Lazy E team member Margaret recently tested out the new Volkswagen Jetta TDI. Here are her thoughts.

The Volkswagen Jetta TDI reminds me of a good salsa dance partner; it grips but doesn’t cling to the road, it accelerates on demand and without hesitation, and is a thrill of a ride. To be fair, I was driving the clean diesel TDI across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Napa Valley on an exquisite afternoon so, really, how bad could it have been?

This nimble car is being marketed by Volkswagen as another solution in a broader transportation alternative portfolio. On average, a diesel engine goes 30% further on a gallon of fuel than a gasoline-powered car and the math checks out for the Jetta TDI; it gets 34 mpg in the city and 44 mpg on the highway, according to independent testing by the AMCI . One feature that helps encourage efficient driving is an energy monitor located directly in front of the driver on the dashboard (as opposed to the Prius in which the monitor is placed less conveniently to the driver’s right by the radio). At one point, with my foot off the accelerator I was getting 102 mpg. Then I abruptly jabbed the pedal which immediately reduced the fuel efficiency to 22 mpg. This alone made me reconsider my driving techniques and challenged me to get better gas mileage as I drove. Apparently, some people do this for a living. Just last month, Australian husband and wife team John and Helen Taylor family broke the Guinness Book of World Records driving 2,753 miles through 24 states averaging 58 miles per gallon, in the Jetta TDI.

Two main concerns with diesel have been that it’s dirty and that it lacks pick-up. But neither argument holds up with the Jetta TDI, which uses low-sulfur, “clean diesel ,” and delivers pick-up good enough for the 30 drag racers competing in the TDI Racing Cup . Moreover, p...