[obermd]

Not a CTD owner but it doesn't change my opinion of diesels in cars. It did drastically lower my opinion of VW however.

 

[obermd]

Not a previous VW owner... I had considered a TDI at one point but never followed through. I knew too many people with non-engine related issues with gasser VW's to be willing to take the chance (and the TDi's have the same issues). So in my case...really hasn't effected my opinion.

I believe the EPA and the Enviro-nazi movement with their excessive regulations fostered the enviroment that made cheating neccessary in some cases.

The fact that GM managed to make it work without cheating basically means that VW chose to cut corners to reduce their costs. No cheating was necessary.

 

[obermd]

And at what cost? Bottom line is critical on non-luxury vehicles...pennies per unit are significant as they add up. And the cost isn't insignificant.

This is the engineering/design/marketing tradeoff that has to be made for all consumer products. In the case of Diesels this may mean that the bottom tier of cars will never be diesel. This is OK - it's market forces at work. VW was trying to cheat reality by cutting corners on their emissions systems. Chevy didn't cut those corners on the Cruze CTD. Mercedes apparently hasn't cut those corners either.

 

[obermd]

What a lot of North American's don't know is that the reason diesels are so popular in Europe is political. Europe put a bounty (tax) on Carbon emissions but not on Nitrogen Oxides. Granted, this was done before we knew that NOx is a key contributer to acid rain, which has been killing the remaining forests in Europe. It's far easier to reduce carbon emissions from a diesel, but at the cost of more NOx emissions. Now that Europe is starting to realize that NOx is just as bad as COx, I think we will see the end of the diesel dominance in Europe as well. In fact, Europe is in may ways a better environment for electric cars - far less distances to travel. This is why Audi has chosen to focus on electric and hybrid vehicles. VW also stated they will be taking the Audi technology and use it across the board once the costs come down.