That bests the best Hybrids w/o the use or complexity of heavy batteries, electric motors, control systems. Bravo VW!

GM (specifically Lutz), Ford, Chrysler- see what is possible when you put your mind to it. Suddenly CAFE's 35mpg requirement across the board doesn't seem impossible.

Now if only GM and company would get to work and stop expending so much time, energy, and resources($$$) to lobby against the CAFE proposal!

This vehicle is NOT a legal vehicle in the USA. It is an unsafe polluting pig!

If you don't like that change or relax the pollution l
and safety laws. I won't support you at all; in such an effort.

As for the automakers fighting the 35 mpg CAFE, they had proposed it in the first place.

When the true-believers upped the offer, made it across the board, made it effective sooner, and applied it to big trucks it became an impossibility; that is at least for any one other than a non-truck manufacturer like Honda. (No the mid-size Honda Ridgeline truck does NOT make Honda a truck maker.)

These microcars are offered by all the American manufacturers overseas; when offered in the US like the Fiesta was, they did not sell well even in the midst of the '70s oil embargoes.

That is why no one, even the foreign makers like VW, bring them in. When made street legal in the US, equipped with airbags, bumpers, side impact and crush protection, they are several hundred pounds heavier, and poorer in economy. Essentially indistinguishable in economy from the next size up, which are offered here, Focus, Fit, Yaris, Aveo etc.

There is no conspiracy, however much you insist there is.

FWIW, I checked out maintenance costs myself. I used the Edmunds "true cost to own" calculator for used cars, both 2004, a TDI Jetta GL Wagon, versus a Prius. The Jetta was quoted at about $6.5K for 5 years maintenance. The Prius was quoted at $4.5K. A $2K savings.

FWIW, the total 5year cost was $35K for the Prius and $39K

(I chose the Wagon because for me that would be the equivalent. I have my seat folded down and a bike in the back right now. That's the smallest VW TDi that would give me Prius sized space.)

To take a hike, hybrid haters.

Stan,

GM, Ford, and Chrysler have and continue to lobby hard against the proposed 35mpg across-the-board CAFE standards. Lutz claims that if the proposal becomes law it will cost GM $40 billion to meet it.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/big-3-ceos-take-aim/story.aspx?guid=%7BB0BD61EB%2D61C6%2D4D18%2DBE2A%2DA349CAADE876%7D&dist=

odograph,
As far as being a Hybrid hater- I beg to differ. I think the ideal Hybrid vehicle would utlize a Diesel-electic Hybrid drivetrain with super-capacitors vice heavy batteries. This would be vastly superior (yet overly expensive) to the current crop of gasoline electric Hybrids on the market.
After all, why would I choose a pen name like "DieselHybrid."

But then again, it's so self-fulfilling to sling mud- isn't it?

I personally wouldn't own a VW again. I just view their accomplishment with their BlueMotion line as demonstrative of what is possible with current off-the-shelf technology.

Peace.

@stan:

I'm not convinced that these are polluting monsters, and I'm not sure I believe that these cars would require "several hundred pounds" of changes to be US compliant.

But these are very good questions, and the are the questions all automakers must ask before they decide to take on the US market. And of course, for those of us who think that Europe and Japan have more useful auto and engine choices, it's critical for us to understand what our policy choices are, and what their consequences may be.

After all, Europe and Japan do have pollution and safety standards. Can any of the engineers point us to where these standards are compared side-by-side?

How can we encourage GM, Ford, VW and Toyota, among others, to ship their more efficient vehicles to the US?