Originally Posted by monsterbaby
it will never be available in the US, trust me.
That is very possible, although if oil prices go up high enough ($150 - $200, which I think is exceedingly unlikely in the near future) that might change the attitude of regulators.
The epa is more interested in stupid little minor non issue increases in reductions in tailpipe emissions than they are in fuel economy.
That is true, and it's very sad. I can understand that a clean burning engine is good to have, but with the upcoming requirements, I think the EPA went too far, and over the edge. What we'd need is a good compromise between tailpipe emission and efficiency, but the latter one appears to be sacrified for the former. While a less efficient, but "cleaner" (by EPA standards) engine will produce less NOx, CO, and unburned HC, it will produce more CO2, which isn't very good either.
VW won't expect to have diesels in 2007 model year in the US because they can't meet the requirements, yet their diesel cars are just fine in the much more densely populated Europe!!
In any case, if CA wants their own standard let them have it, but don't force everyone else.
No those claims aren't out of range my parents have a VW diesel jetta that gets around 57mpg now so I don't see why it would be that hard to bring that number up pretty easily.
One of my point was that this approach can conceivably lead to a car with an ungodly good mpg. But even if it only gets, say, 100 mpg, that would still be at least 2x better than what the majority of cars in the US are getting today.