Good luck getting a combined 40 mpg in the real world with any other current American car without a hybrid powertrain.
In the early-1980s, General Motors almost single-handedly poisoned the American market for diesel-engined passenger cars for more than a generation. Aside from the most hardcore Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz fans, most American drivers were so put off by the failures of the Oldsmobile diesel V8 that they wouldn’t even consider a diesel in anything but a heavy-duty truck for nearly three decades. Thus it was fitting that GM should be the first Detroit-based automaker to reintroduce a diesel-powered car with the 2013 debut of the Chevrolet Cruze diesel.
Five years ago this month, I accompanied David Kiley out to Bob Lutz's farm to film the exit interview that David was conducting for +Popular Mechanics. As Lutz prepared to retire for the final time +General Motors, he shared some thoughts on some of the people he worked with and came to know during the course of his career. Given, this weekend's news about Ferdinand Piech's departure from the Volkswagen AG supervisory board, I thought I'd share one of the clips that didn't make it into the final cut.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5791/bob-lutz-exit-interview/