I would love some of the diesel engines used in Europe. All offer better mileage than similar gas engines, many offer excellent performance, they tend to be reliable, are clean now, and they tend to be torquey. I wish more companies offered them in the US and brought the better ones over. For instance VW has some pretty quick diesels too but sticks us with the 140HP one.
...Unlike EPA ratings, which are broadly achievable on most vehicles, European official economy figures are unrealistic, giving a highly optimistic estimate of what to expect in regular driving.
A new study by the International Council for Clean Transportation has compared real-world figures from a popular German motoring website, with the official EU fuel estimates. The discrepancy? 21 percent.
According to Wards Auto, that’s risen from only 8 percent difference in 2001, and actually echoes our own suggestion that to compare like-for-like with European and EPA figures, you should reduce EU figures by 15-20 percent...