2010 TDI Golf one of five finalists for 2010 green car of the year

[That Guy]

Maybe we should agree to disagree. Both vehicle types aren't perfect...they both have good and bad points.

The silver lining here is that there is a lot of interest, effort, and research being done to look into alternatives. With so many different directions being taken, eventually someone will stumble onto some great discovery...a cheap, clean, safe, efficient, power source that the world can use.

I don't agree with where some of that effort is being placed...but that's just my opinion.

My bet right now would be on the algae, fungus, or something similar...as other than figuring out how to grow and process mass quantities of it little else needs to be done. Seems realistic and doable. If that happens diesels will be "it" for a long long time.

 

[domboy]

The Jetta TDI got 2009 Green car of the year.. which means it BEAT the Prius last year.

Actually, I don't think the Prius was in the running last year... the new Prius is a 2010 model. Just like the Jetta TDI isn't in on the list this year... but the Golf TDI and Audi TDI are... new models. I wonder if that's why the Mercury is on the list and not the Ford Fusion... perhaps it was on the list last year. I'd have to go look it up...

Edit:
Yup, 2009's top five were: BMW 335d, Ford Fusion Hybridhttp://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-jetta-clean-diesel-wins-2009-green-car-year.php#, Saturn Vue 2 Mode Hybrid, Jetta TDI, and smart fortwo:
http://www.greencar.com/articles/green-cars-top-5-2009.php

So for a TDI to win this year would be a really big deal... it would have to beat the King of Greenness (Prius), plus a Honda Hybrid as well. If it can do that, wow. Honestly I expect the Prius to win...

 

[JoeV]

If the sierra club is voting I'll make sure to put the winner on the 'not to buy' list. Can't think of a group who has done more to destroy 'real world' efforts towards environmental conservation... Well, maybe the EPA.

Amen brother.

 

[ARDailey]

This Green Car Of The Year does not appear to be an objective measure of "Green-ness" I'll take the 40+ MPG as a step towards reducing my consumption of resources. I'm no tree hugger, just an everyday guy who wants to reduce expenses and get to work in a safe reliable vehicle. I reckon if I take care of this car, my now 5 year old will be driving it to his prom.

 

[TornadoRed]

I reckon if I take care of this car, my now 5 year old will be driving it to his prom.

You think that way now. But when the time comes for your little boy to go to the prom, you will make him take the wife's car because you will not trust him with your TDI.

 

[TDIJetta99]

..... Man cars in the late 80's got 40-50 mpg easy. Oh well.

ok I'll bite... what could we buy here in the USA in the late 80's that easily got 40-50mpg and wasn't the most uncomfortable, almost undriveable car on the road? I remember the CRX-hf which was a 2-seater, and couldn't get out of its own way.. golf/jetta diesels, which were ok to drive, but PITIFULLY slow, almost unsafe to merge on the highway with.. A dihatsu charade maybe, I won't even begin to describe what a fantastic POS that was.. The Hyundai excel could barely get 40mpg on a good day, maybe 40 with a tailwind and NO cargo.. Isuzu i-mark? umm... no.. A 2wd subaru justy, I dunno did they get over 40mpg? never really drove one..

Am I missing any eco-cars from the 80's that you could buy over here?

 

[-Adonis-]

What about a Geo Metro? That also couldn't get out of its own way but I still see a few around today...

I won't be surprised if the Prius wins, I'll just be disappointed by the measure of "greenness" this contest shows.

Guess it doesnt matter that diesel put out fewer VOC's and HC's than gassers... What does CA have too much of again? O right, VOC's and HC's.

 

[TDIJetta99]

I forgot about the Metro, which first appeared in 1989.. I've driven a bunch of those and they moved along OK if you were the only one in the car and it was a 2-door with no a/c and a 5-speed... I still see those around too.. there was the ford festiva too but it was in the 90's and got crappy mileage for such a tiny car..

 

[rotarykid]

the Nissan 210 , 310 & Sentra , the VW/Audi Jetta , Rabbit & Caddy Ds & 4000 D & TD Quantum TDs , Toyota Corolla , Honda Civic , ect......of what is sold everywhere else but here ...............

And a whole list of cars not sold here due to lifting of CAFE regs in 1985 MY . Many cars like the 1.3 L like the late 80s early 90s New Zealand spec Corolla , the 1.5 L Australian spec Corolla had no trouble hitting the mid 40s mpgUS . I have thousands of miles of clocking behind the wheel of both to back these numbers up .

I'm 6' 1" and have never had any trouble driving or fitting into Corolla , Celica , A1 Golf or anything similar . In fact in a house of 4 growing up in the 70s we had no trouble fitting into smaller cars .

