Since Volkswagen's little oil-burner can trump Honda's latest in hybrid tech, how about we up the ante and compare a quattroporte version with the world's most notorious gasoline scrooge, the hyper-hybrid Prius? At a combined EPA rating of 50 mpg (FYI, 93 Prius owners are currently reporting an average of 48.8 mpg at www.fueleconomy.org), the Prius runs away with the mpg facet of this contest.
By contrast, our TDI offers an impressive -- but in this lofty company, comparably feeble -- 34 combined EPA mpg. Recomputed the way it ought to be, as gallons per 100 miles, the Prius requires 2.0 gallons to cover a Benja-mile, the Golf, 2.94, or 47 percent greater consumption per mile. As Queen Victoria was gently (and probably apocryphally) answered while watching the yacht America run away with the Hundred Guinea Cup race in 1851 (today's America's Cup), "Your majesty, there is no second."
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