Posted on 06/19/2015 1:35:52 PM PDT by Red Badger
Germany’s VW AG has a mixed situation in the US – on one hand its luxury stablemate Audi is thriving and posting record sales each month, while on the other hand the mass-market brand is suffering.
The company is a powerhouse in Europe, where it’s the largest automaker and thanks to China has also achieved the status of the second biggest carmaker in the world. Among the issues lie the fact that in the US the mass-market car brand VW has been sliding while the rest of the market is going up and the fact that Audi is indeed posting record after record, but is still out of the top three places in terms of annual deliveries. One of their assets in the ongoing fight could be diesel-powered vehicles – a stronghold for the brands in Europe. Let’s take for example the 2015 Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen TDI station wagon and the 2015 Audi A3 TDI sedan. They both have strong attributes: great fuel economy that doesn’t hinder a lively performance. The only drawback – gasoline engines are turning more efficient by the day and the fuel could enter a “persona non grata” situation as some US states are mulling higher taxes while some European countries are already focusing on driving diesel usage down.
The duo have almost matching prices, with entry asking quotations of $29,095 for the Golf Sportwagen TDI and $32,600 for the A3 TDI – both featuring under the hood the same powerplant. It’s a 150-hp 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder engine that also has 238 pound-feet of torque at 1,750 rpm, with the low engine speed making it almost unmatched when it comes to fast acceleration from the get go.
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....
If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST jut FReepmail me.....
This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....
KnOcK!....................
Cut $8K off the Golf sticker and VW will have a winner.
Add an all-wheel-drive manual trans option and I’d bite again. My 2 2005 TDI agons are getting long in the tooth.
VW has a pricing problem, IMHO; in addition, they try to push unionization down the throats of US workers. OTOH, sometimes it’s a horse/water/won’tdrink thing.
Volkswagen XL1 Gets 261-MPG, is NOT a Concept Car
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2013/03/volkswagen-xl1-gets-261-mpg-is-not-a-concept-car-2013-geneva-motor-show.html
Thanks to the EPA..................
Really? IIRC ULSD is the law in Canada as it is here so it's hard to imagine how costs would be much different.Check Gas Buddy and you see that many of the Canadian stations that sell diesel sell it for about 10% less than Regular....at least in summer.The best I see now around here now is 5 cents a gallon more than Regular.
It’s also a supply and demand thing. I’d imagine the demand in Canada is much less than in the US......................
You could pay me to drive an Audi or VW. I know I would end up broken down somewhere.
Every car breaks down eventually......................
The desulfurization of the diesel fuel forced by the EPA has permanently changed the equation against diesel IMO. Between the urea crap, the mindbogglingly complex pollution controls and systems that must now be included, and the unnaturally higher price of the fuel, it’s just a novelty in a car. And, I am a fan of it.
“The price of diesel is a disgrace. It’s noticeably cheaper to refine than is Regular...”
That used to be the case, but starting around 2007, the feds required all diesel fuel in the US to be low sulphur. This regulation was courtesy of George Bush and Christine Todd Wittman if I recall correctly. It forced the refineries to invest huge amounts of money in refinery upgrades (desulphurization units).
The low sulphur fuel allowed emissions control systems to be installed on diesels like those used in cars (without getting fouled up with sulphur). That’s why diesel prices went up so much.
It has been as much as an entire dollar (!) more than regular here at times. I remember that, and I’m sure others do also.
Back in the Seventies diesel was cheaper than gas. Then, the gubmint boys figured out that all of those heavy trucks out there ran on a diesel and the taxes went WAY up to the point that diesel is now, at times, half again more expensive than gas
I hate diesels. They stink, they’re noisy, and the strange people who own them love to leave them running. Ambulance crews pull up to food vendors and sit with the engine running, ruining everyone else’s meal. Armored cars fill supermarkets with stench. Every dump truck in the nation seems to belch lung scarring soot. Diesel wreaks before and after it is burned. But the worst thing is how diesel owners go on and on about how perfectly wonderful they are.
>>The price of diesel is a disgrace.It’s noticeably cheaper to refine than is Regular yet for much of the year is higher than Premium.
Part of the issue is taxation. There is typically a big difference in taxation to the detriment of diesel. It is seen as a commercial/truck fuel, so there are relatively few voters who care, so it ends up getting taxed at higher rates. You can dig around at the API web site and get the exact numbers by state. I think the differential was about a dime in my state when I looked hard about 18 months ago, when I was making a powerplant choice on a car I was ordering. I went petrol for a variety of reasons.
The new diesel engines from Europe are terrific.
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