Only spoiled by cheap oil american arrogance would assume we have had all the options available over the last 25 years . Only spoiled American's think that one needs a Hummer or similar to carry the family around in . Our lack of an energy policy for most of the last 25 years has blocked much of what was sold around the world from being sold in the US leaving this erroneous assumption . Much of the bloated oversized crap that has been sold here in the US was sold here and only here as it was too wasteful energy wise .

Worldwide average CAFE crossed the 40 mpgUS barrier in the early 90s . When we ended CAFE in the US in 1985 we had a real world CAFE in the mid 30s . By the end of CAFE in the 86 MY we had dropped into the low to mid 20s . That is in less than ONE ModelYear year we dropped close to 10 mpgs in new car CAFE . That real world number had dropped as low as the low 10s a few years back before prices rose up above the $100 a barrel mark last year .

40s to 50s mpgUS has been easily achievable in almost any size , any useful size that is of light duty transport for close to 25 years at this point .

 

[TDIJetta99]

40s to 50s mpgUS has been easily achievable in almost any size , any useful size that is of light duty transport for close to 25 years at this point .

I'm talking about what you could buy HERE in the US.. most of the cars you mention either couldn't be bought here or the versions we got here didn't get that kind of mileage.. Not even close in most instances.. The sentra was close if you drove it right, so was the civic, but most of the gassers were in the mid 30's when driven "normally"

 

[GTIDan]

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it.Unsubstantiated speculation.Fine. But there is a ton of filthy pollution from the refining of the extra fuel that regular cars burn twice as much of compared to a Prius, plus all the extra exhaust.

OK.............want more information on the Prius? Check out this video. A Prius is a lot like Corona beer. Neither is a particularly good product but rather made successful by great marketing. Thirty years ago I use to go to Mexico two three times a year. Nobody drank Corona it was considered Pxss. We drank Corona barrels..........a great beer no longer made. I've driven too many Prius to count (work part time at a detail shop) and they have to be the most boring car in the world to drive.............and what's with that stupid dash display of gears and batteries and lines going between them? Good way to drive into a tree looking at it. In the end I just don't get it I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk

 

[mareprops]

Thanks GTIDan I was going to post the video myself but people seem to get stuck on ideas and not facts, thought it would be pointless. Technology revolves around patents. As long as the wrong hands buy them they are worthless. I have read a few articles we the inventors sell the patent and are devastated by the out come of it. The inventor usually has no money to produce the idea so they sell it to a company promising to produce it. Yeah right. From my life experience simple is better. They even invented a 36hr computer battery like 6 months ago where is that. TDIJetta99 the point I was trying to get across is cars existed that got 40+mpg almost 30 years ago. Are you really telling me we can't take those sub-compact and improve them. Come on a yaris is a sub-compact and get 35 combined ***! 30 years technology + sub-compact= 35mpg? Doesn't add up. We should all expect more from the automotive industry.

 

[DPM]

"Come on a yaris is a sub-compact and get 35 combined ***! 30 years technology + sub-compact= 35mpg? Doesn't add up. We should all expect more from the automotive industry."

It's not the industry's fault that the consumer expects a car in this class to come with a massive underutilised engine. A 1.5 in a base-model supermini? Pointless.

 

[rotarykid]

Americans are down right dumb when it comes to their misconceived idea of everything must go 0-60 in less than 8 secs or it's not acceptable .

In the early 90s I had no trouble running 120-130 in a 5spd man 1.3 L gas Corolla all over NZ . And I had not a bit of trouble running 130-150 km/hr across Australia in a 1.5 L 5 spd man equipped mid 90s Corolla . All this while never achieving below 40 mpgUS and I tracked every drop of petrol I used to get reimbursed .

And today in Colorado I have no trouble at all living with my 91 Jetta D that on it's best day has maybe 25 hp / 35-40 lb-ft on roads that I regularly hit speeds just shy of 80 mph . And that is while returning low to mid 40s tank after tank . And I might add my 91 Jetta D uses tech that was engineered and first built in the late 70s .....................

Every time I hear a tv commercial touting 30 mpg highway as being so great I want to throw up . And my girlfriends are getting tired of me saying are we really that stupid in the US to believe 30 mpg highway is good , come on we can't all be that cluelessly ignorant ..................can we ??????

Just because we are too stupid not to demand these cars doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't full of them . ............We can't hit a sustained $5 a gal soon enough it seems . Because only then will we get it that our roads here are full of oil wasting for no technical reason junk .

 

[rotarykid]

The Prius along with most other hybrids today are far too expensive for what they return compared what a small displacement gas engine coupled to a man tran car can return @ as little as 1/5 the cost . My 1994 1.3 L 5 spd man Corolla wagon I had in NZ was large enough to carry anything I ever needed to move . 0-100 times in the mid to high 10s were plenty fast for anywhere I needed to drive , max posted limit was 100 at the time . All while hitting low to mid 40s mpgUS tank after tank .

