Will VW's Polo come to the U.S. market?
The VW Polo BlueMotion is one of the most fuel efficient internal combustion vehicles available on the market in Europe with CO2 emissions of just 99 g/km and consumption of 48/74 mpg on the European driving cycles. Volkswagen has never offered the Polo in the U.S. market because when it was affordable (due to exchange rates) there wasn't much demand for such cars here. More recently, when the company could have used such a car here with rising fuel prices, the weak dollar has made it prohibitively expensive. Jim Motavalli has driven the Polo in Europe and wants one here. Will we ever get to see it? According to VW spokesman Jim Gill, we won't get the current generation Polo. However a redesigned version is a couple of years off and if fuel prices continue to climb the company would consider it. Now that a new plant for VW is being built in Tennessee, the company certainly has the option of building such cars here at lower cost than importing them from Europe. We shall see.
[Source: New York Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
robbie 2:40PM (8/26/2008)
The MPG quoted in the article are British gallons. The US MPG is more like 39/62.
I've got it's SEAT twin sister, the ibiza ecomotive, which comes with the same 3 cylinder diesel engine. I think most Americans should probably get used to 4 cylinder diesel engines instead of 6 cylinder upwards petrol engines before they'll start liking this 3 cylinder one. It definitely feels much different to drive. I'm cruising at 43 mph at just about 1100 rpm. That sounds like the engine is idling, but its the 'normal' way to drive this car, and to get the given fuel efficiency out of it. Most people I know (other Belgians who are used to diesel cars) don't like the sound this makes, so people used to the much higher rpm of petrol engines will definitely not like the sound and won't get the economy out of it.
Reply
Torrent 4:30PM (8/26/2008)
Either way, it still gets more MPG than Most hybrids. I'm fine with that.
Quen 7:00AM (8/27/2008)
I've driven the new model Skoda Fabia with the same 3 cylinder diesel (although not with bluemotion/ecomotive tweaks) as a rental car in Spain. Wow, was it impressive! Plenty of power to climb the Sierra Nevada foothills and was comfortable and refined on the motorway. All that and I averaged about 48 mpg in mixed driving. I hope VW brings a similar Polo stateside, seeing as how they have nothing that even gets so much as 30 mpg in mixed driving now.
Reply