Green Options

It looks like the new line of clean diesels from VW, including the new Jetta TDI and SportWagen, will be eligible for a $1,300 Federal Income Tax Credit.

VW made the announcement earlier in the week after receiving notification from the IRS that clean diesels would meet the “Advanced Lean Burn” motor vehicle income tax credit.

New diesels will get better mileage and have cleaner emissions than your average car. Pictured above: 2009 Jetta SportWagen 2L TDI Clean Diesel.

Later this year (see the timeline below), we will finally begin to see an influx of new model diesels in the United States. While diesels make up 50% of the market share of vehicles in Europe, they’re still trying to shrug off the stigma of being dirty, noisy beasts here in the US. So what changed?

Since last year, many of us have been eagerly awaiting the introduction of ‘clean-diesels’: the 2008-2009 models touted as having superior mileage and cleaner emissions than comparable gas models.

So where are they? Strangely, promised 2008 models didn’t materialize, and I had trouble finding more on the story. As far as I can tell, we’ll just have to look forward to next summer’s release of the 2009 VW Jetta TDI. The new Jetta gets similar mileage to older models, 50 mpg ( though VW engineers claim 30% better mileage under real world conditions). More importantly though, it’s the first diesel to meet the world’s toughest emissions standards, California’s Tier II, bin 5, earning it clean-diesel status. If you noticed the recent lack of diesel vehicles for sale (especially in CA), it was the direct result of reengineering emissions systems:

Although it won’t be wearing the “BlueTec” badge, the Jetta will be using emission-cleansing technologies developed under the cooperative formed by Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen to make it 50-state legal. Most BlueTec vehicles control NOx emissions—one of the biggest environmental hurdles facing diesels, along with particulate matter—by injecting a urea-based solution into the exhaust system upstream from the catalytic converter, where NOx is then converted into nitrogen and water. The Jetta will instead use a NOx-storage catalyst, which is basically a reservoir that temporarily holds the noxious emissions, like a particulate filter, until they can be burned off during one of the engine cycles.