Green Options

Volkswagen has announced that the documentary “Racing Under Green”—detailing the trials and tribulations of the Jetta TDI Cup, the U.S.’ only professional green racing series—will premiere the week of January 18 on the various channels of Discovery Networks, including Planet Green, Discovery Channel, and The Science Channel.

In addition to following the stories of last season’s 25 drivers, the hour long documentary will examine some of the “green” aspects of the Jetta TDI Cup, including the use of biodiesel blends and the support of carbonfund.org.

Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen accepting the Green Car of the Year Award for the Audi A3 TDI

At last year’s LA Auto Show, the Volkswagen Jetta TDI rather surprisingly beat out many non-diesel contenders to win the title of 2009 Green Car of the Year. And, if I were a betting man, I would have never guessed that the Green Car Journal would choose another diesel to win the 2010 title. But they have. The Audi A3 TDI was just named the 2010 Green Car of the Year.

Set your DVRs: The Science Channel’s “How It’s Made” covers Audi clean diesel technology. Debuting TODAY, September 18th, 2009 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with an encore broadcast on the Discovery Channel on Thursday, September 24, 2009, 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. ET/PT.

“How It’s Made” is one of those head scratchers of a show for me. Take one part horrible muzak and one part kind-of-boring monotone narrator; mix it with some cool behind-the-scenes manufacturing footage of stuff that you normally take for granted; throw in some occasional history and you’ve got yourself… a winner? As much as the show bores my wife to tears, for some reason I love it. It’s so cheesy and cool at the same time.

So I was excited to hear that the show will be doing a segment on the building of an Audi V6 3.0 TDI clean diesel engine. Audi has recently started a push to bring their new clean diesels to the US and market them as a green alternative to gas cars and even electric cars. In fact, Johan de Nysschen, President of Audi America, recently got himself into a bit of hot water by extolling the virtues of diesel while insulting the people who would buy electric drive cars like the Chevy Volt.

It’s an Audi-tastic day! Johan de Nysschen, President of Audi US, certainly took some major heat over the interwebs today for his inflammatory and derogatory statements that the Chevy Volt is a “car for idiots” and that electric cars are only for intellectual elites to “make a statement.” They were especially curious comments because they came at the same time that Audi launched a website touting the power of electricity.

So, knowing how these things usually go, after some serious damage control conference calls between the Audi communications folks and higher level management, de Nysschen was probably forced to respond with a much more diplomatic take on his positions — what he should have done in the first place. It’s so hard to backpedal once you’ve said something as concrete as “you’re an idiot if you buy this car.”

Bring on the war of words. In a frank conversation with MSN writer Lawrence Ulrich, Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen has said that the Chevy Volt will fail and that anybody who buys the car is an idiot. Not only that, de Nysschen has lumped proponents of any type of electric car into a category of “intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are.”

I’m guessing that means a fair amount of the people reading this would be considered idiots and pompous intellectual elites in Mr. de Nysschen’s book. Funny that. Hearing an Audi executive mocking any other car as being for intellectual pompous elites is, err, interesting, given that Audi is known for being in exactly that category themselves. Agh.

At the upcoming Frankfurt Auto Show (September 17-27, 2009) Volkswagen will be debuting updated versions of its Euro-spec Polo, Golf and Passat diesels. According to European testing methods, the Polo BlueMotion will get the equivalent of 71.3 mpg (US), the Golf BlueMotion 61.9 mpg, and the Passat BlueMotion 53.4 mpg.

I wasn’t expecting to be impressed with the new Opel Ampera (the Chevy Volt’s European cousin). In fact, I was convinced I would find something dull, unimaginative and lacking in technical innovation.

But instead, I believe that I’ve actually found the only serious contender to replace the Audi A3 TDI that’s sitting on my driveway right now.

This week GM invited Gas 2.0 to witness the unveiling of the Opel Ampera, to go on sale in Europe in 2011.

Volkswagen, which introduced its Clean Diesel Technology on the race track in 2008, announced it’s using B5 biodiesel to power its race cars, transport vehicles and generators for the 2009 Jetta TDI Cup season.

Last week we covered news about Volkswagen’s new BlueMotion brand of fuel-efficient vehicles — but that’s not the only “green” news coming out of Wolfsburg these days: VW subsidiary Škoda just released word that its highly anticipated GreenLine sedans are now available for purchase throughout Europe.

Škoda is trying to carve a niche for itself with large sedans that are green and luxurious — starting with the company’s flagship SuperB sedan. Škoda first showed the VW Passat-based sedan at last year’s Geneva Motor Show.  Like the Passat, the Škoda makes use of a 1.9 liter turbo direct-injection clean diesel that delivers 105 hp and over 180 lb-ft of torque at low rpm, making for quick acceleration off the line and serious biofuel capability.

Find out more — and read Škoda’s official press release — after the jump.

Volkswagen’s launched a new brand: BlueMotionTechnologies.

It houses all of Volkswagen’s best eco-friendly tech. It currently includes a new start-stop system, regenerative braking, SCR catalytic converter and the NO_x storage catalytic converter.

At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, Audi announced that their Clean Diesel A3 TDI would be available in US by early 2010.

The Audi A3 is by far one of Europe’s cleanest and most fuel-efficient cars, and Audi is hoping the car will kick some major Prius butt. Pitching the car as a hybrid-fighter, Audi is pairing it off against both the Prius and the Honda Insight.