Simply Green: 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI
Filed under: 2008 L.A. Auto Show, Auto Shows/Displays, Volkswagen
2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: Green Car of the Year
A Diesel Does It
I’ve been proven wrong as the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI is the recipient of Green Car Journal’s 2009 Green Car of the Year award. I credit my long ago ownership of a ‘78 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel with coloring my ability to even consider that a diesel might win. Fortunately, diesel technology has come a long way — you can actually get out of the way of that semi bearing down upon you!
“The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI epitomizes what the Green Car of the Year honor is all about,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com. “It raises the bar significantly in environmental performance with its EPA estimated 41 mpg highway fuel economy, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and extremely low tailpipe emissions. This is all the more impressive when you consider the Jetta TDI is a clean diesel, achieving the kind of fuel economy offered by gasoline-electric hybrids but in a more affordable way.”
Speaking of affordable, the starting price of the Jetta TDI is $21,990, but if you’ve seen the price of diesel lately, you’ll need the price break. Currently, diesel fuel is retailing for as much as one dollar a gallon over regular gas, enough of a price differential to make me prefer a hybrid. Okay, sour chips on me — I lost.
Two Greenies Waiting For Me
One consolation out of this — two, actually — is that I will get to test drive a pair of green cars later today. Both the Honda FCX Clarity (fuel cell) and the Smart ForTwo have been made available to me, so I’ll get a first hand chance to drive at least two green cars today. I’ll take the consolation prize any time even if that means a brief ten minute jaunt around the Los Angeles Convention Center or nearby streets.
VW Showcases Its Unpronounceable Routan
Three’s A Charm When It Comes To VW Model Names
Routan. Tiguan. Touareg. VW loves to create difficult to pronounce names, but customers don't seem to be too flustered. Year to date sales remain good and the new Routan should help raise VW's visibility somewhat.
Ah, Routan. The name just rolls off the lips, doesn’t it? Well, if you’re like many people who aren’t quite familiar with the Volkswagen brand, you could be pronouncing the rebadged Dodge Grand Caravan minivan in a number of different ways.
- Roo-tan or Roo-tahn
- Routing as in Rowting
- Rooting
In a curiously and ongoing move by German automaker Volkswagen, the company continues to bring forth new models with unique, but difficult to pronounce names.
A few year’s back we were introduced to the Touareg, the automaker’s midsize SUV. The name looks like it is spelled incorrectly, but it isn’t.
Last month, Volkswagen unveiled the Tiguan, its small SUV, a word that isn’t even part of the German vocabulary. It turns out that VW held a contest to name its SUV and readers chose Tiguan which is a hybridization of two words — tiger and iguana. Don’t ask!
How Do You Pronounce It?
I heard about the Routan name shortly after Volkswagen and Chrysler (then DaimlerChrysler) announced that VW would supplement its North American line up with a minivan, a reworked version of the popular Dodge Grand Caravan / Chrysler Town & Country models. Even then I thought to myself, “Why is Volkswagen selecting names that American drivers will find difficult to pronounce?”
Marketing pros will tell you that the ability to pronounce a product’s name is critical to its success — why make it difficult for your customers to understand it? David E. Davis, Jr. shares my position regarding the Volkswagen Touareg even going so far as remarking that some people think that the name could bring down the VW house (it hasn’t).
Take It From Mercedes and BMW
Personally, naming conventions along the lines of the “classes” and “series” offered by Mercedes and BMW would make better sense for VW, but they aren’t likely to bite. Instead, we’ll probably see a bevy of new models rolled out with mispronounced names that would make any German grammar teacher cringe.
Volkswagen Is Now #3, But For How Long?
Congratulations are in order for the Volkswagen Group which confirmed yesterday that it passed the Ford Motor Company as the number three global automaker in the world 
by sales volume. On the back of rising sales, VW overtook Ford by selling 3.31 million vehicles during the first six months of the year while Ford sold 3.22 million units.
Volkswagen should enjoy their celebration for a while, but signs are pointing that this milestone could be short-lived.
In a column that ran in The Detroit News yesterday, Neil Winton has suggested that Europe’s mass automotive producers are in denial and will soon be facing production cuts. In, BMW, Daimler face reality, but Europe’s mass car makers are in denial, Winton mentioned that BMW and Daimler have both trimmed production and told shareholders that profits were dropping, while Fiat, Peugeot, Renault, and Volkswagen are telling shareholders to expect earnings to rise, though market trends are suggesting the opposite will happen.
Business Week took note of Volkswagen’s profits in a July article, noting that “…the emerging markets are propping up the European car industry.” VW sales are up in the US year to date, but down for all of North America and for Western Europe. Sales in Latin America and Asia are driving VW’s profitability and are the key markets for why VW passed Ford earlier this year.
In that article, written by Jack Ewing, he went on to say, “No doubt VW’s stable of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars is a positive. But in emerging markets the crucial issue is whether consumers respond to high fuel prices by shifting to smaller cars or by not buying cars at all. Because many emerging-market buyers are first-time buyers, there’s a risk that they will postpone purchases. Volkswagen also suffers from the strong euro, which raises the price of its products not only in the U.S., where sales slipped 0.4%, but also in countries such as China, whose currencies track the dollar.”
The current woes facing America’s Big 3 automakers are the same pains which are causing Toyota to cut back on its global sales projections and causing other automakers to examine their product offerings by adjusting production. VW could pull it off, but if fuel prices increase once again, then VW’s base could freeze up and push Volkswagen sales down below Ford who is working feverlishly to bring smaller, more economical cars to the market.
-
Custom Search