Volkswagen exec reaffirms commitment to diesel: ‘Now it is absolutely clean’

Tdijarhead

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Settle down, moneybags, I was talking about an eGolf, not your precious Tesla. :rolleyes: We all know thanks to you Teslas are perfect and we should all be so lucky as to afford one like you. Thread crapping again. Some of us LIKE our diesels, and this thread was a glimpse of hope for us. Thanks again for smearing your zealot feelings on it. I will think of you today as I put three more old cars back into service.

Thank you oilhammer, well said. I put that guy on my ignore list so I can’t see his posts I could care less what he says about his wonderful Tesla. This is a DIESEL forum last time I looked.
 

turbobrick240

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nwdiver

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Settle down, moneybags, I was talking about an eGolf, not your precious Tesla. :rolleyes: We all know thanks to you Teslas are perfect and we should all be so lucky as to afford one like you.
Apologies... Sometimes forget facts are offensive these days.

On side note a new Tesla Model 3 is ~roughly the same price as an eGolf depending on options.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Apologies... Sometimes forget facts are offensive these days.

On side note a new Tesla Model 3 is ~roughly the same price as an eGolf depending on options.

I am not offended by the fact that my daily driver cost me a grand total of $6k and has covered nearly 190k miles. It is what I can afford. And, it is what I LIKE. If you'd like to buy me a Tesla, even a "cheap one", and line my house' roof with solar panels, I would gladly drive it every day. Well, maybe. I may not like it.

Not all of us are as fortunate as you clearly are. Some of us peons just have to get by with our little diesels. Oh, the horror.... :eek:
 
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nwdiver

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I am not offended by the fact that my daily driver cost me a grand total of $6k and has covered nearly 190k miles. It is what I can afford. And, it is what I LIKE. If you'd like to buy me a Tesla, even a "cheap one", and line my house' roof with solar panels, I would gladly drive it every day. Well, maybe. I may not like it.
I'm simply correcting misinformation and providing options that many people just are not aware of. For example: For $6k you can get a used LEAF to use as a daily driver which even with the POS battery Nissan put in the LEAF should function as a commuter for most people past 200k miles. Additionally if you shop around a bit and DIY you can get enough solar to provide 100% of the energy and then some for <$3k ($2100 after the FTC). I recently helped our electrician put together a 4.5kW system that will generate ~9,000kWh/yr (>25k miles/yr) for ~$3k.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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There are just too many to list....
How about you just start with buying my new HVAC system? Where do I send the estimate? Can you fart out some extra cash to pay for the new transaxle my lawn mower needs? Or should I just have you buy me a new one? One that runs on unicorn tears and orphan farts. Or perhaps I should just get a goat? I have a disabled child... well, young man (although he is only 80 pounds, but he just turned 20) living at home with me. My wife quit her job to take care of him full time. Can you provide a home health care professional to deal with him so my wife can go back to work? He is wheelchair bound, and needs multiple doctor visits every month. Can you provide an electric powered wheelchair lift capable van, since clearly my Sprinter that only gets 27 MPG is not good enough... Oh, and while you are digging into your cash cow (oh, wait, you probably think cows are evil too, you know, bovine farts and all... you have a cash tree... silly me) can you see if you can recover my driveway? Well, heck, just buy me a house closer to work. That'll be easier. In fact, build me a new one. All "green" and such. Make it out of recycled toenail clippings and discarded Starbuck's cups. Just so long as the walls can support that nest of solar panels you are providing to power it with. And a rain collection system. Don't want any public water, that's probably bad too, right? Your kind likely doesn't poop, but I do, so I'll need something to deal with that. I have a septic system now, but I am sure that is probably bad too. Poop in a bucket and throw it in a flower garden? Are flowers ok? Speaking of work, I'm sure you'd like it if I had no work. Which would suck, because I actually LIKE what I do, but I am sure you do not. So you'd have to provide me a stipend. Not much. You know us dumb people can get by eating hot dogs (er, wait, vegan-dogs, heck, if you are paying, I'll eat your hippie food ;) ) and mac'n'cheese.

