Now that Chevrolet has revised their EPA mileage estimate for the Chevrolet Cruze Diesel, from 42 mpg to 46 mpg, we need to revise our own estimates.

Initially, we called for a break-even period of 115 years, based on TrueCar’s formula for calculating the break-even period on fuel economy packages. For argument’s sake, we used TrueCar’s formula of driving 15,000 miles per year, though we used Chicago, IL as our sample for gas and diesel prices. The lowest prices found on GasBuddy at the time of the original article was $3.50 for regular and $3.80 for diesel respectively. For consistency’s sake, we’ll stick with that, though obviously the break-even point will change along with fuel price fluctuations.

Since city and combined figures haven’t been announced yet for the Cruze diesel, I decided to only use the highway figures for a similarly equipped gasoline 2LT . As the calculations show, the Cruze diesel does use a smaller quantity of fuel annually, but that’s offset by the price premium one is required to pay for diesel. Using the initial 42 mpg highway rating yielded a mere $22 in annual fuel savings and a $2,550 price gap. At that rate, it would take over a century -roughly 115 years – for a potential owner to “break even” on the Cruze diesel. But with the 46 mpg rating, the fuel savings grows to $142 annually. This shortens the break-even time to about 18 years; still fairly long, but much shorter than it would take compared to opting for a Cruze Eco. The reason for this is because at 42 mpg, fuel economy increases roughly 10 percent, while fuel costs rise by about nine percent. It’s a wash. But at 42 mpg, fuel economy improves by nearly 20 percent so you have a fuel-cost adjusted increase that goes from one percent to 11 percent, thus cutting the payback time by a factor of almost ten.

And now, to pre-empt some of the questions/criticisms from last time: yes, this analysis is incomplete due to only having the highway figure. I am aware of that, but I wanted to show that TTAC is not afraid to revise their predictions accordingly, in an open and transparent fashion. When the final numbers are released, we can do a proper comparison with the Jetta TDI (and maybe the Mazda6 diesel as well). I’m also aware that people buy diesels for the driving experience (low-end torque etc), but I’ll leave that one to Alex Dykes or whoever ends up reviewing the car.

Data below, for anyone interested

My TDI in Japan

The engine quit with a sudden un-dramatic snap, and the little Golf TDI began to slough off speed. Reflexively, I bumped the gearshift lever into neutral, flicked on my signal and began moving towards the left edge of the expressway. My exit was less than a mile away and, rather than stop alongside the highway, I used my momentum to coast up the off-ramp and over the small knoll that stood between the expressway and the toll plaza. I stopped there, on the back side of the hill where the road widened on the approach to the toll booths, to avoid blocking traffic and dug out my cell phone to call for a tow truck. I didn’t know it then, but it was the last time that I would ever sit behind the wheel of the little car, never mind the fact that it would follow me again around half of the globe.

I had purchased the dark blue VW diesel new before heading to Jamaica and the car had carried me faithfully, but not entirely without drama, during the two years I lived there. The problems were always small, window regulators, the brake like switch, an air bag light, and a check engine light among other things. They were more of a nuisance than anything else. There was a VW dealership in Kingston and they were quite professional but since I had purchased the car in the States, and then imported it to the island, none of these issues were handled under warranty. It was OK though, I really liked the car and so long as nothing big happened, I reasoned, I could foot the bill.

I check the map at a rest stop near Mt. Rokko in Hyogo Prefecture (2004)

After two years in the Caribbean, I moved to Japan, and the Volkswagen, after a delay that stretched into several months, followed me. It arrived in sorry shape, covered in filth and spattered with baked-on dead bugs from a trip across the USA on a car carrier. After so long apart, I was glad to see it and after a thorough cleaning, an oil change and a new set of tires, the car was road worthy. It was, I was told, the only Golf TDI in the country, and I enjoyed running around the Kansai region trailing a cloud of smelly black exhaust wherever I went. Unremarkable as it may have been in the USA, the car was a hit in Japan. VW fans often worked up the courage to bridge the cultural gulf to ask about it.

Times were good, for the most part. I had another broken window regulator, three out of the four VW logos spun off the center caps and I soon found out that there were no correct replacement batteries to be had, but I let these things slide. The car was unusual and quirky, after all, and inconvenience is the price you sometimes pay for cars like that.

Later when I transferred to Yokohama, I used the car to its best advantage to make the 5 hour drive down the Tomei and Meishin expressways almost every weekend to visit my wife who was at her parents’ house in Kyoto awaiting the birth of our first child. My little VW was not especially fast, but it ran well on the smooth high speed expressways of Japan. For once, it finally seemed to be just where it belonged.

On the Japanese expressway.

The car followed me to Okinawa in 2006 and, once again, it was put to work on my daily commute, a 20 minute drive that included surface streets and a bit of expressway. For the first few months, it seemed to be fine, but then, on one of my regular forays under the hood, I noticed that the coolant was low. Okinawa is hot, so I thought nothing of it and added some more coolant. A week later I got a low water alarm and, sure enough, the coolant was low again. Thus it began.

I have had to replace head gaskets before so I know what the signs are. I looked in all the usual places. There was no leaking water under the car, no sudden increase in my oil level, no oil floating on top of the coolant and no white plume out the back, so the signs were not obvious. It could be a weeping gasket, I thought, a leak small enough to suck the coolant slowly from the radiator without leaving a tell-tale trail of white smoke, so I took it to my local VW of Japan dealership to have them perform a test to see if I had combustion gases in my coolant.

