Greenest of the green? This could be the complete automotive ticket for the coping with the age of petro-price-gouging:
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/02/vw-unveiling-an.html#more It has almost everything, and in proper balance... except possibly price. VW - "das auto" has, in recent years, been trying to fashion itself closer to BMW- with a quasi-elitist mentality, than to the original Porsche vision of "people's car". OK- maybe that was the Fuhrer's vision, not Ferdi's ;-) Anyway, check out some of the prices on the high end of the VW line- wow- if you want to see how far they have digressed. At the same time, the pride in quality and smart designs of this company have helped them to become the world's fourth largest producer (after Toyota, GM and Ford). This diesel hybrid model may be the vehicle to push VW all the way past the laggards and into the #2 spot- if it is priced aggressively. Or-(assuming that it will not be priced aggressively in the USA due to our dollar being of peso-quality these days) VW may yet get there by default, considering the sorry state of affairs at GM and Ford. Although Toyota may have something to say about VW's success as interloper in the hybrid market - especially when MrT finally introduces its own diesel hybrid (hopefully soon, now that California has clean diesel at about the same price as regular). KdF, Jones .... For those vorticians and assorted muttersprakers who joy in the arcania of the spoken work, "KdF" is (or was) short for "Kraft durch Freude" ("Strength Through Joy").... ...not that the perps who invented the VW, along with the concept of "spin," were able to spread very much joy around the land of Die Grünen.
