new Small Pickup coming to the US?

Would probably be possible to compare VWs, perhaps? Especially since they sell both diesel and gas models in both Europe and the US (though not sure that all the engines are the same).

As to the grass is greener thing....I think it's fair to say no matter what the the fuel economy in a diesel is going to be better than that on a comparable-performing gas car - though that doesn't take into account things like car balance (for handling), price, accelleration, etc which are "other factors" that would outweigh fuel savings to many people. Also doesn't take into effect actual emissions - but let's face it, very few people buying cars really care about emissions if we're honest with ourselves ;)

Actually a good example would be the current US-market VW Golf Diesel vs. Golf TSI vs Golf PZEV. Again, not straight comparisons, but the diesels are roughly 10-20% better fuel economy with reasonably similar power/tq numbers. IDK.

Diesel rated at 140hp/235tq, 31/42mpg TSI rated at 170hp/200tq, 26/37mpg PZEV rated at 170hp/177tq, 24/31mpg

FWIW, here's the results of my spreadsheet for all of the current EPA tests & the 2 Euro cycles:

US:

• UDDS 32.39mpg
• HWFET 41.71mpg
• FTP 33.39mpg
• NYCC 18.68mpg
• SC03 33.98mpg
• US06 44.34 mpg

Euro:

• ECE 27.56mpg
• EUDC 40.39mpg

alfadriver - I recall having this discussion with you in a thread a while back, but not sure if we ever reached a conclusion. Do you know how the new tests are incorporated into the NEW Epa combined results?

The new ratings (using formulas on page 12 here: http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/fetrends/1975-2012/420r13001-appx-a.pdf) would be 25.2mpg city, 29.7mpg highway. 27.6mpg overall.

From what I understand the OLD Epa method would be UDDS derated by 10%, HWFET derated by 22%, and 55/45 hwy city rated avg. That would result in 31mpg for this car.

The Euro cycle is basically ECE 4 times in a row followed by EUDC. No derating. That results in 34.5mpg for this car.