Geneva Preview: VW to unveil diesel-hybrid Golf with 69mpg

In before the anti-hybrid dieselista's start commenting. Oh wait, looks like both camps are right!

69mpg, yeah baby!

Both camps have always been right to a degree.

But the diesel thought it was incredibly short sighted from a ecological stand point to do just a gas hybrid.

Still shaking my head on that one.

No, Hybrids are STILL nothing more than green masturbation. VW's polo already achieves these mpg #'s and that is real world driving, not hopelessly inflated hybrid #'s.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/automotive_news/4219904.html

VW should focus less on bringing the Phaeton back to the US market and more on this car.

No, I want a Phaeton but at the price of a Passat.

Hybrid = High Cost
Diesel = High Cost
Gasoline would have to go above $4.80/gal for this combination to be cost effective.

You are right both are rather expensive however every knows that Toyota takes a huge hit with the pricing of the Prius. I don't know the exact numbers but I am thinking about 5-7 grand each car. VW doesn't have the bank to do anything like that but they can still make it affordable. If they spread this drive-train throughout their line up it would bring down cost as well.

The use of this technology, or lots of other technology, at the expense of the company is just a way to get the technology into the hands of people and make sure that they know about it. Once the people try out the technology and it works, then they'll start to do vertical integration with the technology to other product lines, and it will become profitable through economies of scale production of parts.

Diesel alone is not necessarily expensive.
You have a beafier block, but get to ditch the ignition system.
Its TURBOs that are expensive, and VW TDIs cost the same as VW Turbo gas engines.

Diesel is a higher premium in other brands because they have neither the experience nor the volumes that VW does with diesel engines (MB being an exception)

the thing is, VW didnt have this 8 years ago, when the prius came along. hybrids may not be the final alternative to gas vehicles, but it was a huge step for mankind to have that technology available.

whether or not it looks good, the prius gets better economy than its competitor-the civic hybrid, with more functionality.

No, 8 years ago VW was already making both 45+mpg petrol cars and 60mpg diesels.

Back when the Prius came out, my VW TDI was 2 years old, got 50+ MPG on the highway, and had to BRAKE to avoid hitting those annoyingly slow Toyota Pius types on the road.
Fortunately, the people who buy those things don't seem to drive much, but when they are sighted a Prius is invariably the slowest car on the road (maybe trying to get close to EPA mileage?) while the VW's blow by at 80+ MPH getting better than EPA mileage!

First off, you barely deserve a response with a post like that. But the fact is, Toyota has released many fuel efficient cocnepts lately- the Prius concept (I dont know what it was called), the A-BAT, the 1/x, the FTHS (order of letters?).

What Toyota does not do is tip their hat on the next generation of engines or give speculations on what the mpg will be.

It's kind of sad that VW, MBZ, GM et al feel the need to tout these concepts so much. It's likely because nothing in their line-up matches the style/mpg/emissions/performance/roominess/features of the amazing Prius. So they just keep throwing out these concepts and come up with numbers that sound great.

I'll believe it when I see it. The rest of you can keep salivating at concepts like 12 year old boys at auto shows.

That was to Spellchecker, just in case it is a little late in the thread... (No access to a computer yesterday)

yep, small, expensive, and oh yeah, a concept. Unlike the practical, efficient REAL Prius.

Audi had the A2 back in 2000. Was just as big as the Prius and could acieve 70+Mpg with the 3L TDI engine. This was 8 years ago, not many people bought it though because there was hardly any green-hype bcak then in Europe.