Does every car on the road here in the US really need a 2.4 or bigger 4 or 3.0+ 6 gas engine to just drive around ?????????????????????????????????????

I think not and if we had $5+ a gal for any length of time we would suddenly see this ...........

Most in the US could easily live just fine with a 5-6 spd man 1.3 to 1.8 L 4 gas & diesel powered in a Yaris to Camry ( Polo to Passat ) size car in everyday driving returning mid 40s mpgUS in everyday driving . And more than a few in the US would have no trouble living with a 5-6 spd man 1.0-1-2 L 4 in cars in the lower end range of that size car returning high 40s to low 50s mpgUS . If we had these readily available in the rest of the world options this discussion would be mute .

 

[That Guy]

Our 79 diesel Rabbit was really peppy. I had a lot of fun with that car.

I was a kid back then so I didn't really care about mileage....but my father claimed to have gotten about 60 mpg. We lived outside of town so that was almost 100% highway driving.

And I have to admit that I still crave the power....I'm just finishing some tweaks after doing some upgrades to my 01 TDI. But even if I drive like an idiot I will still get good fuel mileage. Though I'll be driving normally for the most part.

It irritates me when I see one person driving a huge vehicle (Hummer, other large truck or SUV) to just run errands around town or drive to and from work. I mean ***...is that really necessary? (It's also irritating when you have to wait for one of them to try and park their behemoth.)

Not to mention the safety factor...for other people. Some of them have bumpers that are well above the height of ours....doesn't bode well for any kind of collision with one of these.

 

[TDIJetta99]

Mareprops.. I see what you're saying.. there's no reason for the Yaris to only get 35mpg, heck we got 32mpg with a 93 crown vic on a nice road trip, and that car was a land yacht with 200k on it..

It doesn't make sense to me that a 500HP corvette Z06 gets 30mpg on the highway while a car with 1/4 the HP and 1/2 the size only gets 5mpg more..

Personally I wish we COULD get even half of the selection of cars here that you see around the globe.. SUV's and trucks have their purpose, but most of the people who own them really don't need them..

Some people just like pickup trucks. Period. It doesn't make someone stupid for preferring to drive a truck. My mom won't drive anything but a full size pickup. That's her choice. She doesn't commute anywhere really.. She maybe does 75 miles/week... When she was commuting 600 miles/week she still drove the pickup.. She'd rather spend the extra $$ on fuel rather than drive a small car.. Actually she would rather change jobs or move closer to work..

 

[TDIMeister]

We're coming to the point now that the spectrum of technology exists to bend the fuel economy trend with respect to vehicle size and weight. Problem is, these technologies cost money, and therefore will tend to find implementation in more expensive, larger and fundamentally thirstier vehicles that stand to gain more and are better priced to recoup the additional cost to the OEM. It is not at all surprising that a Mercedes E-Class Blue Efficiency can get over 40 MPG and a relative tin can of a car struggle to get 30.

 

[rotarykid]

"Some people just like pickup trucks. Period. It doesn't make someone stupid for preferring to drive a truck. My mom won't drive anything but a full size pickup. That's her choice. She doesn't commute anywhere really.. She maybe does 75 miles/week... When she was commuting 600 miles/week she still drove the pickup.. She'd rather spend the extra $$ on fuel rather than drive a small car.. Actually she would rather change jobs or move closer to work.."

If someone wants to drive one of these uselessly wasteful vehicles like a car the full effect of the GGT should apply . And if gas was expensive enough here only an idiot would ever consider driving one of these silly things like a car . Most of the truck fleet today , SUVs included are exempt from the $5k-$10k+ GGT that would apply to any car that was that wasteful .

 

[Diesel_Mikey]

"Come on a yaris is a sub-compact and get 35 combined ***! 30 years technology + sub-compact= 35mpg? Doesn't add up. We should all expect more from the automotive industry."

It's not the industry's fault that the consumer expects a car in this class to come with a massive underutilised engine. A 1.5 in a base-model supermini? Pointless.

Sad but true. We're still stuck on this "no replacement for displacement" stupidity, even in circles that are fairly knowledgeable about automotive technology. Anyone who thinks 1.5 liters isn't enough displacement should recall that in the 1980s F1 was dominated by 1.5L turbo power plants, which could crank out over 1100hp. Obviously that doesn't quite translate to the road, since the amount of boost necessary to accomplish that made the cars nearly undriveable even by professionals, and they only made quite that much power in qualifying trim because they wouldn't even be able to make it through a 2-hour race with that much boost. But it does go to show how meaningless engine capacity is as a measure of, well, anything.

Unfortunately, we have a very backward concept of these things as a society. Perhaps it's because the only uniquely American type of car has been the muscle car, and so we're still in love with that concept. Whatever it is, most people don't consider what they actually need, just what sounds most impressive on paper. Hence the gratuitous 5th cylinder that's attached itself to the base gasser versions of the Golf and Jetta for North America: 2.5L/5 cylinders sounds better to the unenlightened buyer than 2.0L/4 cylinders, I guess, but the main thing it does is wreck the fuel economy without helping the performance all that much.

