By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

The variables that go into calculating the economics of driving a car will make your head hurt. The considerations include purchase price, depreciation, fuel economy, maintenance costs and insurance. Does the extra you pay for hybrid technology now pay off in savings at the pump over the long haul?

Anybody have a calculator?

But here is the bottom line for most car buyers: What’s it like once you slide your tush behind the wheel?
By that matrix, the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI measures up pretty well.

The attention-grabbing numbers of this new-generation, clean-burning diesel sedan are, of course, the miles per gallon. Diesel engines are typically more fuel-efficient than gasoline engines and the EPA fuel economy estimates for the Jetta TDI are 29 mpg city and 40 mpg highway.

Real world performance is even better. We got 43 mpg in a 200-mile freeway drive going 70 mph or better. We got better than 30 mpg driving to Blockbuster and back.

That fuel economy, sadly, doesn’t translate into cash savings because of the gap between gasoline prices and diesel, currently about $1 a gallon. But who knows what the difference might be five years from now? And figure on driving the Jetta TDI for a long time. Diesels are known for durability. If you read a cute story about a guy driving a car with 1 million miles on the odometer, it’s likely diesel powered.

The cabin of the Jetta TDI, fortunately, isn’t a bad place to spend the next decade. The interior materials are better than you might expect in a car of this price point. The front seats offer good lateral support. The heated leather seats of the test vehicle quickly got nice and toasty.

Big passengers in the back seat might not be quite as comfy, however. Headroom is an issue for anyone over 6 feet.

Standard creature comforts include air conditioning, cruise control, a CD player, eight-way adjustable front seats with height, angle and lumbar support adjustments. The test car had an upgraded 10-speaker sound system with six-disc in-dash CD player, iPod jack and satellite radio.

The controls for tunes and temperature are big, simple and easy to use – unlike those of another German carmaker.

The Jetta TDI is also satisfying to drive. The 2-liter four-cylinder clean diesel engine generates 140 horsepower and 236 pounds-foot of torque, which means the little sedan pulls away from a stoplight strongly, not like an econo-box at all. The Jetta TDI is available with either a six-speed manual transmission, or six-speed automatic.

Safety features include electronic stability control and an array of air bags that include driver and front passenger thorax air bags and side curtain air bags for those front and back. Rear passenger side thorax airbags are an option worth paying for.

The starting MSRP is $21,990 and the test car had a sticker price of $24,190. The Jetta TDI qualifies for an Advanced Lean Burn Technology Motor Vehicle Federal Tax Credit, so you’ll get $1,300 back from Uncle Sam if you buy one.

Yet another variable in the equation.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Related story:

• VW’s Jetta TDI, a winning diesel option for cost-conscious green drivers

An expectation met is rare enough. An expectation surpassed is a culturally appropriate winter solstice celebration miracle.

So imagine my surprise and delight when reading the miles per gallon readout on the trip computer of the 2009 Jetta TDI during a recent holiday drive over the river and through the woods. The display reads: 43.7 mpg. That’s significantly above the Environmental Protection Agency estimate of 40 mpg in highway driving.

And we weren’t doing any of that 55 mph, coast-down-hills, hyper-miler sort of driving. We were zipping along at 70 mph or so, singing loudly along with the Christmas tunes provided by the satellite radio.

That sort of fuel economy apparently isn’t a fluke. Volkswagen hired a third party, automotive evaluation company AMCI, to test the real-world fuel economy of the Jetta TDI and found it performed 24 percent better than EPA estimates, getting 38 mpg in the city and 44 mpg on the highway.

Such miserly fuel use is one reason the Jetta TDI earlier this year was named the 2009 Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal.

“The Volkswagen Jetta TDI rose to the top as Green Car Journal’s 2009 Green Car of the Year® for some very important reasons,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com.

“Hybrids have dominated the discussion of environmentally positive vehicles in recent years.” Awarding the title to the VW, Cogan said, “shows that advanced clean diesel has arrived and is poised to change this dynamic. With its affordable price point, refined ride and handling, and high fuel economy, the Jetta TDI shows that hybrids now have a strong competitor in the marketplace.”

The diesel cars of today aren’t the clattering, smoky, smelly diesels of 20 years ago. The new vehicles meet even strict California emissions standards, in part because of regulations requiring the development of ultra-low sulfur fuel. Refiners reduced the sulfur content in diesel fuel by 97 percent, making exhaust control systems more effective.

The new, clean-burning diesel cars such as the Jetta are a better alternative to conventional automobiles than even gasoline-electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, according to a RAND study.

The study, presented in November 2007 at the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, D.C., examined the benefits and costs of three alternatives to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine for the 2010-2020 period. The alternatives were advanced diesel technology (the kind making its way to dealer showrooms), gas-electric hybrids and duel-fuel vehicles burning E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.