Modern diesels: Great economy, great power, great cars

I just got an email from a reader singing the praises of the diesel-powered Golf TDI: "This car can easily achieve 40 MPG city and 50 MPG highway. My personal best was 54 MPG highway at about 60 miles per hour. What do you have to say about that?" I say "Brother, you're preaching to the choir."

Among my Volkswagen diesel escapades: Los Angeles to Arizona in an automatic Golf TDI, average speed 85 MPH, average economy 37.5 MPG. A week of mixed driving in a 5-speed Jetta TDI, 46 MPG (matching the Civic Hybrid I drove the week before). And while I would never openly admit to blasting through the hot Arizona desert in a Passat TDI station wagon-- and by blasting and hot, I mean 90 MPH and 102 degrees -- it's safe to say the Passat would return well over 30 MPG if I did. Under those same circumstances, a similarly-sized gasoline-powered car would struggle to make it into the mid 20s, while a compact SUV would be lucky to get 15. (Not that I would know this from experience, of course.)

Check out our diesel test drives: The Volkswagen Passat TDI, Jetta TDI, and New Beetle Convertible TDI (who says diesels can't be fun?), as well as the Mercedes-Benz E320CDI. You'll see why many of us here at About Cars will tell you that diesels are our favorite way to save fuel.-- Aaron Gold