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 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.

Let’s be clear about what it means to go green; you may look for a hybrid or an electric car but then again, manufacturing technology and design is producing vehicles which run on gasoline and yet still produce less pollution in 2,000 miles than your petrol lawn mower produces in an hour of puttering around the garden.

Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles (PZEV for short) have come a long way in a very short period of time; so fast has the development been that the more cynical observers have pointed to their development and commercial offering as evidence that the car manufacturers and petrol companies have been holding back on PZEV’s because they impact on the profitability of the parent companies involved.

No matter what your viewpoint, PZEV’s are exceptionally green machines.

A Ford Focu PZEV will produce lower level of hydrocarbon emissions in a three hour drive than if you cooked up a burger on the grill.  In fact, some PZEV’s are producing emissions which are cleaner than the air in our cities.

So where is the catch?

Well for a start the government is involved in where PZEV’s can be sold; in a twisted irony that only government can produce, PZEV’s cannot be sold outside of “Special Zones” and if they are dealers face a civil penalty of up to $27,500.  The “Special Zones” are essentially California, New York and six other northeast states – anywhere else and you can’t buy them!

Volvo had to issue a note and standing instruction to dealers selling the S40 and V50 PZEV’s that they were only for sale in the Special Zones.

So here we have highly efficient, regular gas powered vehicles and no-one can sell them across the vast majority of the country!