The '09 Jetta due this summer apparently gets 60mpg highway with a TDI making 138hp and 236 lb-ft. That's a big deal...the gas mileage of a hybrid without the batteries and weight. And it's probably faster than a prius (and definitely looks better than one).

Also the price beats a Prius if the article is right. Coming in a hair under $20,000.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/04/coming-soon-to.html

 

That is really nice, the only problem now is that diesel (at least in my area) is well over $4 a gallon now (I've seen it for as much as 4.50). Regular is hovering around 3.60. Seems we're right back at the "hybrid cost up front vs. traditional powertrain cost down the road" comparison.

 

That does suck that diesel is so expensive now, but I wonder what the gas mileage is of other cars in that price range that run on unleaded gasoline. It's possible that you would still come out ahead even with diesel considering that the gas mileage is so high on that VW.

 

87 octane is $3.45 here. Diesel is $4.29. That brings the advantage down to 48mpg.

Now, let's amortize the $2000 price premium over a 7-year period (let's call that the typical ownership length). That's $285/year that I'd have to spend on gas, which would buy me 82 gallons.

Let's assume an all-highway scenario for the year, and use the 60mpg highway. That's 250gal a year, or $1072.50 in fuel.
Let's assume the "plain ole" Jetta gets 35mpg highway. That's 428gal/year- 82gal/year in the additional cost = 346gal or $1193/year.

So, when it's all said and done, you'll save $10/month at current rates by going with the diesel. That's assuming the diesel will actually hit 60mpg, and the gas version will only hit 35mpg.

Did I do that right?

That's impressive nonetheless. It's too bad the diesel refiners have found another opportunity to grab at our wallets.

 

I truely believe that we're going to move to a point where diesels will become the answer over hybrids or alternate fuels. Diesel fuel contains the highest amount of energy, diesel engines produce high levels of torque despite modest horsepower, and achieves high fuel economy.

I suspect it's going to be easier and cheaper to adjust fuel production to produce more diesel (either voluntarily or with mandates) and to play with fuel tax rates or tax breaks to favor diesels over gasoline powered vehicles than it's going to be to set up manufacturing and distribution of E85, Ethonol, or set up a network of natural gas stations or even engineer electric cars that equal the cruising range of today's gas powered vehicles.


But what also needs to be understood is that the purpose of CAFE is to reduce our oil usage, NOT to save you money.

"Estimating down" fuel economy by adjusting for the price difference of diesel is useful only for your pocketbook. A vehicle that gets 60 mpg doesn't care if diesel is $4 per gallon or $400 per gallon. The point is that you use less fuel going from point "A" to point "B", which means less need for oil.

 

HAHAHAH! Have you people never heard me say that oil usage will not drop, but rather be steady or increase due to the cheapness of the fuel since it goes 2x as fars as it used to.

 

Why did diesel used to be much closer in price to regular 87 octane gas and why is it now ~10% more expensive than premium gas?

60 mpg sounds great... even with a 20% premium over 87. VW reliability doesn't sound great, though.

Honda has a diesel coming out in the Accord fairly soon - maybe they also plan to put it in the Civic?

GM have any small car diesel plans anytime soon?

 

Wait a minute. I just used the anti-hybrid argument, but it's not allowed for diesels??

 

Diesel is getting more scarce; simple supply and demand. Refineries can be built many different ways, and how they are built will determine how much Diesel and gasoline are produced from a barrel of oil. North American refineries have typically maximized gasoline production, while European refineries have maximized Diesel production. In recent years European's new vehicle mix has been over 50% Diesel, straining even their Diesel-biased capacity, such that Europe now has a relative surplus of gasoline and has been exporting it to NA. Meanwhile NA's Diesel demand has not fallen off like its gasoline demand (trucks and trains have to run regardless of the price of fuel) so Diesel has been in short supply coming out of our refineries too. Thus overall, Diesel is becoming scarce and prices have risen accordingly.

 

Its actually supply and demand. If more vehicles required diesel fuel, production would have to be increased and the price would come down accordingly. IMHO biodiesel is the answer. It is far easier and cheaper to make biodiesel over ethanol. In my area today diesel is $4.39 /gal where biodiesel is $4.59 /gal. However biodiesel is far scarcer and harder to come by. Increase biodiesel production and again the prices would drop accordingly.

I'm hoping manufacturers catch on sooner than later.

 

It's actually not that simple. Once a refinery is built, it's not easy to make significant changes in the relative output of the various types of fuel. NA refineries simply cannot make much more Diesel, and Europe is already maxed out. Thus we're not likely to see much relief on the supply side of Diesel.

edit: a better explanation from http://www.caranddriver.com/features...t_of_it_column

 

Where did the sudden North American diesel demand come from? We've not had a massive inrush of diesel vehicles onto the market. Sure, trucking miles are up incrementally, and I'm sure the clean diesel requirement had some to do with it, but a 25% additional increase beyond what gas has done makes no sense.

I cannot help but feel that the market price is being manipulated.

 

Obviously we'd need to build more refineries or expand existing ones. The same holds true if we are going to switch to ethanol, hydrogen, etc. You need to build the infrastructure to support the changes in the vehicles. So technically, it is that simple, it just requires huge start-up costs.

 

I think ford ecoboost will get near diesel economy and power w/o diesel. The combo of both direct injection and turbocharging seems to be a worthy contender

 

Couple things, is more oil based than gas, when oil goes up diesel is more likely to follow suite, supply issues are also starting to pop-up as mentioned.

None of us knows what gas or diesel will cost in the future so guesstimating costs over 7 years is hopeless. Its a dice roll.

There are also alot of varibles like miles driven. Where did you get the 35 mpg figure for the gas jetta? Two coworkers both own 5 cylinder autos and neither has gotten more than 30 mpg highway. In real world metro usage one averages 23 mpg and the other 25mpg. I do think the diesel can do alot better in town like double the gas mpgs, the diesel usage in heavy traffic like idleing is very low like 1/3 as much fuel. On the highway it can also double mpgs over the gas version. At todays prices the diesels return could be pretty good in real world driving. And fuel prices very signifigantly by locale, I pay $3.60 for gas and $4 for diesel here. I drive about 30,000 highway miles a year. My savings would be $1500 a year at todays prices. If the TDI is a $2000 option my payback is in 16 months. If I drove 10000 miles a year my payback would be four years.

So what are the odds that one of us will be able to go to the local VW dealership and pick-up a tdi for under $20,000. My personal experience with a local dealer was that they wanted $27 or 29K for the last two tdi's they had in stock. That makes it pull even with the prius in cost

Biodiesel is a great answer, when I worked for USPS I was putting B20 in my mail truck, great stuff. Grown in the the USA, refined in the USA, blended in the USA and the money spent is kept in the USA. And it burned clean. I was told regular diesel is about 60% foreign oil 40% domestic, replacing that 20% with US product is great. I really wish the farm lobby pushed for biodiesel as much as the did for E85, Wall street and the consumer have figured out that E85 is a bad product, atleast in todays flexfuel vehicles. I just saw on CNBC that corn ethanol subsidies will be lowered and Cellouse subsidies will be on the table per the new farm bill.

BTW the average 1st owner time with a new car is 3.xx years.

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