Gas Sipper Shootout: 2009 Jetta TDI vs 2010 Honda Insight Which Saves More?

Well, it's not like the Corolla-inspired Jetta is very good looking either.

— _43LE (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 3:36:23 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: -2   

I'll take the drivers car between the two...the TDI.

— Star (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 1:46:37 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 4   

as of today. TDI's a better deal.

Did they eliminate some tax on Diesel recently?

— monkeyrun (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 2:15:05 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 7   

hybrid more reliable that diesel huh?

wow

— RaulT (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 2:31:50 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 4   

Globe Auto presented false calculation of hybrid vs diesel fuel costs.

Calculations are presented on this page:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090115.whFaceoff0115/BNStory/specialGlobeAuto/?pageRequested=2

Here is the direct link:
http://images.theglobeandmail.com/archives/RTGAM/images/20090115/whFaceoff0115/15c_faceoff400big.jpg

We read that costs in $/km for the Insight and the Jetta are equal: 0,05 $/km.

Below we read annual cost of fuel for the Insight is $933 while for the Jetta TDI is $1064.

Calculation for the Insight is erroneous.

Assumptions in the article:
- both cars do 20.000 km annualy
- 55% city driving, 45% highway driving
- Insight consumes 4.8 l/100km city, 4.5 l/100km hwy
- Jetta TDI consumes 6.8 l/100km city, 4.8 l/100km hwy
- regular gas is $0.789/litre, diesel is $0.902/litre

Let's recalculate:

Honda Insight:
(20000*0.55/100*4.8 + 20000*0.45/100*4.5)*0.789=(528+405)*0.789~=$736

VW Jetta TDI
(20000*0.55/100*6.8 + 20000*0.45/100*4.8)*0.902=(748+432)*0.902~=$1064

— FanboysStink (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 4:39:50 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Neither, but if i had to choose i would take the Insight. I would fall asleep behind the wheel of the Jetta, and add the fact that it is the ugliest car since the Asstek.

— zorbeeze (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 6:31:42 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

The Insight is cheaper, mileage is weighted towards city where the Insight has a huge lead here, gasoline is cheaper yet somehow fuel costs are the same.

The guy is an auto journalist so he must know what he's talking about.

Diesels are dead, the Insight is just the latest nail in the coffin.

The only diesel customers left will be 18wheelers, F350 trucks and people who refuse to drive something that wasn't designed in Germany and glued together in Mexico.

Ah yes, I remember the days when you could get a Jetta TDI for under $20,000 but that's before VW realized they could sucker fad conscious euro-snobs into overpaying for diesels.

The last kicker is diesel needs low financing inorder to get someone to look at them.

— huu76 (View Profile)

Posted on 3/17/2009 9:13:43 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Now if only Honda would make a clean burning diesel for the North American Market.

— RonHc213 (View Profile)

Posted on 3/18/2009 3:46:16 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Why can't we just have diesel hybrids and be done with it?

— t_bone (View Profile)

Posted on 3/18/2009 9:40:15 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

AlexTX,
The Germans should lower the margin they put on diesels then if a diesel hybrid is too expensive.

As for hybrids having a limited lifespan. Hydrogen fuel cells run on the same concept (nearly) as gas-hybrids. Hydrogen recharges the battery and the hydrogen car runs on electric. Same idea of a gas engine recharging a hybrid battery and also being able to run on electric and/or gasoline.
BMW is the only company thats stuck on hydrogen combustion for some reason.

— huu76 (View Profile)

Posted on 3/18/2009 11:19:00 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

Thier was an interesting article by some Canadian group comparing dust to dust impacts of various cars (I think... google it) that compared the overall environmental impact including all the manufacturing impact. In that study up to about 150k miles the Hummer was more environmentally friendly. They strip mine up in Canada for the Nickel used in the battery (yes pollution is better there now but is still outrageous), it is then shipped then to Ireland I believe where the battery was actually constructed, then shipped to Japan for the construction of the car itself. So if you keep your Prius for over 150k miles you will be better on the environment than the person who bought a Hummer. On the other hand if you bought say a.... Jetta... that mileage figure might just go up a bit! I admit there may be some controversy to this study (of course Toyota is going to fight that image)... but it does us all good to understand the whole picture!

— valhallakey (View Profile)

Posted on 3/19/2009 2:01:36 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

I admitted there was controversy associated with the study but many of the points made were valid ... you have to look at the entire building process... I have not seen any retraction although I have read some reports critical of the assumptions etc... made like this one http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf
and you can certainly read the original report here
http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/
My point in the end was if you compared the entire ecological damage of a Prius to something like the Jetta the results may have been more interesting even taking into account the faulty assumptions. So don't take LMAO-XYZZs word for anything go read up on it yourself.

— valhallakey (View Profile)

Posted on 3/20/2009 1:40:40 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

just ONE of the totally biased, faulty assumption:

"The report’s major indicator is total energy use per mile traveled, which is calculated by dividing the energy cost by the lifetime mileage. The most obvious manipulation of data is the company’s
choice of total vehicle lifetime miles for each vehicle. For reasons not explained in the report, the
Hummer H3 is assumed to travel 207,000 miles in its lifetime. Even more remarkable, the
Hummer H1 is assumed to travel 379,000 lifetime miles. The Prius is assumed to travel only
109,000 miles.8
After readers of “Dust to Dust” questioned Prius’s assumed lifetime miles, CNW provided a note
revealing that they had assumed early Priuses traveled only 6,700 miles per year, which
translates into the low lifetime mileage assumption used in the study.9"

[8,9 being just a few of many footnotes]

incidentally, most toyota products are just BARELY BROKEN IN at 109,000 miles. not uncommon for them to rack up 200-300,000 miles.

— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 3/21/2009 5:27:24 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Mining of nickel can be environmentally destructive. Toyota buys nickel for Prius batteries from a mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The mine has created such a dead zone around it, that NASA now uses the area to test lunar rovers.

“The acid rain around Sudbury has destroyed all the plants and the soil slid off the hillside,” David Martin, a Canadian Greenpeace coordinator, told the British newspaper Mail.

Hope you hybrid freaks are happy, destroying forrest just to drive that ugly car

— dieselboy (View Profile)

Posted on 3/25/2009 8:28:26 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

— dieselboy (View Profile)

Posted on 3/25/2009 8:48:58 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1