TDI

Before unveiling the redesigned 2011 Jetta, Volkswagen decided to drop a special treat into the lineup of the 2010 model--a TDI Cup Street Edition. Like the old SCCA Showroom Stock categories, the TDI Cup competitors are recognizably production models with some racing equipment added on. Hoping to...

Racing and fuel efficiency have often been considered at odds with each other, but green racing does exist, somewhat below the radar. One of the more accessible competitions is the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup series, now starting its third season. Like the old SCCA Showroom Stock categories, the TDI...

It's going to take Audi a long time to live down its U.S. chief's infamous quote that anyone who buys a Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle is an "idiot." But after sticking to diesel for a long time as its sole green strategy, Audi is now storming ahead into smaller, hybrid, and...

It's beginning to look as if the worst is over for U.S. auto sales. The year that just closed was, in the immortal words of Queen Elizabeth II, an annus horribilis, with only 10.4 million vehicles sold, down 21 percent on 2008 and the lowest total since 1982. But some light seems to be appearing on...

You have to give corporate PR guys some credit when they publish an article on the astoundingly high mileage their car got in a road test, and then dismiss the whole thing as "silly and totally unscientific." That's what Lexus magazine auto editor Clark Heideger did. When a coworker got 47.4 miles...

If you're one of the 120,000 people who own a Honda Civic Hybrid made between 2003 and 2008, you may already know about the proposed settlement to a lawsuit against Honda contending its advertising overestimated the gas mileage of your car. If you're not aware of the suit, read up quick. EPA...

It may be the one question we hear most often here at GreenCarReports.com: Why can't I buy one of those great little fuel-efficient diesels, like they have in Europe? Take, for example, the ultra-high-mileage Econetic version of the Ford Fiesta, sold in Europe with a 1.6-liter turbodiesel that...

The 2010 Audi A3 TDI was awarded the 2010 Green Car of the Year Award today at the Los Angeles Auto Show by Green Car Journal, which has presented the award for five years. It follows last year's winner, the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, to make two clean diesels in a row to win the award. The 2010...

Only a handful of U.S. auto shows count as important. Detroit, in January, is one; historically, New York in April has been another. But the up-and-comer is the Los Angeles Auto Show, which now occurs in late November or early December and focuses on green cars of all stripes: hybrids, electric...

Somehow it's December already--how many shopping days left?--so it's time to look at the most popular posts on GreenCarReports.com during the last 30 days. This month, just two are held over from October's most popular posts. The new winners include items on the possible new Toyota Prius hybrid...

Today is Halloween, but no tired jokes about green pumpkins here. It's the end of the month, so it's time to look at the most popular posts on GreenCarReports.com over the last 30 days, which include items on hybrids, clean diesels, and two on the Tesla electric car. Four out of the top five are...

We seem to be covering the 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI clean diesel hatchback an awful lot here, but a recent blog post raised an issue we hadn't considered: How far can the 2010 Golf TDI go on a single tankful of diesel fuel? The question comes from blogger, host of #carchat on Twitter, and general...

As regular readers no doubt recall, we [heart] the 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI. We think it'll be the big diesel winner in the U.S. market, and that's before we've even driven one. But Bengt Halvorson loved his drive in a European version of the 2010 Golf TDI. Now, our colleague Marty Padgett has...

Gasoline may be averaging around $2.50 a gallon right now, but gas mileage remains an important factor in choosing a new car. Now the EPA has released 2010 fuel efficiency figures for all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. Hybrids from Ford, Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Mercury, Nissan, and Toyota...

While we think that the clean diesel 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI will do well in the States, VW has just rolled out an uber-economical BlueMotion model for European markets that gets 62 miles per gallon of diesel fuel. BlueMotion is VW's designation for the most fuel efficient model in each of its...

It's well known in the car industry that a diesel engine costs 10 to 20 percent more to build than a gasoline motor of equivalent output. That's because diesels have to be sturdier, and these days all US-bound diesels are fitted with turbochargers to boost their power. Now a European executive has...

We usually recap our five most popular posts on GreenCarReports.com at the end of every month. We're a bit late for August but, hey, we had a long Labor Day too ... now we're back in business. We replaced most of July's most popular posts, with three new winners in our Top Five. Here goes: # 1: How...

Hybrid vs diesel: It's a longstanding green-car conundrum. Which is better, a hybrid-electric vehicle that recaptures wasted energy in a battery and uses it to assist the gasoline engine, or an efficient modern clean diesel that goes further on a gallon of fuel? The answer depends in part on your...

Now, this is cool. You've likely seen the Mercedes-Benz diesels of the 1980s and 1990s chugging along somewhere or other. But how much better are today's clean diesels than the solid old oil-burners of 20 years ago that still power those sturdy survivors? Back to the future: 1992 to 2009...

As of November, you'll have two choices if you want a compact five-door hatchback with a clean diesel engine. One is the brand-new 2010 Audi A3 TDI, which was just given a base price of $30,775 today by Audi. It'll start arriving in dealerships in November. Longstanding diesel champ: Golf TDI The...