 

[atc98002]

Sad but true. We're still stuck on this "no replacement for displacement" stupidity, even in circles that are fairly knowledgeable about automotive technology. Anyone who thinks 1.5 liters isn't enough displacement should recall that in the 1980s F1 was dominated by 1.5L turbo power plants, which could crank out over 1100hp. Obviously that doesn't quite translate to the road, since the amount of boost necessary to accomplish that made the cars nearly undriveable even by professionals, and they only made quite that much power in qualifying trim because they wouldn't even be able to make it through a 2-hour race with that much boost. But it does go to show how meaningless engine capacity is as a measure of, well, anything.

Unfortunately, we have a very backward concept of these things as a society. Perhaps it's because the only uniquely American type of car has been the muscle car, and so we're still in love with that concept. Whatever it is, most people don't consider what they actually need, just what sounds most impressive on paper. Hence the gratuitous 5th cylinder that's attached itself to the base gasser versions of the Golf and Jetta for North America: 2.5L/5 cylinders sounds better to the unenlightened buyer than 2.0L/4 cylinders, I guess, but the main thing it does is wreck the fuel economy without helping the performance all that much.

Well spoken, Mikey. However, I will point out the 2.5 five cylinder in my Jetta is a VAST improvement over the old 2.slow. Did it need a 5th hole to make the improvement? I seriously doubt it. I do miss my old 1.8T, but I'd prefer something in a diesel. I hope VW follows through with their statement that their entire line will have a diesel option within the next few years. Then it'd be a new CC for me!

 

[German_1er_diesel]

there's no reason for the Yaris to only get 35mpg

One simple reason: The American market Yaris has a 1.5L engine. The rest of the world's base Yaris has a 1.0L engine, with an optional 1.3 gasser or 1.4 diesel. There is no slushbox available for the Yaris in Europe, only an automated manual.

 

[That Guy]

Here's a question:

I'd really like to know why we in North America are so limited in our choices for vehicles...and the options that come with the vehicles too.

It seems like almost anywhere else on the planet...especially Europe...there are tons of choices and flexibility.

When you consider that some of the vehicles that we buy are built in those other countries and not locally...well...why can't we be given the same options? What is holding us back? What makes NA so different than anywhere else?

I was seriously considering importing a diesel Scirocco when we were looking for a new car for my wife early this year. But it was turning into such a PITA that we ended up looking locally. We would have preferred another diesel...but the choices are limited. In the end she chose a GTI.

 

[wolfskin]

Simply put, because the US gov't has put up myriad roadblocks to imports, with the justification of protecting the domestic auto industry (lot of good that accomplished...).
It costs a whole lot to import a model into the US, and the more variants you want the more it costs.

And one more thing: Americans on average are still not willing to pay for efficiency in a car. They(you)'re willing to pay for power, for luxury, for brand, even for (perceived) safety, but not for technologies and compromises that make a car efficient. It may not look like that when you look around this discussion forum (duh...) but the sales statistics still show that.

 

[V10TDI]

I remember the CRX-hf which was a 2-seater, and couldn't get out of its own way..

You likely didn't own one because it wasn't that slow as a 5 spd. Too many people talk crap about things they have only read about and I really don't find it useful.

I bought a new hf in 88 and often found 50mpg. On the other end of things I also lost my license twice by driving too fast on the interstate, in fact I got 5 or so tickets in 1 year (silly youth). It was not nearly as slow as you try to state here as fact but rather it was actually quite quick if driven properly.

 

[donDavide]

I forgot about the Metro, which first appeared in 1989.. I've driven a bunch of those and they moved along OK if you were the only one in the car and it was a 2-door with no a/c and a 5-speed... I still see those around too.. there was the ford festiva too but it was in the 90's and got crappy mileage for such a tiny car..

It was a Chevy Sprint before it became a Geo Metro. (even smaller that metro but you could get a turbo w/3 cylinder)

 

[frugality]

..there was the ford festiva too but it was in the 90's and got crappy mileage for such a tiny car..

It was also in the '80's. I had an '88. Got a good 45mpg -- I don't consider that to be crappy mileage. It was a great car in many respects. Mechanically it was very reliable, though the bodies got all dented if you leaned up against them. And without sound deadening material, they were noisy cars. But they kept goin'. They actually did surprisingly well in the snow, too. The little 12" tires were skinny, so they bit down through the snow.

 

[GTIDan]

It is 'Green Car of the Year" My dealer has signs all over the place with that information.....

 

[Mishka1012]

lol duh, mine is green

Did somebody say green?!? I know its too late for this stuff but enjoy:

 

[donDavide]

Me like!