I used to own a PASSAT 1.8T with 5 valves per cylinder. Tiptronic gearbox. Very good acceleration. Very good at cruising. FE at around 11 to 12 km/l when new and reduced to 10 to 11 km/l 5 years later. Not bad comparing with my friend's PASSAT running with a 1.6l engine having a FE of just 6 to 7 km/l.


Of course I can't compare PASSAT's mileage with my Civic Hybrid's with I am now getting around 23 km/l. It would be nice if the VW Hybrid could offer the same acceleration / handling performance or better with the mentioned FE. I'll definitely look forward to the DSG. Fantastic gear shift.

This is going to sell like hotcakes when it arrives here in the US. Couldn't get here quickly enough either: they think gas might hit $4/gallon this summer.

It's already getting near to $ 8 / US gallon over here... (current average for diesel is £ 1.10 litre, = $ 2.20 / litre = $ 7.70 / us gallon)

Petrol is pretty much the same price, £ 1.06 / litre.

-- Edit:

The conversion factors I was using in the above (/ 20, then * 16) to convert imperial gallons to us gallons was wrong. The corrected figures are more like:

$ 8.08 for a us gallon of petrol
$ 8.67 for a us gallon of diesel