(January 14, 2010) While the U.S. automotive industry is still cool to diesel-powered vehicles, it has not affected Volkswagen.

The German maker’s diesel-powered products continue to gain ground, encouraging VW to add the powertrain as an option on even more of its models, going forward, said Stephan Jacoby, CEO of Volkswagen of America, at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit this week.

“With any new vehicle that arrives with a diesel option,” Jacoby said, “we estimate 20 to 30 percent of the mix will be diesel.”

Jacoby suggested that American “consumers more and more understand diesel,” something that is not be true for those in the auto industry.  The potential overall market acceptance of the high-mileage technology “depends on whether other makers will follow.” So far, though, the Germans are the only makers taking a serious stab at rebuilding the American market for “oil burners.”

“I think the fair diesel going forward will be around 5 percent," he said.

Diesels were a pillar for VW in the devastating downturn of 2009, letting it actually gain a bit of market share.

The automaker has an aggressive plan for the coming decade, hoping to bring its volumes up to 800,000 by 2018.  Adding new product and launching a new assembly plant, in Chattanooga, will help, said Jacoby.

We “own” the increasingly popular clean diesel TDI option. Consumers understand that it is an environmentally responsible, and fun to drive option. Two years in a row of Green Car of the Year Awards — our Volkswagen Jetta winning in 2009 and Audi’s A3 this year — reinforce this position, Jacoby said. And so does the fact that 50 percent of our Touareg, 85 percent of our SportWagen and 25 percent of our Jetta sales are diesel.

And in that light, this year Volkswagen will introduce a new compact sedan in the late summer that will be available with a clean diesel TDI.

For any vehicle that comes with the diesel option, up to 30 percent of the engine mix will be TDI, Jacoby said.