On second thought, nah, don't do any of that. I'll keep on keepin' on just fine, thanks. But one thing I will NOT do, is go on some EV forums and threadcrap there. I have no desire to do that. I would love it if others would do the same. This IS a TDI site (says so at the top of the page). And this thread was about diesels. :p
 

casioqv

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I'm sad to see so much hatred of EVs and EV owners on here, I love the e-Golf for the same reasons at the TDI - it's efficient, reliable, and fun to drive with tons of torque and the range really isn't the problem I was worried it would be. So far my cost of ownership for a '16 e-Golf has been slightly cheaper than my 2001 Golf TDI, with a lease costing about $5k total, plus a $10k buyout option I might take. $15k for a brand new car that doesn't need any fuel or most ICE related maintenance expenses.

We were sorta forced into it when short on money, because the 01m in our TDI failed, and my wife felt unsafe trying to learn to drive it as a manual swapped car with a newborn baby in the back. With the government incentives plus free charging at work, it proved way cheaper than trying to upgrade to an auto TDI new enough to not have another horrible 01m. The only thing cheaper would have been an old junker that couldn't safely attach a modern childs seat.
 
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Tdijarhead

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Tdijarhead

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2003 TDI Jetta Daughters Car, 2001 TDI Beetle, Wife’s car, 2005 Golf TDI Mine, all 5 spds
I'm sad to see so much hatred of EVs and EV owners on here, I love the e-Golf for the same reasons at the TDI - it's efficient, reliable, and fun to drive with tons of torque and the range really isn't the problem I was worried it would be.

I don’t know that there is hatred. Just impatience and annoyance with those who would worship at the feet of Muskie and think that he and they have all the answers for questions that many of us just don’t care about.

I think several people here drive an electric vehicle and this is America, last time I looked. You can drive any car you want and think any way you wish. The rub comes when someone wants to force me to validate their choices, I prefer diesel and this is a diesel forum.

If someone feels compelled to “crap post” about EV’s on a diesel forum expect to “inhale some diesel smoke.” (Get some blowback)
 

atc98002

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Auburn WA
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EVs have their supporters. So do diesels.
I happen to like and support both. I guess my "green" credentials have a shade of blue to them. :p

It's really not an either/or proposition. There are tasks that diesel is still by far the best choice, i.e. long distance and trucking. Tesla and Nikola can both make a lot of noise about their upcoming long haul trucks, but it will be years if not decades before they will be able to replace diesel.

EV is outstanding for local to moderate distance driving, say up to 200 miles. Go beyond that and you have to consider locating a working fast charge station, and then waiting to "fill it up". But have great low end power, with an EV being even better since full torque begins at zero RPM. Both are more economical than driving a comparable gas power vehicle.

EV is a much tougher call if you don't have a dedicated place to park that you can install an EVSE for charging. This includes apartment dwellers, or people with homes that don't have off-street parking. And as noted, new EVs aren't cheap. Also, some areas of the country have electric rates that make an EV far less economical.

When I had my Passat TDI, there was a nearby Shell station that was doubling my Kroger fuel discount, so I was getting diesel sometimes as low as 30-40 cents a gallon. My per mile cost to drive was around 3 cents. Once they stopped doing that, my per mile was still around 5-6 cents. Now with my PHEV, based on my Fuelly monitoring, my cost per mile for gas is about a penny. Adding my electrical use, I am no more that 4 cents per mile total. But electricity in Washington state is pretty low, and very little of it is coal generated. For other parts of the country, the cost to charge an EV could easily make the cost per mile between EV and diesel about the same, or even perhaps but diesel ahead.

Right now I'm locked into a three year lease, so I'm just a bystander at this time. I believe that by mid-2022 I can pick from a number of vehicles that offer the driving range I desire, the options I want, and a price I consider reasonable. My hope is that an EV will meet all my requirements. But if VW does return with a TDI, and they put it in something like the current Tiguan, or slightly smaller, I would seriously consider it as well.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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nwdiver, nice that you can afford a new electric car every few years and the six figure array of solar cells to charge them... I can't. Don't bother telling me about taxpayer subsidies, I don't think I've every earned enough in a year to take advantage of them, and now I'm retired. 200 Mile range? Sorry, I live 60 miles from the nearest charging station and one of my most frequent trips is 350 miles with the closet charging point 80 miles away. And that range drops to 100 miles in our cold winters and half that with a 10 year old battery. And did I mention I'm driving a 2003 TDI? When it was 8 years old I DIY'd the timing belt for less than $300, a new battery for even a Leaf would have been around $6000.