It is a testament to my Japanese ability that I was able to use the language to berate the local VW technician well enough that he actually helped me. When first I arrived, he took one wide eyed look at the car and started to wave his hands. “We won’t service this.” He announced. But I wasn’t having any excuses and, after an ass chewing for the ages, he finally he agreed to perform the simple test I wanted. From the way he sucked air through his teeth as he worked, I knew it was bad news before he spoke. “It’s a head gasket,” He said sadly, “and there is no way I can fix it. We never sold these cars and we don’t have any training on them. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” This time I didn’t give him any static, his words had the ring of truth.

A look at my garage.

At home that night I got out the rebuild manual I habitually carried and looked at the job. It was nothing I wanted to tangle with, honestly, but I felt confident I could do the work if I had to. The first step was parts so I got on-line and ordered everything the manual said I would need. It took weeks for everything to arrive and, in the mean time, I made sure the coolant levels stayed high and limited my trips as much as I could. Still, unwilling to commit myself to a project of that magnitude, I continued to examine my options.

Most Japanese mechanics are excellent and I was confident that, if I could find one who was willing to work on the car, they could fix it. The problem was none of them wanted to touch it. It was an unknown, and no one was willing to take the risk. There were no Japanese rebuild manuals for the car, and since mine was written in English it was useless to them. Eventually, I learned that my local Marine Corps Base had an auto shop, so I went down to see if they had a mechanic who could work on the car. Fortunately, or so I thought at the time, there was someone.

Photo I put in Craigslist

The kid looked like a typical grease monkey. He told his boss he knew all about VW diesels and that he had worked on them when he was based in Germany. His boss seemed convinced they could handle the job and agreed to take it ,so I gave them the little car, the parts and went off confident that my worries were over.

A month later the car had not been completed and I found myself back down at the shop looking around. The kid was nowhere in sight but my car was over in the corner with its hood ajar so I went to look at it. I raised the hood and found myself looking at the shop floor – the engine was gone and my blood pressure jumped. Unhappily I tracked down the ship manager and asked what the hell was going on.

The kid, it turned out, didn’t have the experience he had claimed and there had been a problem. The manager told me that they had already ordered new parts and the work would be handed over to the lead tech who, with my rebuild manual, would put the car back together correctly. Until then I could use a small Mazda loaner and was assured that when the car was ready I would not have to pay a dime for the work. Free is good, but it wasn’t like I could do much anyhow, so I accepted their offer as graciously as I could and left them to it.

Two months later the Volkswagen came home. There were still a few issues with it, most notably a couple of the vacuum lines had been misrouted, but at least it ran. It did OK on the highway but seemed a little down on power. It didn’t matter, I told myself, I was slated to rotate home in another two months and when I got back stateside, I could get the car sorted and decide then whether or not I wanted to keep it. My plan worked for three weeks.

After an uncomfortably long wait, the tow truck arrived, carried the car home and dropped it in my driveway. The VW remained there for the rest of my time in Okinawa and, a day or two before I headed back to the States, another truck came to haul it to the port. While I completed my move and enjoyed a vacation back at home in Washington State before heading on to Buffalo, the little car was put into a container, sent across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and up the east coast to a port in New Jersey. The first I heard of its arrival was when the shipper called to inform me that one of the world’s best traveled car had arrived with a major case of mold on the interior.

Nice and clean inside!

Although I offered to sell the car to the shipper for a reasonable cost, they elected to clean it prior to delivery and three weeks later the Golf rolled off a ramp truck at my apartment in Buffalo. It looked pretty good for all the trouble it had been through and, together, the tow truck driver and I pushed it into a parking spot. The next day, I took some photos and prepared a brief Craigslist ad explaining that the car had a blown engine and was being sold “as is.” I figured it was a long shot, but I asked $3,500.

Long shot or not, my phone rang off the hook all day long and a guy named Hank was waiting for me when I got home from work. He looked the car over quite thoroughly and offered me $2,500. We dickered for a while and then met in the middle at $3,000. The next day he came back, laid down the cash and put it on a trailer. As he rolled away, I realized that the car had become just another unhappy part of my personal history. I was happy to be rid of it.

Hank called again in mid-December. My exportation and subsequent re-importation of the little car and wreaked havoc on the title process but since I had given him the Certificate of Origin we could sort it out with just a couple of signatures. We met at a local bank and while we waited for the notary he told me the rest of the story.

My TDI back in the USA – One of the photos that went on Craigslist

The un-dramatic snapping sound I had heard had been the catastrophic destruction of the engine. One of the valves, which had probably been damaged when one of the Marine Corps’ mechanics had turned the engine over without ensuring the timing was perfect, had broken off and fallen into the cylinder bore. Once there, it had wreaked all kinds of havoc. It gouged the cylinder walls, ruined the head, broke the piston into pieces and sent metal shards out the exhaust port and into the turbo where they destroyed that part as well. According to Hank, the engine was in such poor shape he had purchased a replacement drive train for the car.

The process had been expensive, Hank told me, but the little car, with less than 30,000 miles on it, would bring good money when he went to resell it. Someone, he explained happily as we shook hands on parting, would pay good money for it. Too true, I thought, and if they have the same kind of luck I had with it, they will keep on paying for a long, long time. I hope they like lemonade.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

A reader tip pointed us to an issue with Mazda’s recent Skyactiv-D diesel engines in Australia. Apparently, the vehicle’s particulate filter may be the source of some engine oiling issues.

