Total VW Jetta deliveries including SportWagen for July accounted for 13,388 units. Year-to-date 94,684 Jetta cars have been delivered. It’s VW’s biggest seller by far in the U.S.
Volkswagen Group of America today confirmed the timing of the company’s newest diesel engine, the so-called EA288. The diesel will power the 2015 Golf, Beetle, Passat, Jetta, due in dealer showrooms during the second half of 2014. The news came during a speech by a VW executive delivered at the CAR Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Michigan.
Year-to-date the VW of America has sold more than 47,000 diesel vehicles, including more than 10,000 in the month of July. This represents about 78% of all diesel sales for passenger cars in the United States this year, where car applications of diesel engines significantly lag tax subsidized penetration rates in Europe. VWA usually doesn’t break out diesel sales in its U.S. monthly reports.
The new EA288 will eventually replace all the 2-liter TDI engines in Audi and Volkswagen diesel models. The engine is a turbocharged, common-rail, direct-injection four-cylinder engine rated at 150 horsepower. This is an increase of 10 horsepower compared to more than the current engine—and 236 lb.-ft. of torque.
VW claims that the powerplant shares only the bore spacing with the previous diesel engine that shared the same designation. A number of changes have been made to help reduce emissions, such as the use of a complex exhaust gas recirculation system (with high pressure EGR and a cooled low-pressure EGR); integration of the water-cooled intercooler and the EGR valve with the intake manifold, which also improves throttle response; and packaging the exhaust after-treatment components close to the engine by combining the DPF with the SCR Catalyst. Pricing for these expensive technologies is as yet unknown, but typically diesel engines carry a $2,500 or more premium when compared to gasoline engines.
The engine also has a number of modifications to help minimize friction and optimize fuel economy: there are low-friction bearings for the camshaft and balancer shafts, piston rings that have less pre-tension, and the oil pump is a two-stage device with volumetric flow regulation.