So nwdiver, save your 'lectric car scam for the big city folks who can afford to throw away a car every few years and can take Uber when the battery dies!
 

Matt-98AHU

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That's a pretty badass mower- for those days when you have got to mow the lawn and contract cancer in a hurry :eek: .
New Jalopnik article relating to dieselgate(probably go over like a lead balloon here :) ) :
https://jalopnik.com/the-big-diesel-lie-grows-while-the-trump-administration-1837177598
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/carmakers-and-eon-showcase-germanys-innovation-failure-opinion
Oh, you mean the article written by Jamie "It's called AdBlue because the fluid is blue in color" Kitman?

Yeah, I tore his arguments to shreds in the comments. See if you can guess who I am in the commentariat there.

So full of factual errors, just like 90% of the rest of the poorly informed "journalism" on the topic.

These guys are lawyers and writers, they don't have the faintest clue of the technical realities that are actually going on. It's a majorly skewed perspective compared to what I know from the amount of homework I've done on the topic, and I've done quite a lot because A) it's kind of important to my line of work, B) I'm just kind of intellectually curious like that. I don't take journalism on technical matters on face value because I've repeatedly seen how it gets butchered, especially when it's not all fluff about how amazing such and such high end car's interior is and coming up with ridiculous superlatives to describe it.

Most auto journalists are there to review what it's like to operate a car and be inside of it, most of them don't have the faintest clue how to diagnose, repair or even come close to fully understanding what it takes for all these insanely complicated systems to work as well as they do.

Once again, I'll remind you that the mighty Jamie Kitman, long time auto journalist who's been at it for decades, decided to write something somewhat tech-y, and within the first paragraphs of the article claimed Adblue is named such because that's its color.

That's all you need to know about how well he actually understands the tech at play here. He doesn't. At all. Not in the slightest.
 

turbobrick240

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Yeah, I saw more than a couple errors in that Jalopnik article. I thought it's illustrative of the current automotive environment in N. America though. Like it or not, I just can't picture VW bringing their diesels over here again. I guess we'll see.
 

Matt-98AHU

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Yeah, I saw more than a couple errors in that Jalopnik article. I thought it's illustrative of the current automotive environment in N. America though. Like it or not, I just can't picture VW bringing their diesels over here again. I guess we'll see.
Errors in Jalopnik articles are the norm. They're more clickbait than substance.

Just was surprising that one of the rare moments a decades-long established and "respected" automotive journalist (Kitman is Automobile Mag's "New York bureau chief" or something stupid) actually contributes to the clickbait trash that is Jalopnik for once, and he writes an article that only lives up to the low standards that site sets rather than something genuinely insightful and factual.

Someone actually responded to my initial long-winded post "I'd be careful, Jamie is a well-respected long time journalist."

To which I replied I don't give a crap. You write an article full of BS, I'm going to call it for what it is. I have zero care about one's supposed standing in the greater field if they're spewing lies. Zero. I care more about finding out what's true, not who just happens to be well respected by a majority.

Call a turd for what it is. If I don't make friends along the way in doing so, once again, don't care. I'm not here to play nice with supposed highly respected individuals and pretend that by serving them platitudes I might get something in return. F that.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Errors in Jalopnik articles are the norm. They're more clickbait than substance.
So true. Barely re-digested press releases, incomplete summaries of marketing events, plagiarized restatements of news stories...that is most of what you see in automotive web and blog articles. When I see links I rarely even bother to click through, because I know they're either incomplete, biased, or just plain wrong.

