Volkswagen’s been toying with hybrids for awhile and got electric-vehicle advocates in a lather over the diesel-electric Golf it unveiled a few months ago. Now the company’s promising a plug-in hybrid by 2010 and the German government’s written a big check to make it happen.
VW boss Martin Winterkorn says gas and diesel engines will be around for a long time to come, but “the future belongs to all-electric cars.” The automaker is staking a claim to that future with a plug-in hybrid drivetrain it calls Twin Drive. It will debut in a Golf fitted with a 122-horsepower diesel engine and an 82-horsepower electric motor.
“While the e-motor on a typical hybrid model just supplements the combustion engine, the exact opposite is true on Twin Drive,” Winterkorn said during the car’s unveiling in Berlin. “Here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor.”
Start-stop technology will save power and regenerative braking will help generate it. VW says the car will use lithium-ion batteries and have an all-electric range of 31 miles. The company recently signed a deal with Sanyo to develop li-ion batteries…
Cripes. A diesel-electric plug-in hybrid. Way too intelligent a design for American consumers. We’ll probably catch on around 2015.
Or am I being too cynical?
Yes, you are too cynical, but this is still pretty hot looking. Been a big V-Dub fan all my life and am waiting to get a new GTI next year since I just recently totaled my 2001. The new diesels of theirs will also be shipping in Jettas by the end of this year in the U.S.
Will American car manufacturers be around in 2015?
What’s interesting about this whole hybrid / electric thingy is the three positions on it from the three major car manufacturers; Toyota built their hybrid with no government funds. European manufacturers are all moving to hybrid / electric and their governments are fully backing them. The US manufacturers (GM) can do it, but won’t unless government gives them money!
If you follow the chronology of recent developments, GM actually did the first big PR push for extending the range of the electric side of plug-in hybrids – with the prototype Volt.
Honda jumped on board – helping to push Toyota and, now VW.
So, where is GM at? They hope to have the Volt out in 2010/2011 – at $40K retail. Sheesh!
Guaranteed their non-Big3 competition will beat the price and maybe the delivery schedule. So far, the only benefit I see from GM’s effort is a few American firms ready to compete with battery manufacturers outside the U.S..
Nah, we need ALL-ELECTRIC RUNABOUTS for short trips – commuters to the rail road or bus station for going downtown to work, and short trips to the Mall or Shopping Center !!! Otherwise Suburbia is TOO ENERGY INTENSIVE AND CANNOT CONTINUE – UNLESS PEOPLE LIKE TO WALK AND BIKE !!!
Diesel had always been less expensive than gasoline, until folks started buying diesel. .. Then for some mysterious reason, it became 20% more expensive. .. Better watch out for your electric bills, looks like electricity is going to cost a lot more. .. They don’t care how you get down the road, just so long as you pay a healthy fee to the people controlling energy today to do it.
In the 1970’s I stood in line and paid a big premium for a VW diesel Rabbit. Had nothing but trouble with it and was able to get $500 for it when the “oil crisis” eased a few years later. I hope this time around the technologies are real and not just a fad.
You don’t have the wit to be cynical. Pompous, maybe.
As for working in America, the engine is going to have to show up in a non-compact to really take off.
Don’t be cynical, because that gets nothing done. Be supportive.
I for one welcome our German overlords
5,
I think that some junior mailclerk as the head of the oil company “Why is diesel cheaper than regular unleaded?” And the CEO said “You’re promoted!”
“A diesel-electric plug-in hybrid. Way too intelligent a design for American consumers.”
Actually, too stupid for Americans. Diesel is FAR more expensive than gasoline. Stick to the gasoline hybrids.
#11, Actually, too stupid for Americans. Diesel is FAR more expensive than gasoline. Stick to the gasoline hybrids.
Let’s see: better fuel efficiency and lower engine wear resulting in longer life. Yep, diesel is so stupid.
That doesn’t look like a car I want to drive.
#12 I expected you’d post something that ignores cost/efficiency. LOL
#14, you really are a fool.
As of 23 June, the U.S. average cost of gasoline is 407.9 cents per gallon, the cost of diesel is 464.8 cents. That is a 13.9% difference in price.
http://tinyurl.com/3grhq
The new clean diesel Jetta is estimated to achieve 45-50 mpg vs. the 21-29 for the current gasoline model. That is an ~88% average increase in efficiency for only an ~ 14% increase in fuel cost.
