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VW Jetta TDI Value Edition drops price of diesel ownership to $21,295*

Getting a new diesel-powered car just got a bit easier. Volkswagen has announced a new Jetta TDI Value Edition for 2014 that trims over $2,000 off the starting price of a Jetta TDI, making the most affordable diesel-powered car in America even more so. Prices start at $21,295 (*plus $820 for destination) for a Value Edition with a six-speed manual transmission, while a six-speed dual-clutch automatic adds $1,100 to the price. For that money, owners will get 140 horsepower, 236 pound-feet of torque and 42 miles per gallon on the freeway.
Despite the lower price and being down on content versus the previous base Jetta TDI, the Value Edition does come quite well equipped, with standard heated cloth seats, a six-speaker stereo with a Media Device Interface, satellite radio, and one-touch, up-down power windows on all four doors. Customers will be giving up some notable stuff though, including tilt/telescopic steering, Bluetooth streaming audio, power seats and a multi-function steering wheel.
Still, if you're aching to get your hands on a new TDI, this is now the most affordable way to do it. We suspect having the lower MSRP will help the German manufacturer make even further diesel-powered inroads here in the States, a land where they cleared their decks of over 100,000 TDI models in 2013.

2014 VW Golf brings storied hatchback's seventh generation to US

The seventh-generation Volkswagen Golf in US-specification officially debuts at the 2013 New York Auto Show. The new model is the first VW in the States to ride on the company's MQB architecture, and as such, it makes use of plenty of high-strength and ultra-high-strength steel to keep weight down. All told, the new shell is 51 pounds lighter than the outgoing generation, despite the fact that the finished car is a full 2.2 inches longer and .5 inches wider than the 2013 model.
Buyers can expect to find a base model powered by a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine (blue car above) with 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. That means the powerplant delivers the same horsepower as the old naturally aspirated 2.5-liter four-cylinder while weighing less and producing seven extra pound-feet of torque. TDI (silver car above) buyers, meanwhile, will enjoy a new 2.0-liter turbo diesel four-cylinder mill. VW says the engine yields 10 more horsepower than the old lump, which means the Golf TDI now boasts 150 hp and 236 lb-ft of torque.
GTI (red car above) buyers will now get their hands on a revised 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with approximately 210 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque - Volkswagen hasn't finalized power numbers for that machine. We're happy to see that the GTI still features its trademark plaid seats. Volkswagen says the new Golf and GTI will go on sale as a 2015 model, but doesn't say when the car will actually hit dealerships.

VW to relax ambitious US sales targets?

The Volkswagen brand sold 407,704 cars last year, a 6.95-percent decline compared to 2012, and it's down a further 8.36 percent through the end of April 2014 compared to this time last year. In order to to put the sales football between its Strategy 2018 goal posts, the brand would need to add 100,000 more sales every year to achieve the lofty 800,000-unit target. Coming to grips with how unreasonable that is, VW US CEO Michael Horn has said, "For now, we have to have realistic targets."
The reasons for the brand's slow-down are imprecise, but lots of folks are throwing lots of reasons around. Last November, VW Group Chairman Ferdinand Piech told Bloomberg, "We understand Europe, we understand China and we understand Brazil, [but] we only understand the US to a certain degree so far." Analysts say the brand hasn't had midsize and compact SUV offerings, especially an overdue retail version of the CrossBlue, and the ones it does have are priced too high for their segments. It "didn't introduce enough new engines, or alternative technologies or model variants" for the Passat and Jetta. It devoted so many resources to China that the US market suffered. It was being outspent two-to-one on advertising by competitors. Its J.D. Power dependability ratings aren't high enough to overcome its past. It "has never really taken the US customer seriously." And so on.
There's still no official admission of defeat concerning the target, but reading between the lines there are some VW execs that appear to accept it won't happen short of some deus ex machina. Still,