I've posted this before: If I needed a vehicle (and look at my sig, another vehicle is the last thing I need right how) I'd consider an EV for daily driving. A Chevy Bolt would get the job done for me. However, it's hard to justify spending $36K on a Bolt when my 17 year old Jetta Wagon does the job better, costs about $.07/mile for fuel, and is fun to drive. Insurance is cheap, excise tax is nothing, and it has a manual transmission, which I still prefer by far. It's most likely fully depreciated. Purchasing or leasing a new EV can't come close to that car's overall cost.
 
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turbocharged798

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I don’t know that there is hatred. Just impatience and annoyance with those who would worship at the feet of Muskie and think that he and they have all the answers for questions that many of us just don’t care about.

I think several people here drive an electric vehicle and this is America, last time I looked. You can drive any car you want and think any way you wish. The rub comes when someone wants to force me to validate their choices, I prefer diesel and this is a diesel forum.

If someone feels compelled to “crap post” about EV’s on a diesel forum expect to “inhale some diesel smoke.” (Get some blowback)
Bingo, this is TDIclub, not Teslaclub or EVclub. The site resources are to support the discussion of TDIs not EVs. A certain person above should have been banned off the site a long time ago but somehow keeps going wasting bandwidth. :rolleyes:


Yet another diesel discussion thread ruined by this EV shill.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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Nobody is doing that.



When 2003 TDI's were new, a new engine would have been $6000 too, but that didn't stop people from buying them.

And provided you change the timing belt etc. when called for, it's pretty unlikely you'll need to spend $6k for a new engine. With an electric car the battery life is around 10 years, you might get lucky and get 12 before you have to lay out $6k or more for a new battery. That's why the price of a used early Leaf is largely determined by it's remaining battery capacity.
 

turbobrick240

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I can see why nwdiver is somewhat of a lightning rod for unpleasant comments in this diesel forum, but we're better than that, right? We shouldn't fault the guy for acting on his convictions. Just ignore him if you don't like what he has to say. No need to be nasty about it.
 

vwxyzero

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I can see why nwdiver is somewhat of a lightning rod for unpleasant comments in this diesel forum, but we're better than that, right? We shouldn't fault the guy for acting on his convictions. Just ignore him if you don't like what he has to say. No need to be nasty about it.
This. I totally agree with you, but full disclosure I also drive an electric Fiat 500e daily and two of my TDI's are up on blocks.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
 

Matt-98AHU

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So true. Barely re-digested press releases, incomplete summaries of marketing events, plagiarized restatements of news stories...that is most of what you see in automotive web and blog articles. When I see links I rarely even bother to click through, because I know they're either incomplete, biased, or just plain wrong.

I've posted this before: If I needed a vehicle (and look at my sig, another vehicle is the last thing I need right how) I'd consider an EV for daily driving. A Chevy Bolt would get the job done for me. However, it's hard to justify spending $36K on a Bolt when my 17 year old Jetta Wagon does the job better, costs about $.07/mile for fuel, and is fun to drive. Insurance is cheap, excise tax is nothing, and it has a manual transmission, which I still prefer by far. It's most likely fully depreciated. Purchasing or leasing a new EV can't come close to that car's overall cost.
I've considered a Fiat 500e because they're so cheap on the used market, and according to VeeDubTDI, they did a good job of ticking the right boxes for longevity of an EV drivetrain. In particular proper thermal management of the batteries. Really good bang for the buck, just a very short range.

But the fact that I can't charge at home is making it a hard sell at the moment. Just not in that position right now.

But, I have driven a 500e and while on the highway it was a little underwhelming, around town it's a total riot. Go-kart like steering, plenty of torque to get up and go, park it anywhere, and my long torso actually fit comfortably enough, which is increasingly rare these days.

Instead, I'll keep on fixing up whatever random TDI people in the area give up on and are willing to let go for next to nothing and if the stable gets too large, sell one... or two. But that's also me, being that I can fix my own, I have a hard time justifying spending the money on something new and get hammered by the depreciation. I'm not in the majority with that one I'm sure.
 

jackbombay

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And provided you change the timing belt etc. when called for, it's pretty unlikely you'll need to spend $6k for a new engine.
With an electric car the battery life is around 10 years...
10 years? So people are driving 40k miles a year? See Casioqv's post below.