Our reader sent us this note regarding the issue

I’m really looking forward to the new skyactiv D engines coming to North America next year. As I was looking for info about them I came across issues with oil rising over the full mark. Seems to be caused by diesel leaking into the oil sump after being sprayed to burn off contaminates in the particulate filter (apparently this happens in other manufacturers diesels as well.) Most of the problems reported seem to be in Australia but apparently it is happening in Europe too. I know that the CX 5 Diesel is very popular in Japan but I didn’t find anything about the issue in Japan

Mazda sent out this leaflet to diesel owners regarding monitoring the oil, while forums have been alight with this topic. While some would-be owners have canceled their orders for CX-5 and Mazda 6 diesels, it appears that new engine software and a re-designed dipstick (which can give owners a more accurate reading of the oil level) can remedy the problem.

Alas, no wagons among them, but Audi is launching four new diesel powered models for 2013, marking one of the biggest pushes for diesel in the North American market.

The A6, A7, A8 and Q5 will all receive a 3.0L V6 TDI engine, good for 240 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque. The A8 will go on sale in the spring of 2013, with the other models following in the fall. Conspicuously absent was the A4 TDI, but if BMW ends up bringing over their diesel 3-Series, an A4 TDI should follow.

In a devastating blow to fans of contrived displays of ecological sensitivity and ostentatious displays of consumption, Range Rover will apparently not sell their diesel-powered Range Rover Hybrid from the American market.

Despite the seeming slam dunk Range Rover has on their hands (really now, every single celebrity in Southern California would be driving one), it’s not as cut and dried as it would seem. America’s diesel emissions regulations make the diesel Range Rovers unsaleable in the United States due to the cost of homologating the powertrains. The unpopularity of diesels doesn’t help much either.

Americans will get the familiar 5.0L V8 in either naturally aspirated or supercharged versions. Automobile Magazine claims that Jaguar’s new supercharged V6 could be a fixture as well sometime down the road. Hopefully, Jaguar will find a way to bring the diesel engine and 1.7 kWh battery pack into one of their cars as well.

We decided to take a family vacation this summer in Italy, starting in Florence and driving into rural Tuscany to spend a mellow week in a rental villa near some friends. I reserved a “Ford Focus or equivalent” with Hertz and, after a thoroughly unpleasant hour in the queue (“not exactly” indeed), they handed me the keys to an Alfa Romeo Giulietta with a manual transmission, two liter turbo diesel. Forza Italia! I now had one week with the sort of car that American TTAC readers often like to grouse about their inability to buy at home.

First up, the snout. To my American eyes, modern Alfa Romeo cars are very striking. You’ll not mistake them for anything else… at least if you’re looking from the front. That upside-down-triangle grill is loud and proud. While the earlier Alfa 159 accompanied it with a thin headlight bar that gave the resulting car an angry, sharp, purposeful appeal, the Giulietta softens the grill with rounded headlights and front fascia. More than one native Italian we met took positive note of the car.

Enough about styling. How about practicality? The hatchback is big. It’s not as deep as the trunk in our Acura TL but it’s usefully taller, and definitely has more usable space than a VW Golf. All our bags fit comfortably back there with room to spare. Many of the little details of the Alfa are comparable to what you might find in a Golf: switchblade key, comfortable cloth seats with limited manual adjustments, baseball-sized shift knob, etc. Still, the Italians couldn’t help themselves with style over substance. My daughter, 7 years old, had to reach up as high as she could to open the back door, since they moved the handle up next to the C-pillar. My wife, five feet tall, had trouble reaching up to close the hatch when it was open. As the driver, I appreciated the tilt and telescoping wheel. I didn’t appreciate that the clock was in tiny lettering that my passengers couldn’t see.

Interior room is great. The backseat has plenty of space for real adults. The driving position has you sitting relatively high. You have a very good feel for your four corners, which is deeply necessary when navigating some of the smaller streets in old Italian cities and towns.

On to the driving! The diesel has all the benefits and drawbacks that you’d expect. The low redline means you’re shifting much earlier than your gasoline-trained instincts tell you. Likewise, you can run at a much lower RPM than any small gasoline engine would ever tolerate. The computer nags you to shift early, seemingly trying its best to keep the engine under 1200rpm. At a low engine speed like that, you can put your foot down and damn near nothing happens at all. The engine’s personality completely changes around 2000rpm, when the turbo spools up and you suddenly feel the power. Shift before the redline and you’re still in the power band and life’s good. This contrasts, for example, with the Hyundai Veloster (1.6 liter non-turbo, manual) that I test drove a few months ago for giggles. Wind the Veloster up to the redline, shift, and you’ve got nothing. The Giulietta does much better (as, I hope, does the Veloster Turbo). For what it’s worth, the Giulietta’s gear and clutch feel are nothing particularly special. There’s none of Honda’s awesome snickety-snick shifting, and the Giulietta’s clutch grab point is a bit nebulous.

The real standout feature of the Giulietta is its suspension. During our vacation, we ranged from cobblestone streets to zippy autostrada, from smooth twisty cutbacks to bumpy gravel side roads. The Giulietta’s suspension is all about trying to preserve some dignity when faced with punishing roads. Yes, you’ll feel it when driving over crap, but the Giulietta damps out a lot of the vibrations while still keeping things relatively tight. The few times I did some “spirited” driving through the twisties, the car felt comfortable and composed. Still, this is no racing car. Does the Giulietta have “passion and soul” and lovely growling exhaust notes as Top Gear’s James May notes of earlier Alfas?  Maybe the gasoline engines do, but for the diesel, no. It’s a nice car, but you won’t fall in love with it.

