Autoline Daily: Seat Time: 2015 Volkswagen Jetta

wow, well said bob, i hope you get a positive response, but i won't hold my breath.

 

The reply is usually about how the Jetta is "fun" to drive while the Prius is like driving an appliance.

 

as opposed to the corolla, which is a blast!

 

The source article says that the base petrol car starts at $17,000, while the diesel is $22,500.
Nasty diesel premium

 

Jetta in Europe is a sedan Golf. Competes with Corolla.
I always thought Prius c and Yaris HSD shared platform...and the latter is a B-segment, while Jetta is C-segment.
Just my 2 cents.

 

I wouldn't quibble over the EPA size designation for this. For one, the companies' don't use them marketing, and most buyers don't look at it either. Telmo744 brought up the segments and classes that the companies actually use for this. These cars are all sedans that are size down from their mid-size family sedan. Traditionally, these have been compact classed cars. Because design bloat now has them classified as mid-size under EPA doesn't make them as big as a family sedan. They are still smaller cars that the public will see as the compact to the companies' main model.

For another, under the hard measurements the Jetta is closer to the Corolla than the Prius c. The Corolla has a cubic foot over the Jetta in total cabin and trunk space. The Jetta has six over the c. The Jetta actually has the same posted measurements as the Cruze. One is mid-size and one is compact. Which just reinforces that using the EPA category name alone is misleading. My Sonic hatchback is classed as a mid-size, but no one is going to mistake as such.
Compare Side-by-Side

The Prius c is in the segment below the Corolla with the Yaris. It competes with the Sonic, Fiesta, and Versa. The Beetle is around the same size, but one of those unique vehicles that attract buyers not interested in the tradition sedan or wagon/hatch body types. In the past, these would all have been sub-compacts. Most of these cars will be on the lower end of compact if classified so.

I too was annoyed by the gen2 Prius comparisons to the Corolla. But once a small car, always a small car to some.

If we are to cry foul over Prius comparisons that aren't apples to apples, let's not be guilty of the same. Pent up demand and very limited, non-luxury competition means that the company can load up the base diesel with the features of the mid to top level petrol one and still sell them.

Autoline has shown biases in the past, but not in this piece. If you hadn't been overly sensitive to that first paragraph and read on, Bob, you would have seen that this was just a piece doing quick review on changes for the new 2015 Jetta. That paragraph was the only time other cars were mentioned, and the only comparison made was to illustrate what market segment the car was in in case a reader didn't know what a Jetta was, and I believe I covered why the selection wasn't wrong. The diesel was mentioned because that was the tester they had. The only mpg figures given were the EPA ones for the various Jetta powertrains. The Jetta hybrid was the only one mentioned. The writers, "Getting behind the wheel is nothing to write home about...", isn't exactly gushing about the driving experience.