The Leaf is an electric car which seems to have battery life issues which seems to be why you have singled out the leaf as your example of electric cars, stacking the deck in your favor. A more broad look at EV battery life paints a different picture though. Also, as the technology matures battery life will only get better.

FWIW, I bought my 2003 TDI Jetta Wagon new, no plans to sell it, but I also think EV tech is really cool stuff and look forward to watching it evolve over the coming years. I'm sure at some point in my life I'll own an EV, but I don't need to buy one now as currently my vehicle needs are met.

So if EV batteries were used like cell phone batteries at full charge-discharge, they'd only last 40k miles, but I would expect around 400k life from an EV with proper software and/or an owner that carefully manages charge levels. That seems to be consistent with what high mileage modern EVs are reporting as shown in the post above (400k battery life). This would likely double again to ~800k mile life if you do only short trips in a small town and drop the full charge level via software to 75% of full capacity or so.
 

casioqv

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The Leaf is an electric car which seems to have battery life issues which seems to be why you have singled out the leaf as your example of electric cars, stacking the deck in your favor. A more broad look at EV battery life paints a different picture though. Also, as the technology matures battery life will only get better.

FWIW, I bought my 2003 TDI Jetta Wagon new, no plans to sell it, but I also think EV tech is really cool stuff and look forward to watching it evolve over the coming years. I'm sure at some point in my life I'll own an EV, but I don't need to buy one now as currently my vehicle needs are met.

Yea, the leaf seems to have thermal issues which kill the batteries. I'm surprised the e-Golf doesn't seem to, since they didn't include any battery cooling system. On the e-golf forum one guy tracked his battery degradation level and saw 2% capacity loss per year.


If you're still living in the mountains, that's a pretty rough environment for an EV... cold temps plus steep grades drastically reduce the range.
 

tikal

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2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
The cost of fuel to move our passenger vehicles is too low currently in the USA to make 'EVs show up in the radar' in the foreseeable future.

Ok so Tesla sells all the vehicles they make and so does GM/Ford/Toyota/etc. sell every huge (and not so huge) SUV/truck they make. So what? What conclusion are you reaching with this comparison? What is the point? Millions and millions and millions of vehicles that do routinely 20 MPG, ok sorry 15 MPG vs thousands and thousands of sedans (plus a few SUVs) that do above 100 MPG!

I am not sure I understand the logic of the poster (#8).
 

jackbombay

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Yea, the leaf seems to have thermal issues which kill the batteries. I'm surprised the e-Golf doesn't seem to, since they didn't include any battery cooling system. On the e-golf forum one guy tracked his battery degradation level and saw 2% capacity loss per year.
Thanks for the info!

The average lifespan of cars in the US 11.7 years and around 175k miles, so if the battery does "only" make it to 200,000 miles there's a good chance that is 25,000 miles longer than it needed to last.

If you're still living in the mountains, that's a pretty rough environment for an EV... cold temps plus steep grades drastically reduce the range.
Yea, still in the mountains, but I have a garage that is heated by a greenhouse, rarely goes below 40* in there. I'm totally happy with my TDI still, and by the time I do end up with an electric car I'll likely not be living here anymore.
 

El Dobro

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NJ
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If you're still living in the mountains, that's a pretty rough environment for an EV... cold temps plus steep grades drastically reduce the range.
Al least you're getting regen going down the mountain. :D
 

vwxyzero

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I've considered a Fiat 500e because they're so cheap on the used market, and according to VeeDubTDI, they did a good job of ticking the right boxes for longevity of an EV drivetrain. In particular proper thermal management of the batteries. Really good bang for the buck, just a very short range.
Spot on, I did a ton of research before buying mine used (lease return.) They learned from all the early electric Mini mistakes, and it's a great city car and that's all I need right now. I can run all over LA all day long and plug it in at home. Done. It's definitely not a road trip car, at least not yet.

A friend has one with Abarth wheels and tires, he looses and average distance of about 5 miles per charge, but the handling on the freeway is far superior to mine, so much so that I'm considering it when it's time for new tires.

I have no interest in converting anybody here, but with something like 16 States in the Union that have all adopted CARB standards auto dealers have to sell zero emission vehicles or they're out of the market in the states that comply.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
 
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