Deep down inside, I’m a gadget guy, and this is where the Giulietta let me down. The base-model stereo in our car had no aux input for my phone. According to the owner’s manual, you only get that ten-cent jack with the much pricier “Blu & Me” package. (And, at least on the Fiat 500 I once played with at a Texas dealership, Blu & Me doesn’t include Bluetooth A2DP for stereo music streaming. Boo, hiss!) This was probably the most obvious place where some Fiat Group beancounter blew it for everybody.

Once I figured out how to convert the onscreen menus to English, I saw a long list of adjustments, but no way to fix the things that were most annoying. Foremost, the car raises holy screaming hell if one of your passengers unbuckles before the car has come to a complete stop. Also annoying: the car insists on asking you to shift early and often. What you can do, however, is change the car from “normal” to “dynamic” mode. According to the owner’s manual, this increases max torque by 10%, which you’d never notice. However, it replaces the shift indicator light with the Alfa “DNA” logo. Yes indeed, 10% less guilt definitely improves driving dynamics.

Other gadgety features: the Giulietta will turn the engine off when waiting at a light. Once you push the clutch in, the engine starts back up all by itself. Despite this, if you were dumb enough to turn the key with the car in gear and the clutch engaged, the starter motor happily tries to drag the car along; the ignition doesn’t require you to have the clutch pedal down. (Yes, go ahead, ask me how I figured that out.) The Giulietta has a hill holding feature that works pretty well. It has a rear sonar parking assist to help you nudge your car as far back as it can go. The lights and wipers also have automatic modes. It even auto-restarts the engine if you stall it. (Yes, sigh.)

What about mileage? About half of our driving time was on the autostrada, half on local twisty roads. According to the trip computer, we averaged 5.8 l / 100 km (40.5 mpg). This is the same as the Giulietta’s official “city” mileage rating. (Wikipedia has all the stats.) The Giulietta’s official “combined” rating is 4.7 l / 100km (50 mpg). My freeway driving was pretty sedate, since I wasn’t keen to get ticketed by the autostrada’s ubiquitous speed cameras, so this means that mountain driving, with the turbo spooled up and driving with proper engine braking, is unsurprisingly detrimental to this car’s mileage. At the end of the trip, before I handed the car back, I spent roughly $100 filling the tank for 800 km of driving, with maybe a quarter of a tank left. (What great range!) To drive the same distance and style in my Acura TL, with it’s super-unleaded-mandatory V6, I would have expected to have averaged 20 mpg, yielding roughly the same dollar-cost-per-mile, assuming you’re comfortable with my comparing U.S. gasoline prices with a big V6 sedan against European diesel prices with a smaller turbo 4-cylinder car.

In Europe, the value proposition of the Giulietta is clear: high mileage and excellent interior space in a car that fits into smaller places while giving you decent amounts of “sport” and “style”. Today, in the U.S., the closest car you can buy to the Giulietta is the new Dodge Dart. It’s the same basic platform, but of course you can’t get the diesel or the hatchback. The big question: if cars like the Giulietta diesel or the comparable BMW 180d Sport were offered in the States, how well would they sell? Based on my week in the Giulietta, I’d imagine they could do quite well.

The 335d may not have done so well in the United States, but BMW seems undeterred, and is set to launch yet another oil-burning 3er shortly.

Rumors of another diesel 3-Series began in the bowels of the internet rumor-mill, but ended up being confirmed by BMW. Sort of.  AutoGuide.com initially reported the “news” based on a tweet (!) from Automobile’s Jason Cammisa, but a BMW spokesman ended up verifying the factoid, telling them

“…the next BMW Advanced Diesel engine that will come to the US is the 2.0-liter  4-cylinder turbo-diesel. Specific timing and model applications will follow.”

If the new engine doesn’t appear in a 320d, I’ll go out and buy a Jetta SportWagen TDI. Or a 320i.

Last December, Toyota and BMW announced “a long-term technological partnership.”  Ostensibly, it was about developing batteries together, and about BMW supplying diesel engines, in that order. Four months later, the priorities seem to have changed a little.

In a joint press release, Toyota and BMW announce that they just now have signed an agreement on collaborative research for lithium-ion battery cells. Research has started, and this being research, it can take a while.

The diesel engines will come earlier, and in earnest. Toyota has contracted BMW as the supplier of highly efficient 1.6 liter and 2.0 liter diesel engines, and BMW will start shipping in 2014. Toyota has realized that diesel is a big seller especially in Europe, where it holds 50 percent market share. Diesel is making inroads in India. Even in Japan, diesel cars are beginning to appeal to customers. Toyota has its hands full with hybrids and other new generation technologies and does not have the bandwidth to tinker with its own diesel engines.

In Europe, half of the cars sold are diesels. In The U.S. and especially in Japan, automakers literally wrinkled their nose at oilburning cars. This is slowly changing, says The Nikkei [sub].

In India, a market owned nearly 50 percent by Suzuki, gas prices have soared 36 percent over the past year and a half, while diesel prices have increased by a more modest 14 percent.

Diesel-less Suzuki was blindsided by a wholesale shift to diesel. It dragged down Suzuki’s sales from April 2011 through February 2012 by 13 percent on the year. Mahindra & Mahindra has diesel and saw its sales jump by 36 percent. Suzuki did react by buying diesel engines from Fiat, much to the chagrin of Volkswagen.

Honda has developed a new diesel engine for the first time in six years. It plans to use it in Civics produced at Honda’s plant in Wiltshire, England.

