Quote:
Originally Posted by rwthomas1
Let the European diesels in! But they won't, they'll keep insisting on electric boxes made in Japan.
RT
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Regulation is not what keeps diesel out of the USA, at least in the case of Volkswagen. What keeps more diesels from arriving is the weak US dollar. And the fact that the engines are produced in Europe, where they sell for $8,000 more than a US consumer would pay. We are getting the overflow of diesel engines from the European market.
Volkswagen can't keep up with the USA demand for the Jetta TDI. VW will produce 2,000 Golf TDI for the whole USA in 2010 for 700 dealers. If you do the math it works out to 3 Golf diesel per dealer. I work at a high volume VW store that is in the top 25 for the USA. We just received our third Golf TDI since the car was launched 6 months ago.
Two months ago I leased a GTI to a professional on visa from Hamburg, Germany. When he was comparing prices in his head with Euro dollars to US dollars he felt like he was getting the $30,000 car for half price.