Go Go Green Cars

The Volkswagen Jetta TDi was announced as the 2009 green car of the year at the LA Auto Show by the Green Car Journal after a jury deliberated on the choice which included Jay Leno amongst others.

The VW Jetta TDi returns a massive 50 mpg and is based on burning diesel without any hybrid innovation – this is a clean burning diesel.

The competition was the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, BMW 335d, Saturn Vue-2 Mode Hybrid and the Smart Fortwo; in other words the cream of the hybrids just got their credentials kicked!

The VW Jetta TDi burns diesel very cleanly; this just reinforces the countervailing view to hybrid models that excellent engine design and fuel management can and will deliver excellent mpg figures while causing low emission levels.  Perhaps the main reason it won the award is that while the competition is also delivering comparable mpg and emission levels the VW Jetta TDi is doing it in a more affordable way.

With a 2-liter turbo charged direct injection engine, the VW Jetta TDi meets all the emission standards in every one of the 50 states.  Priced at an affordable MRP of $21,990 the VW provides a five door, five passenger carrying sedan with some performance thrown in for good measure due to the Volkswagen new-generation diesel power plant which demonstrates just how far down the development road diesel engines have come.

Hybrids have a great deal to offer but with sinking gas prices, the selection of the VW Jetta TDI is a stark reminder that achieving environmentally friendly standards must go hand in hand with putting dollars into the pockets of the consumer if they are really going to make a mark in the mass market. The basic proposition is an economic one; delivering low emissions with high mpg and at a price that motorists can afford to drive off the car lot and keep on the road.  Look for your Kansas Volkswagen, or wherever you buy your VW, today.

Why are hybrids selling?

Why are more hybrids not being sold?

Two very good questions and both of them are answered by simple economics.

They give better gas mileage than their regular gas guzzling counterparts but gas prices have dropped in the last year dramatically.

Consumer research identifies repeatedly that hybrids fundamental main selling point is the gas mileage and the cost savings they produce.  Buyers who are attracted to a hybrid are looking for the overall cost reduction in the gas bill and view the purchase as a cost/benefit exercise – does the extra cost of buying the hybrid get justified by cheaper gas bills down the road?

Where a hybrid can demonstrate a positive benefit in dollar terms, you get the sale and it is as simple as that.

Hybrids are not being sold based on their green credentials and should this not be the way forward for us all?

Gas prices have dropped dramatically, but no matter what the price of gas, is it really justified to pay more for a green solution compared to the conventional one?

I don’t think so; hybrids should be competing for dollars on the same basis as conventional cars and in fact, any other product or service I’m looking at buying.  I want to know that the car is going to be reliable, transport my family and I where I want them to get to safely and in comfort and in style; I want the features and optional extras I expect and I want this done within my budget and if a hybrid can deliver this better than a conventional gas vehicle, then I’ll buy it and if it doesn’t, I won’t!

This is the American way and history shows it works; with green cars what we are looking at trying to do is to make them commercially viable for the mass market and if we do that, we will help solve the green issues confronting the planet as well.