Toyota forged an alliance with BMW to supply mid-sized diesel engines that will go into Toyota’s European offerings.

In the U.S., diesel market share is below 3 percent, in Japan, the share is below one percent. The Nikkei sees “signs that diesel cars are even appealing to consumers in Japan.”

In its first month of sales in February, Mazda received about 8,000 orders for its new CX-5 sport-utility vehicle, with diesel models accounting for 73 percent.

There was ample hand-wringing when Volvo announced the death of their iconic station wagon in North America. While enthusiasts mourned the death of a cult classic, Volvo also announced a plug-in hybrid version of their V60 wagon, powered by a diesel engine and a hybrid drivetrain. Naturally, this vehicle was not destined for sale in North America.

The non-available V60 plug-in constituted the ultimate slap in the face for the Volvo faithful. Here was the newest generation of Volvo wagon (as opposed to the warmed over XC70 offered recently) with an environmental bent and the Euro-cachet of a diesel engine – but where was it? As Jamie Kitman of Automobile magazine rightfully pointed out, their core buyer is “green” but refusing to import such a vehicle may not be “lunacy”, because the Swedes have something more suited for American tastes – the same hybrid goodness, packaged as a gasoline-powered crossover.

Rather than the V60 diesel-hybrid, North Americans are being treated to a plug-in hybrid based on the XC60. Set to be unveiled at the North American International Auto Show next week, the XC60 plug-in will use a 280 horsepower 4-cylinder gasoline engine and a 70 horsepower electric motor for a total output of 350 horsepower. The gasoline engine will drive the front wheels, while the electric motor will power the rear wheels. Volvo claims that the vehicle can be driven in electric mode for up to 35 miles and return up to 50 mpg. Stefan Jacoby, Volvo’s CEO, noted that the gasoline powered version will be an important car for China and Russia as well as the United States, as this likely has as much to do with the crossover body style as it does the gasoline engine.

On a personal note, my folks bought an XC60 T6 this summer, and I have spent ample time in it. While perpetually ignored in the marketplace, the XC60 is a car I’m fond of, with a powerful engine, a well-appointed cabin and good driving dynamics. At the time of purchase, I urged my parents to look at the XC70 T6, but it cost a few thousand dollars more and offered little appreciable difference to them. If a couple of upper-middle class car enthusiasts saw little value in opting for a wagon over a crossover, then what chance would a station wagon have with more conventional buyers, who are likely to be even more image-conscious and resistant to the idea of a wagon? On the other hand, my parents have a 5.4 mile commute through a downtown core to their office, and something like this would be right up their alley. Hopefully pricing won’t be so exorbitant that it cancels out any economic benefit for buying the XC60 plug-in.

Forget Amerindian prognostications of the apocalypse occurring in 2012 – the sight of an oil-burning Porsche SUV is enough for some to consider it the end of the world.

The announcement of a diesel powered Porsche Cayenne was buried deep within a press release for the Porsche 911 Cabriolet’s debut at the 2012 North American International Auto Show. According to the release, the spring launch of the previously revealed Panamera GTS “…will subsequently be followed by the Cayenne Diesel as Porsche’s first compression-ignition car in the USA.”

A bit of digging on the Porsche UK site shows that the Cayenne Diesel puts up some decent numbers. 245 horsepower and 405 lb-ft of torque with the sprint to 60 mph coming up in 7.6 seconds. A V6 powered Cayenne with the Tiptronic gearbox is only .2 seconds quicker. The Diesel has the clear edge in fuel economy – returning 8.4L/100km in the city and 6.5L/100km – according to our conversions thats 27 mpg around town and 36 mpg on the freeway. The Cayenne V6 returns a meager 16/23 mpg by comparison.

Pricing and positioning for the Cayenne Diesel hasn’t been announced, but we can look to both the existing Cayenne lineup as well as its competitors for clues. The current Cayenne lineup has the Cayenne V6 at $48,200, while the V8-powered Cayenne S retails for $65,000. The Hybrid model (with a supercharged V6 and hybrid drivetrain is $69,000. The diesel will have to bridge the substantial gulf between the two cars, and given Porsche’s propensity to charge exorbitant sums for trivial widgets like colored wheel crests, look for the Cayenne Diesel to err towards the higher side of the pricing spread.

BMW and Mercedes-Benz offer their own range of diesel engines on certain SUVs (the X5, M-Class and GL-Class. The R-Class is questionable as an SUV), but their pricing strategy differs as widely as their respective marketing narratives.  BMW positions the X5 diesel as a much more expensive option – costing some $9200 more than a base X5 35i with the 3.0L twin-turbo I6, while the Mercedes ML350 BlueTEC carries a premium of $1590. The GL350 BlueTEC on the other hand costs $1000 less than the base gasoline GL450.

Another day, another disappointment for American fans of the Indian automaker Mahindra’s rugged, diesel-powered trucks. Earlier rumors that Mahindra might build its trucks with Navistar in Alabama turn out to be false, as a press release published at MahindraPlanet notes

MUMBAI, India, December 17, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — “There have been reports in certain quarters of media and online space stating that Navistar USA will produce Mahindra’s T20 and T40 pick ups in Alabama, USA in 2012, which are completely baseless & incorrect. If & when there are any material developments, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited will communicate them directly and transparently.”

If you haven’t given up on the Mahindra dream, now might be a good time to consider it…

German-Nipponese alliances are not going out of style, the Volkswagen/Suzuki soap notwithstanding. Toyota and BMW cut a diesel deal – if The Nikkei [sub] is correctly informed. They ran the story very early in the Japanese Saturday morning; hence no comment from Toyota is available. We’ll ask on Sunday, when we’ll see that mysterious RWD sports car.

