The Big Picture: Fun and 50 mpg

It's become something of an article of faith among the mainstream media in this country that the only environmentally friendly automobile is Toyota's Prius. True, the Prius, with its fiendishly complicated and expensive hybrid powertrain, is an impressive piece-innovative and accomplished enough, in fact, to be named our 2004 Car of the Year. But I've recently driven a car that beats the Prius for driver appeal and does just as good a job of saving the planet.

The car? Audi's A3 1.9 TDIe, developed to meet Europe's proposed 2012 CO2 emissions target of 120 grams/kilometer, roughly equivalent to 52 mpg on the highway here in the U.S. With its revised engine and gear ratios and low rolling-resistance Michelin Primacy HP 205/55R16 tires, Audi claims the A3 1.9 TDIe is good for 53 mpg on the highway. In more than 500 miles of fast freeway hustling, rush-hour grind, and regular urban running through England, my tester averaged 44.3 mpg without any special econo-driving techniques. (All the mileage figures quoted here are for small-size U.S. gallons, not the generously proportioned British ones.)

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On a 48.5-mile run to London's Heathrow Airport around the jammed M25, one of Europe's busiest freeways, I averaged an impressive 50.5 mpg in the sort of bumper-to-bumper stop-start traffic you find in L.A. every day. Flicking through the A3's trip computer at the end of my drive, I found the car had averaged 42.6 mpg over the last 1454 miles at an average speed of 51.2 mph. By contrast, our long-term Prius never managed better than 47 mpg between refills and averaged 41.6 mpg over 22,278 miles, most of which were on L.A. freeways.

With just 103 horsepower, 1.9 TDIe is the least powerful of the three turbodiesel fours offered in the A3 in Europe (the others, both 2.0-liter versions, have 138 and 167 horsepower). On paper, the A3 1.9 TDIe's performance is modest, with a top speed of just 116 mph, and the 0-to-60-mph sprint taking about 11.5 seconds. But on the road, the little Audi is fun to drive, a much more entertaining and rewarding ride than the Prius.

The secret is the combination of the little diesel's torque-184 pound-feet at just 1900 rpm-plus a cleverly spaced set of ratios in the slick-shifting five-speed transmission, nice steering, and a nimble chassis. On the tight English backroads, this combo means you can maintain a relatively high average speed by merely surfing the torque and not working the engine hard. The relatively tall gearing also means the A3 bowls effortlessly along the freeway at a relaxed 80 mph, the engine turning just 2200 rpm. I completed one 103-mile freeway stint at an average speed of 75 mph-and still got 42.4 mpg.

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There's been a lot of talk about bringing diesels to America, and a lot of speculation as to whether American consumers would take to them. Most pundits suggest diesels in America make sense only for SUVs and pickup trucks. I think we're missing a trick here. It's noisier at slow speeds than a regular gas engine, and you feel a buzz back through the clutch pedal at low speeds, but a car like the Audi A3 1.9 TDIe seems made for the typical American commute, which generally appears to be a combination of stop-start downtown driving, slow-to-medium-speed freeway running, and relatively open feeder roads or suburban streets.

What's more, the little Audi's freeway manners are so good, it would make a great long-distance cruiser, easily capable of eating the miles on the Interstates across Wyoming, Texas, or Montana in giant, loping strides. Because you can expect to go 650-700 miles between fuel stops, you'll make better time than almost anything else on the road.

The Prius is a car that does its best work standing still in traffic, when the gas engine shuts down. It's not quite as efficient as the Audi in almost any other operating condition, especially freeway cruising, and it's nowhere near as much fun to drive. So, Toyota hybrid or Audi diesel? If you like driving, and want to cut your carbon footprint, it's a no-brainer.