesel powering a car with all this heavy techology, slow.
So take a 16000 econobox rabbit and add $7000 worth of technology, make it slower, good luck. Yes Prius drivers tend to not be price sensitive, but that is because they are getting their technology wrapped in a large, practical, feature-laden product, not a Rabbit.
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wxman 1:47PM (3/12/2008)
@ MarcT -
Where did you get the idea that production of diesel fuel produces more greenhouse gases than production of gasoline? It's my understanding that it's the other way around, if anything.
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JamesM 2:02PM (3/12/2008)
If someone can tell me of a VW dealership that would accept a refundable deposit (refundable if they never come to the states) i'll go plunk my cash down now and wait.
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edgrau 2:06PM (3/12/2008)
I own an older diesel and this always bugs me. I cannot think of many people who go 600 miles on a tank. Gas hybrid quoted fuel efficiency is always the best case scenario and tends to only be realized when you are driving down hill with the wind towards a magnet factory. I think the editors of consumer choice magazine own Toyota shares.
Diesel engines have been given an unfair wrap. Bluetec diesel engines have been approved for the U.S. and are just lower emission versions of decades old diesel engines. Besides, under the former emission standards, a diesel emits similar if not less pollutants per mile than gas. With the new technology and low sulfer fuel, the emission ratio is dropping.
Mercedes has diesel sedans here, VW is working on re-introducing a normal Diesel powerplant, and Audi and BMW are bringing diesel versions to the U.S..
I agree that the car company has to subsidize in order to break the market. Spreading the cost over more volume brings the unique cost of a diesel engine down to the price of the raw materials. It is still the same approximate amount of material just designed differently.
As for the cost of Diesel, it is the same. The price would drop if refineries would allocate more production to Diesel. Moreso, biodiesel costs are dropping to the current price of refined crude so the US could grow its own biofuels (and reduce the GDP drain of importing crude).
I want to see the US car companies embrace fuel efficiency for once. I wrote to Ford asking them if they were going to follow the Mercedes/VW/BMW/Audi trend and offer some of their european diesel engines in their US car models (like an Edge diesel). They answered that their considerable consumer research drives their products and they do not have intentions of bringing European cars to the U.S. What?!! Did you even read the question?!
I am looking forward to GM's efforts on ethanol and flex fuel platforms but they are lagging too.
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MarcT 3:13PM (3/12/2008)
wxman...
Diesel fuel has higher carbon content, resulting in 17 percent more CO2 per gallon of fuel burned than gasoline. With the diesel’s efficiency superiority down to 25 percent, a “clean” diesel emits only 13 percent less CO2 than yesterday’s gas engine.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/editorials/the-truth-about-diesels-2/
also, this from the EPA does a good job of explaining why just looking at CO2 based on mpg is not the full picture.
http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Aboutratings.do#aboutairpollution
Basically if you look at EPA scores for greenhoue gas emissions (inlcuding of course CO2), diesels do not get much higher greenhouse scores, despite their higher mpg. For instance if you compare the ML320CDI to the ML350 (pretty close vehicles) you would assume that the CO2 would be markedly better in the diesel because of its higher mpg, in fact it scores only 1 point higher.
hope that clears it up.
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MarcT 3:19PM (3/12/2008)
edgrau...
The current MB E320 Bluetec does not even meet T2B5 federal standards (it is Bin 8). The technology necessary to meet US requirements is out there, but it is prohibitively expensive, hence the point of this article.
Additionally diesel fuel is regularly 30-50 cents higher than gasoline. This will only worsen, not get better, if demand increases by a huge influx of diesels. Biofuels will never make up enough of a portion of the fuel needed for our vehicles to result in any price or supply changes.
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JP Hedin aka DrSmart 12:25AM (3/13/2008)
I used to regularly get 50 mpg cruising at 80 mph with my Rabbit & Jetta diesels in the 80's. Nobody has mentioned the longevity of a properly maintained diesel or the minimal fuel usage at idle and the start/stop characteristics of a diesel. The Audi A2 was an example of a high tech diesel car. I believe that 100 mpg is possible in a 120" long 4- passenger diesel hybrid. Remember that the new Toyota IQ gets better gas mileage than a Prius without the complexity of a hybrid system.
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