According to The Nikkei, BMW will supply diesel engines for Toyota’s passenger vehicles sold in Europe. When and how many is unclear.

Toyota is betting heavily on hybrids, but Europeans are hybrid-averse and prefer diesel instead. Not having diesel options misses more than half of the market. However, with only a 4 percent share of the European market, spending too much time and money on diesel engines does not make sense for Toyota.

BMW on the other hand needs the volume, and is willing to sell diesel engines to anyone with money. “Toyota is expected to share its technologies for hybrid systems and related areas if requested,” says The Nikkei.

Volkswagen had painted a bulls-eye on Toyota and wanted to beat the Japanese by 2018. At least in terms of production numbers, Volkswagen will have Toyota beat this year. Instead, VW has to contend with GM.

The long-term new energy strategy of Volkswagen and Toyota on the other hand could have been devised in a joint planning session. Volkswagen believes that near-term, the plug-in-hybrid has a great future, whereas Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn won’t live long enough to witness the boom of the pure electric car.

The German newspaper Handelsblatt has an interview today with Winterkorn. It echoes in large parts the interview which I had ten days ago with Toyota’s Chief Engineer Satoshi Ogiso. The two sound amazingly similar: Bullish on plug-in hybrids. Cautious on EVs.

Winterkorn on EVs:

“I cannot imagine that the whole fleet will run on pure electric power in the foreseeable future. A current technology lithium-ion battery weighs 250 kilograms, and in the best case, it will take you 150 kilometers down the road. Maybe this can be optimized a little, but I expect significant progress only from the next generation of batteries. From our current perspective, this could be based on lithium-sulfur. This battery could be good for 300 kilometers.

A decisive technology leap could be lithium-oxygen batteries. This is a topic that still needs a lot of research. With this technology, a car could have a pure electric range of 450 to 600 km. That would be the breakthrough.

But I don’t expect it before 2030. It won’t happen in my life – at least not in my life as CEO of Volkswagen.”

Winterkorn on plug-in-hybrids:

„The bridge to the future will be the plug-in-hybrids. You can charge their battery from a wall socket. You can drive 50 or 6o kilometers on electric power, then, an efficient internal combustion engine powers the car. Right now a gasoline engine, at some point in time a diesel.

That way, the battery can be down to two thirds of both the weight and the price of a pure EV. Don’t forget, the battery of a pure EV alone costs €8,000 to €10,000. Together with Bosch, we want to reduce the price of the battery to € 5.000, but that is still a lot of money. A battery for plug-in-hybrids runs us only €3,000 today.”

Interesting: Winterkorn didn’t mention hydrogen at all. Volkswagen used to be gung-ho on hydrogen.

The growing markets of the world want flexibility. That means power and capability combined with comfort and efficiency. TrailBlazer does it all. You can tow anything, go anywhere, comfortably seat seven people, and do so with the fuel efficiency associated with a smaller, less capable vehicle. It’s the complete package

But Americans don’t want any of that. Americans want a nice, car-based Equinox or Traverse. And that’s just what they’ll continue to get…

As the automaker that’s least-prepared for upcoming increases in federal fuel economy standards, it was more than a little surprising to find that Fiat’s five year plan for Chrysler did not involve any significant plans for hybrid drivetrain development. But more recently, CEO Sergio Marchionne has said a hybrid Chrysler 300 would be offered in 2013, and the firm hooked up with the feds to work on a hydraulic hybrid drivetrain. And though new CAFE regulations offer generous credits for hybrid pickups, a policy choice that rescues Chrysler’s investment in “Two Mode” hybrid technology, more will have to be done. For, in the words of Marchionne [via Automotive News [sub]],

I have no other way of getting to 2025 numbers than by going to hybrids

But Chrysler won’t rely fully on hybrids in order to make the significant fuel economy improvements it needs. In fact, it will be relying as much on diesels and compressed natural gas (CNG) drivetrains as anything else.

AN [sub] reports

Marchionne said Chrysler’s hybrids would be in addition to a broad offering of diesel-powered vehicles in the United States.

He said Chrysler will begin offering a diesel-powered Jeep Grand Cherokee in 2013, and thereafter most Chrysler Group large vehicles will offer a diesel in the United States.

Which is an interesting revelation. First of all, it calls into question Bob Lutz’s analysis of the difficulties of bringing diesels in line with US emissions standards. Lutz argues that the benefits don’t outweigh the costs and compromises, but clearly Marchionne disagrees. And yet he clearly realizes that there are easier feats: Chrysler’s five year plan called for a stop-start, diesel Wrangler in 2010… and yet that still hasn’t materialized. Jeep CEO Michael Manley noted back in early 2010 that

We have no plans at the moment for diesel Jeeps in North America

Clearly that’s no longer the case… which means Chrysler’s product plans are relatively fluid. And if diesel were a cure-all, we’d be seeing them already. It seems that Chrysler’s approach to the new CAFE standards are based more in desperation than any clear strategy. That impression is compounded by Chrysler’s talk of CNG drivetrains. Though the technology holds great promise for energy independence, and Fiat is Europe’s leader in CNG technology, Marchionne’s comments on the prospect of US-market CNG offerings are fairly equivocal:

The likelihood of that happening is uncertain, but I’m still hopeful that at least a sizable portion of the U.S. market will develop CNG capability. And we are ready

In short, Chrysler has no clear plan to become competitive in fuel economy, which I happen to believe is as important for ongoing commercial success as it is for meeting US CAFE standards. Chrysler may beat back some of its over-reliance on full-sized RWD cars and large pickups and SUVS by bringing more Fiat-based vehicles to market, but the projected impact of those models seems to be on the decline. Subcompact B-segment cars planned for Dodge and Chrysler have been canceled, as has a compact Chrysler, and the firm will be stuck with its not-wildly-efficient midsizers until 2014. Moreover, Chrysler is going to have to rebuild a reputation for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles at time when its domestic competition will be solidifying their new reps for quality small cars on the strength of products that are already on the marketplace (think Fiesta and Focus, Cruze and Sonic… to say nothing of Hyundai’s emerging dominance in this area).

