The 2009 Honda Accord diesel looks set to make up for the mileage shortcomings of the soon to be deceased hybrid model in a big way. The new diesel is apparently derived from the 2.2L diesel that is currently available in European market Accords, one of which was shown recently with with a new emission control system at a diesel conference in California. That car is apparently capable of 52mpg which, if replicated by the production version, will put it well ahead of anything else in its class. The best part is drivers will never have to add any urea like they do with the BlueTec diesels from Mercedes and VW.


In what has been a busy day for Honda news, the Japanese automaker has announced a number of fuel-saving new products destined for North American soil: a redesigned version of its Fit to be released this fall; a clean diesel engine expected in 2009; and a hybrid-only model priced below the Civic Hybrid.

Glad they finally caught on. Why build a complicated hybrid when a diesel gets the same or better mileage. My 3500lb car gets 42/52 and has plenty of torque.

Also the 09 TDI hasnt been released yet because the EPA lowballed their MPG ratings. People are getting 45-60mpg and they rated it very low. Will have to see where the lawsuit goes I guess before they get here. Maybe the bad rating means I can get one cheaper.

The first of the 50-state legal Volkswagen diesels have been EPA-tested with the 2009 VW Jetta TDI achieving 30/41 city/highway mpg numbers mating a 2.0-liter diesel to a six-speed manual transmission. The 2009 VW Jetta TDI diesel with the DSG transmission gets 29/40 city/highway mpg.

While those numbers won't scare the Toyota Prius -- which gets 48/45 city/highway mpg -- actual observed fuel economy doesn't always match up to that of the EPA, as Prius owners well know.

Measured against the five-cylinder 2.5-liter gas-powered Jetta (21/29 city/highway mpg), though, the numbers represent a significant improvement.

The diesel-powered wagon variant, the Jetta SportWagen, has the same EPA numbers and should begin arriving in U.S. dealerships in August. Read our impressions of the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen HERE.

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The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI is coming to VW dealers this summer as the first of the new batch of 50 state clean diesels and the official EPA fuel economy numbers are now out. The diesel has come in with ratings of 30mpg on the urban cycle and 41mpg on the highway cycle. Those numbers are a bit lower than expected, with Volkswagen having implied previously implied that 40mpg both city and highway were possible. More recently they have indicated that real world highway figures of up to 60mpg were possible.

Regardless of the expectations we might have had, these numbers are a huge improvement over the current 2.5L five cylinder and 2.0L turbo offerings. The 34mpg combined figure is a 41.7 percent improvement over the 2.5L and 36 percent boost over the 2.0L. The Prius is rated at 48/45mpg city/highway. We'll be looking forward to our chance to evaluate a new Jetta TDI to see how it does in the real world.

Update: We just talked to VW spokesman Keith Price about the EPA numbers and his response was that the VW TDIs typically do better in real world mileage performance than the official ratings. We'll reserve judgement until we get our hands on one in late June.

Honda's had diesel for a while... just not here, because the EPA are ball lickers and are probably have money coming in from OPEC.

It is a shame American car companies don't sell their diesels in the US. I see diesel Dodge Caravans and Jeep Grand Cherokees all of the time.

Diesel Hybrid > Diesel

honda civic tdi ftw!