Also, when you account for lower lifetime maintenance from diesel engine wear vs. gasoline engines, it is a win in all regards.
No, John, I think you are being optimistic; we will be luck to get it in the US market ever.
1) Not tall enough to reach the McDonalds drive in window, 2) no lazy boy seat option, 3) Not nearly big enough for American style comfort and nowhere to put the big cooler and extra large folding chairs.
[This was posted by Eideard, not JCD. – ed.]
16 “The new clean diesel Jetta is estimated to achieve 45-50 mpg vs. the 21-29 for the current gasoline model.”
You really can’t read can you? Gasoline hybrids get 21-29 MPG? Go away. You’re wasting valuable internet bandwidth and contributing n/g to society
“A diesel-electric plug-in hybrid. Way too intelligent a design for American consumers.”
I didn’t think Dvorak Unlimited believed in intelligent design.
About the relative prices of diesel and gasoline, we’ve had diesel prices rises much more ttan gasoline here in france in the last months. All the experts I’ve heard tell us the reason of that rise is that the demand for diesel has exploded, that our refinery (is that the word?) capacities FOR DIESEL in France have reached their limits, and that we now have to import diesel, which is much more expensive. But the cost of diesel is still normally much less than that of gasoline.
Is it the same in the US? I don’t know?
And yet, these Hybrids are still only useful if you live in a city. Us rural people still need gas powered vehicles.
[Ahhh… hybrids run on fuel and electricity. That’s why they call them hybrids. – ed.]
I read the article and didn’t see any details on the range, or how long it takes to re-charge.
Anyone know the details?
#18, no patrick, the comparison I provided is between two vehicles which have similar drivetrains. Neither are hybrids.
A small diesel engine running a generator to recharge the battery is going to be much more fuel efficient than your current gasoline hybrids.
#20 – Basically the same here (USA). Refinery limitations have caused the same price to rise much faster than gasoline. Until that’s handled (years from now) diesel hybrids are dead on arrival.
#23 – 31 miles per charge is not practical for most people. It’s dead before it hits the showroom. Unfortunately, you have to factor in everything…
#25, 31 miles per charge – is the engine meant to be keeping it recharged not going to be actually recharging it then?
#% Greater demand is part of the reason diesel has jumped over gasoline but a big part is both the cost of production of and a drop in supply because of the cleaner diesel fuel.
#26 Read:”It will debut in a Golf fitted with a 122-horsepower diesel engine”
You only need that large of an engine if you have a very limited battery range. The diesel will be running most of the time (unless you are driving downhill both directions) and thus you’ll be paying the higher price. You won’t save $ over a gas hybrid but will pay more. What else do you need me to tell you?
Rather than the debate between gas vs diesel, or plug in’s vs all fuel, what I find interesting is the on thread element of the decline of American Manufacturing. Like ice at the North Pole, it appears to be disappearing at rates faster than predicted?
When will manufacturing totally disappear from America?
As an intellectual exercise, I need to learn more about just what “Gross National Product” is. I don’t see how “personal services” has any useful contribution to it.
Blindsided. Its what you don’t pay attention to.
#30 -amen to that… i was about to say the same.
-if they were serious. they’d tune a diesel to maybe 2500rpm and feed electric motors. -and you can get a diesel to run on all sorts of “lights oils” with very little effort.
i doubt the auto industry will let that happen anytime soon. build a diesel with no “proper” transmission and you end making a car that will kill the supporting parts industry. all electrics would decimate the parts industry due to even less complexity and wear..
-and FWIW: diesel around NYC is $5.19 – $5.29 vs gasoline at $4.33-$4.39. -the whole market is gamed. *shrug*
-wonder if they have food futures.. :p
#4, #29: I visit this site now and again:
http://www.aptera.com/ ; It may be pie-in-the-sky (I hope not), but leaves me with hope none-the-less. It’s a poor man’s (relatively) Boeing 787, sharing bold new manufacturing techniques like composite body. The high cost of fuel will hopefully validate Boeing’s controversial decision to build the 787 and help keep American manufacturing alive.
And maybe smaller companies like Aptera will gain a footing.
The Aptera is a plug-in, but also claims over 100 mpg using its auxiliary motor. But there are several other innovations for comfort and safety. I especially like the idea of getting into a cool car on a hot summer day. Has anyone else wondered why so many people come home to a house kept cool all day that is over 10000 cu ft, but arrive in a car of under 200 cu ft that started the trip at 120+ degrees?