In short, Chrysler is living proof that the auto bailout will not produce the promised “new generation of green cars.” And its emerging plan gives no reason to expect that to change anytime soon.

It’s a phenomenon with some precedent: import manufacturers will get nowhere with a certain bodystyle or drivetrain until one of the US domestic brands jumps on the bandwagon and popularizes it. And Jeff Breneman, executive director of the U.S. Coalition for Advanced Diesel Cars, is hoping the same dynamic plays out in the world of diesel power when Chevy brings its Cruze Diesel to the US. He tells WardsAuto

The fact that Chevy will offer a diesel Cruze in 2013 is huge. The gas-powered Cruze will get 40 mpg (5.9 L/100 km), so the diesel is expected to get 50 mpg-plus (4.7 L/100 km), and that will make it a game-changer.

Ford, Toyota or Honda haven’t got a diesel for the U.S. yet, but get ready for 2013-2014. That’s when we’re going to see a lot more diesels.

And, as the diesel booster-in-chief, it’s not surprising that Breneman would come to that conclusion. But what are folks inside GM saying about the Cruze diesel? In a recent interview with TTAC, senior advisor Bob Lutz suggested that we shouldn’t expect the Cruze diesel to conquer America or “change the game” all that much.

Our conversation had turned to emissions regulation, and Lutz had just mentioned that Europeans “cheerfully” pay the equivalent of nearly $40k for a Cruze LTZ with a diesel engine. Since he brought up the Cruze diesel, I asked if he had any insight into the decision to bring it to the US. He answered.

Yeah, it’s almost impossible. We’ll do some because we’ve got  them in Europe anyway, and we’ll make them compliant and GM will sell a few just to show that we’re part of the game. But I don’t think anyone sees much of a future for diesels in the states because our emissions regulations are six times tougher than Euro 5, and multiple times tougher than Euro 6, which nobody even knows how to do yet. The companies that are selling diesels in the United States, last time I checked which was over a year ago, are all operating on EPA deviations. So nobody meets even current diesel emissions standards. The EPA renews the deviations on an annual basis, but they’re not  supposed to renew for more than three years.

It’s just so tough. You need the urea tank and everything, and in order to do the post-combustion NoX reduction in the catalyst, you have to deviate fuel to the catalyst because every two minutes a burn takes place to fry all the oxides of nitrogen and particulates. Well, that reduces the diesel advantage. So now you’re talking $2,500 of hardware and a big urea tank, and instead of a 30% gain in fuel economy, you’re looking more like 18% or 20% and you’re using a fuel that costs 18-20% more per gallon than gasoline. You tell me how this makes sense.

I mean, it’s cool. Owners of Volkswagon diesels love to go around saying [affects a voice dripping with self-satisfaction] “I have a turbodiesel,” and everyone says “wow.” But Ford canceled their passenger car diesel program, they canceled their midsized SUV diesel program, we canceled ours, we canceled passenger car diesels for the US. We were at one point talking to Honda to see if we could collaborate jointly on, say, a two-liter diesel for passenger cars, and we both came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the trip. They were hopeful (and frankly so were we) that with all they know about engine and emissions that they would be able to somehow conquer this emissions conundrum… they gave up. So all the major producers gave up on diesels for the US.

Now, I don’t understand US and EU emissions regulations well enough to fact-check some of Lutz’s technical claims, but his deep pessimism can best be captured by his modest ambitions for the Cruze diesel. Lutz rarely misses an opportunity to praise a GM product, so his “we’ll sell a few just to show that we’re part of the game” line seems quite revealing. Unless things change fundamentally between now and its launch, I wouldn’t expect the Cruze diesel to blow the lid off the diesel market in the US.

In 2012, Toyota will take part in several races of the FIA World Endurance Championship, including the Le Mans 24 Hours, with a prototype “LMP1” car featuring a gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain.

Get Hyundai on board, and bring BMW’s new i brand into the mix, and the international racing business could be re-energized by the the competition to demonstrate the perfect compromise between performance, reliability and efficiency. As many of the top racing series see declines in viewers and manufacturer participation due to their increasing irrelevance to mass-market vehicles and brands, the golden age of endurance racing could just be dawning.

Dow Jones cites a report in Der Spiegel Magazine which claims that GM Vice Chairman for Corporate Strategy Steve Girsky

has made enquiries at BMW to start discussions on “far-reaching joint projects.”

According to Dow Jones, the Spiegel article does not cite any specific source for its information, and TTAC has not yet been able to find the original article online. According to Dow Jones, GM is

 primarily interesting in gasoline and diesel engines… General Motors is at an advanced stage in developing a fuel cell and could offer co-operation in that field… The technology behind GM’s Opel Ampera electric vehicle would also be of interest to BMW, according to the report.

