KEY POINTS:
Admiit it - there's a lot of fashion-sense involved in the drive for cleaner vehicles.
While lowering greenhouse-gas emissions from cars has become something of an obsession among governments and individuals with green-tinted glasses, the fact is that transport - that's "transport," not just cars - accounts for less than 15 per cent of CO2 emissions worldwide.
Every little bit helps, but sometimes you can't help but feel that a lot of eco-conscious cars are chosen more as a "me-too" statement than anything. So, if you're going to embrace automotive fashion, you might as well do it in something... well... fashionable.
Let's face it, hybrids are just so-2006. They are also not as kind to the planet as you might like to think because so much energy is consumed in building them.
What you want is a high-tech European diesel, like the new Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion, which lays claim to being the world's most economical five-seat production vehicle.
BlueMotion is not some new piece of technology. Rather it's a brand VW is now attaching to modified and very economical versions of each of its main models. "Blue" references the corporate colour of the company, as well as earthy stuff such as the sea and air, while "Motion" is supposed to suggest transport but also the concept of moving into the future.
Being the smallest and therefore most frugal of the BlueMotion breed, the Polo is regarded as something of an eco-flagship for VW. Compared with the standard Polo TDI, the BlueMotion version is just 0.6 seconds slower to 100km/h (12.8sec), yet Combined fuel consumption drops from 4.5 to 3.8 litres per 100km.
What's remarkable about the Polo BlueMotion is that the engine is unchanged. The economy gain comes from improved aerodynamics, revised gearing (it's manual-only, of course), 10mm-lower suspension and the redesigned ancillaries, such as lightweight magnesium wheels and low-
rolling-resistance tyres.
It's still fully kitted out - buy the BlueMotion and you still get semi-
climate air conditioning, four airbags and anti-lock braking.
Cheap it ain't. At $30,990, the BlueMotion asks another $4000 on top of a standard Polo TDI. But VW reckons there's still potential to sell to individuals and particularly company fleets wanting to make a green statement.
There's probably more volume in the second BlueMotion model to be launched here, a $40,990 version of the Jetta mid-sized sedan. A Passat BlueMotion is also under evaluation - both powered by a 1.9-litre TDI engine.
VW says a central tenet of the BlueMotion philosophy is that driving enjoyment should not be sacrificed in the pursuit of economy.
Just how much fun you can have piloting a three-cylinder city car is open to question, but a day-long trial of the eco-Polo at least highlighted an eager engine and raspy exhaust note. The low-rolling resistance tyres used on the BlueMotion are short of grip when pressing on, but that provides a kind of fun in itself.
VW New Zealand introduced the car to the media with a short inner-city point-to-point economy challenge. Choosing our own routes between checkpoints and opting for the path of least traffic resistance, a colleague and I recorded the lowest fuel consumption figure of the day - 4.3 litres per 100km, definitely driving for economy but keeping pace with the traffic flow - and arrived at our final destination 10 minutes before anybody else.
However, that wasn't good enough to win. Another team had chosen the shortest possible route, taken longer and achieved slightly worse consumption, yet actually used less precious diesel overall due to the shorter distance travelled. Sometimes, saving the planet takes a bit of lateral thinking.
