A new breed of clean diesel cars leave hybrids in the dust.

I guess I am one of those “fringe Volkswagen fanatics.”

I will admit that my primary motivation for running a Diesel has always been thrift. I can’t help it, I’m cheap. When I bought my VW Jetta TDI in 2002 I chose it because:

it was a Diesel powered car
it was priced low because it had been languishing on the dealer lot for 8 months

The latter issue we pushed even further by bargaining down. In the end, we paid about $17,000 for the car… INCLUDING Tax, Lic, etc. Nobody wanted Diesels back then. Except me I guess. I recall reading that VW sales people would bring people on test drives of TDIs and never mention that they were fueled with Diesel. The “D-word” was never used. Other than at idle, with the windows down, you can’t really tell anyway. They have wrapped the engine in so much sound dampening material that the usual Diesel (high compression) clatter is negligible.

Now, it seems everyone wants one. Demand has literally DOUBLED the prices. Check out this list from an email to the Seattle Bio-Diesel users mailing list from a VW Dealer:

2006 TDI JETTA
Selling price: $31,144 plus tax (8.3%) and license.

2006 TDI JETTA
Selling price: $31,623 plus tax (8.3%) and license.

2006 TDI JETTA
Selling price: $31,994 plus tax (8.3%) and license.

Thankfully we have our small (two) fleet of Diesel powered daily drivers, and won’t be looking for replacements until the supply/demand curve flattens out a little. But if anything, this little exercise in economics should pique the interest of the car makers, who have been dragging their feet on selling Diesels in the USA for the past 20 years while the Euopean driver has the Diesel choice in EVERY CAR THEY BUY. yep, even from the US-based brands such as Ford & GM. Go figure.