GM has not yet responded to TTAC’s request for comment. A similar rumor was floated by Handelsblatt around this time last year, but BMW was quick to quash it. Are things different this time, or is GM still struggling with unrequited desire? We’ll let you know as soon as possible…

Its most powerful engine in the U.K. is the 1.6 liter, stop-start-equipped, Euro-5 compliant diesel with 105 HP and 213 ft-lbs … and that starts at £17,065 ($27,759 , in direct-conversion)… but there’s also a 2.0 oil-burner with 135 hp and 236 ft-lbs in the Fiat Professional quiver. Fiat Professional claims a 1,000 kg payload (about 2,200 lbs) and up to 1,450 kg (3,200 lbs) “load on rear axle,” so it’s no slouch. But between the vagaries of currency and efficiency (the 1.6 and 2.0 get 45.2 MPG and 42 MPG respectively on the European combined cycle, the latter being equivalent to the European Cruze 2.0 diesel MT), and the question of production siting, it’s difficult to put together a specific scenario for this coming to the US. But if it did, it would make even the most far-away CAFE standards look pretty mild (even though Chrysler’s once-questionable hybrid pickup drivetrain already does). On the other hand, it would also make the Ram Tradesman look like a screaming deal even though it offers “only” 1,860 lbs in maximum payload (it’s a much better towing machine). So don’t hold your breath… and if you need an efficient commercial vehicle in the meantime, well, there’s always the brand-new Caravan Cargo Van!

Slightly over 11 years ago, Jaguar set the car world’s heart a-flutter with the sleek, stunning F-Type concept. Shortly thereafter they said they’d build it, and relentless hype (including a totally unconvincing C&D “First Drive Review” featuring no actual driving impressions) followed. As the years dragged on, it soon became clear that Jaguar would not be building the achingly gorgeous sub-XK roadster (a decision that Robert Farago called “a shocking miscalculation“). But now, with mules already prowling the British countryside, a new baby Jag roadster concept is coming to the Frankfurt Auto Show… and Jaguar tells Autocar it will be a “precursor” to the coming production model. As a big fan of Ian Callum’s work, I’m sure it will look absolutely delicious… but if this somehow turns out to be another F-Type-style tease, Jaguar will be dead to me forever. [UPDATE: video preview after the jump]

With Chevrolet already offering a Cruze Eco, WardsAuto reports that the forthcoming Cruze diesel made a case for itself based on attributes that go beyond mere efficiency. Which is interesting because a GM source tells Wards that the Cruze diesel will get around 50 MPG on the freeway… and unlike the Eco, it will achieve that high number with an automatic transmission (the Cruze Eco’s 42 MPG highway rating is only for manual transmission models). Equally importantly, the oil-burning Cruze will return better performance alongside better efficiency, with 147 HP and 236 lb-ft, compared to the 1.4T engine’s 138 HP and 148 lb-ft, which would make it the performance model of the range… which some say is just what the Cruze needs.

Joseph Lescota, chair of the Automotive Marketing Management Dept. at Northwood University in Midland, MI, thinks a diesel Cruze will draw buyers.

“Chevrolet has a great price-point vehicle that has tremendous eye appeal and options but may not meet the performance needs of a select market group,” he tells Ward’s.

A diesel version would hit that group between the eyes by adding a sturdy engine, extra torque and top-end performance to the mix, he says.

GM executives meanwhile highlight the diesel option’s value as what GM North America boss Mark Reuss calls “a hedge against the unknown.” Only three percent of current US sales are of diesels, but as American brands start rolling the oil-burning options out, and as Americans are exposed to their higher performance and efficiency, that segment could just grow. After all, who doesn’t want more performance and more efficiency for a mere $1k-$4k premium?

Porsche was spared a major embarrassment – by the Chinese. According to an emailed memo, the boys in Zuffenhausen sold 10,722 vehicles worldwide in July, that’s 4 percent below the 11,169 units sold in July 2010. It could have been worse.

In Europe, Porsche sales were down a 38.3 percent in July. And who’s to blame? The Cayenne Diesel. It’s not that is sales had suddenly evaporated. In July 2010, the oil burning Cayenne racked up so many sales that Porsche now has a hard time beating that number. July would have been a disaster (percentage-wise) without the Chinese. They bought a whopping five times the number of Porsches sold in July last year. For the year, the Chinese bought 14,751 Porsches, twenty percent of the world total of 71,381 units sold so far. The Chinese are especially infatuated by the Cayenne, and China is Porsche’s second largest market. There is no info on the Diesel take rate in the Middle Kingdom.

Overall, Porsche is blasé about the July dip brought about by record Cayenne Diesel sales a year ago. With 71,381 units sold in the first seven months, Porsche is 72.6 percent ahead of the same period of last year.

Although the majority of German consumers continue to see EVs’ benefits in environmental and socioeconomic implications, broad adoption of EVs will remain low as long as current offerings don’t meet drivers’ practical usability and cost-saving requirements. To expand from early to mainstream EV adopters in Germany, automotive companies must focus on technology innovations, offer pricing strategies that are aligned with established premiums for diesel and hybrid powertrain options and develop diverse EV model mixes targeted at younger consumer segments that have higher EV interest levels than older demographics… E-mobility will become a viable addition to future transportation scenarios in Germany, but automotive companies and the German Government must address marketability requirements of EVs, prioritise technology investments and continue to promote cross-industry collaboration. Future mobility concepts will consist of diverse powertrain choices and business models that will leverage technology to satisfy consumers’ transportation needs while challenging traditional car ownership.