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Popular Mechanics offers a nice review of the new VW Touareg V-6 TDI.

Our drive to Mexico and back in a Touareg V6 TDI required few fill-ups. In fact, after several hundred miles we still had nearly two-thirds of a tank of fuel left. If we maintained our 65-mph cruising speed while getting the indicated 29.3 mpg, we could have traveled nearly 800 miles on a single tank of gas—not bad for an off-road-capable 5000-plus-pound SUV.

The Seattle Pi posted a great chart comparing the different feedstocks for biofuels. When Algae based biodiesel becomes a reality, there isn't much doubt that  it will be the "green" biofuel/biodiesel of choice.Click for larger image

USAToday's James Healey updated automotive section readers on VW's returning diesel TDI cars to North America. His article in December 2008 was a good review for those interested in diesel and Volkswagen. A couple interesting comment offer hope that we'll see more than just the Jetta and Jetta Sportwagen oilburners shortly. If they continue to bring more TDI models to the U.S. while other car companies rethink 'diesel,' it could give Volkswagen a decided advantage when oil prices rise again.

Volkswagen announced the availability of its 4Motion all-wheel-drive system for the Golf TDI  in Europe ... but not in North America, of course. The drivetrain is exclusive to TDI models utilizing the manual-transmission variant of the 2.0L TDI clean diesel engine. The fuel efficiently is down about 8 mpg from the FWD only model, but still an impressive 43 mpg.  The top speed is said to be 128 mph with a  torque of 236 lb-ft at 1750 rpm. It would be nice to have this option in the U.S., although the translated price of €26,500 would be well over $30,000 at today's exchange rates.

 Where is sediment bowl located on '02 Jetta TDI ?

As suspected ...

Rising oil prices were a boon to biodiesel producers this summer, as near-$150/barrel prices for crude oil made it more and more profitable to produce biodiesel from a variety of feedstocks. However, with that same barrel of oil now costing less than $50, margins have tightened up for makers of the green fuel.

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Despite choosing another distinctively horrible name VW has the idea spot on by ramping up the city car to get ready for production in 2011.  The city car came from the UP! line of concept cars which was considered tiny when it debuted in 2007, but with theincreased trend towards small cars such as the Smart Fortwo or Toyotas upcoming iQ it's in the works.

VW will introduce the "Chico" as a class-leading 141mpg and emit less than 60g/km of CO2.  The diesel variety is a three-cylinder, common-rail design to be introduced in next year's VW Polo but surrounded by other energy conserving extras such as excellent aerodynamics, stop-start tech, and very low rolling resistance tires.