You betrayed your hybrid message by endorsing a Diesel

In recent days, some folks have asked me why did I review a Diesel vehicle when I am such a staunch supporter of fuel efficient hybrids? Even more shocking, is why did I give such a good rating to this TDI at all even though it is nothing more than a Tier 2- Bin 5 vehicle?

These are all good questions, so let me explain in case I did not reflect that in my review well enough:

• First of all, please note the qualifier “fuel efficient hybrids”, as I do not support all hybrids. In fact, I am more likely to support and endorse a clean Diesel car like this Jetta TDI, than I am of supporting a Toyota/Lexus hybrid SUV or GM hybrid SUV.
• Second. Even though this 2009 Jetta TDI is still not as clean as I wished it could be, it still represents a significant amount of progress over what we have always known about past diesel tech. In my view we need more fuel efficient choices and as my review indicates, this particular car has an inherent fuel economy potential that simply cannot be ignored. In fact, compared to many gasoline only vehicles I would tend to regard this Jetta as a very attractive alternative to the 92% of vehicles on our roads today.
• Lastly, if you read my review of the 2009 VW Jetta TDI, you'll also note that I did not say this Jetta is an alternative to a fuel efficient hybrid at all, but then again, neither Toyota nor Honda can make enough hybrids to satisfy the needs of our market.

So it stands to reason, that Clean Diesel has a definite place in our future and the only thing it needs to improve even further, is additional emissions scrubbing and some level of acceptance by the general public. With environmental concerns at an all-time high, a good amount of scrutiny is pressing Diesel car makers to improve so I am sure this is something to keep an eye on.

If anyone thinks that we'll make the most progress by pushing hybrids only then I would say they are seriously mis-calculating the market penetration hybrid tech can have for the next 10 or so year. The biggest constraint to accelerated hybrid proliferation we have remains the paltry production capacity which is unlikely to ramp-up fast enough to produce the benefits we seek.

But while that happens, we not only need good ideas to come to fruition in the engineering war-rooms of our auto manufacturers, but we also need to leverage whatever technologies we have today which constitute a measurable improvement in emissions and fuel usage. As I said many times before, with additional improvements in the Clean Diesel tech there's no reason why this technology cannot share the roads with the still evolving hybrid platforms for the next 10 years. Sure it may be several steps behind hybrid technology in emissions but so far it has proven that it can be as clean as the other 95% of the vehicles on our roads today. And with the mileage potential we demonstrated this is a good place to start at.

The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI review finally posted

Yes, it took a while but we wanted to make sure we had a chance to fully assess the fuel economy potential of this vehicle - with of course, a Canadian Spring time perspective added in. This also meant doing it with roads devoid of snow or ice and also with an opportunity to take the car through a variety of driving regimens.

If you wish to see how well a 2009 Jetta TDI can do under safe and fuel efficient driving please follow the link below.

CleanMPG - 2009 Jetta TDI review - (Canadian Comfortline model)

Enjoy.