2013 Golf R on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Bentley considering diesel engine for new SUV

Turns out, in case you didn't know, the rich are just like regular people. They too are concerned about the environment, even when tooling around town in their super-luxurious Bentleys. So the automaker is weighing the idea of offering a diesel engine in its SUV offering, which could help satisfy customers' demands for more fuel-efficient engines.
Chairman and CEO Wolfgang Schreiber told Autoblog in a roundtable interview at the Geneva Auto Show that the automaker is researching whether or not a diesel engine makes sense for the brand. Bentley, owned by the Volkswagen Group, could in theory use a diesel engine from anywhere in the Volkswagen Group family. We at Autoblog have hopes they'll revive the V10 TDI used in the VW Touareg until 2010, but ever-stricter emissions laws would likely make that problematic.
But rich people aren't so much like us that they'll be worried about petty things like pricing. Schreiber admitted the diesel engine could be a $15,000 option, which he said customers would probably find "acceptable." Given that the cheapest Bentley today starts at $177,000, typical customers probably won't be diddling around worrying about an extra 15 grand.

VW planning 20 new plug-in models for China

With just about everything getting super-sized for China, Volkswagen is following suit with its plug-in vehicle plans for the world's most populous country. VW, Europe's largest carmaker, is looking to sell more than 20 different plug-in models in China within the next four years, Reuters says, citing comments Volkswagen Group China head Jochem Heizmann made in Shanghai. The company is hoping that translates to sales of more than 100,000 plug-ins in China by the end of the decade. Go big or go home, right? There's a huge plug-in vehicle opportunity in China, especially given the bad pollution situation in cities like Beijing and Shanghai and the Chinese government's incentives for plug-in vehicle buyers. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said at the Beijing Motor Show this spring that the company would spend $25 billion on at least a half-dozen plug-in models for China by 2018. VW will start selling the e-Golf in China this year and the Golf GTE plug-in hybrid in 2015. VW said in August that it would start selling the e-Golf in the US for about $35,500 in November. That's a $6,500 price hike from the base Nissan Leaf.

Autoblog Minute: VW 'tip of the iceberg' in diesel emissions scandal

Some are calling Volkswagen just the tip of the iceberg in the diesel emissions scandal. Autoblog's Adam Morath reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Some are calling Volkswagen just the tip of the iceberg in the diesel emissions scandal. I'm Adam Morath and this is your Autoblog Minute. Here in the U.S. the EPA found defeat devices on certain Volkswagen vehicles. Across the pond however concerned environmentalist groups including [00:00:30] Transportation & Environment say that the issues could be more widespread in Europe. Nico Muzi, a spoken for Transportation and Environment was quoted in the Automotive News as saying: "Volkswagen is just the tip of the iceberg..." Muzi goes on to claim that cheating is widespread, and that results produced from European emissions tests, which are not administered by a government agency, show differences in data that "...are so much, it can't be explained." Clean vehicle manager at Transport & Environment Greg Archer spoke to Bloomberg Business about the need to reform emissions testing in Europe: [00:01:00] [Bloomberg Video Clip] While it's clear that automakers are engineering vehicles and software to perform well on emissions tests, the real question is whether or not other OEMs, besides Volkswagen, are using defeat devices to cheat the tests, either here or in Europe. For Autoblog, I'm Adam Morath. Green Volkswagen Emissions Diesel Vehicles Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video vw diesel scandal