It's long been known, to me and about eight other people, that California, New York, and Massachusetts ruined it for everyone. By restricting nitrous-oxide-spewing diesel engines from their stupid little states, they led the rest of the nation, via the ignorance highway, to believe fun and economy had to be mutually exclusive. Blasphemy I say. Having driven several fun and economical new diesels from Mercedes-Benz and BMW, I'm impressed by the massive torque, eerie silence, and absurd driving range. Take that, you Prius-driving right laners. And now, may I present the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta 2.0 TDI.

Mercedes-Benz thwarted tough anti-NO2 restrictions with a urea-injection system that turns nitrous oxide gas into chicken bullion cubes or something. MB licensed the system to BMW, which used it to scrub emissions from the 335d, a car with enough torque to give the Earth an Indian Burn. In the latest Jetta TDI, Volkswagen uses a a NOx-storage catalyst instead of urea injection to meet some states stricter emissions regs.

VW boffins screwed the Jetta together tightly, with soft-touch plastics on the dash, and buttons performing their functions in the most basic and obvious way. The seats are comfortable, with a roomy, yet performance-oriented driving position and feature more bolstering than most, if not all other economy cars' seats. The leather-wrapped steering wheel feels great in my hands and has basic menu and radio controls integrated into the spokes. In short, the Jetta's interior is par for VW: functional, basic, and utterly emotionless.

I've never been a fan of the current Jetta's exterior. Suffice to say, it makes a Chevy Malibu look exciting. Enough said.

My test car had the optional six-speed DSG gearbox, which really is just as good an option as the stick. Upshifts and downshifts are lightning quick, with virtually no delay in power delivery. It didn't have the sport package, which means no steering-wheel paddles, leaving only the console lever for shifting. Paddles make DSG better, so go for the sport package. I'm sticking with manual; if it's the same six-speed swapper from the GTI, I'm in.

At idle, the TDI is louder than the six-cylinder diesels from both Audi and Mercedes, but is still far from noisy. At speed it's dead silent, with a hint of turbo whistle in the mix during hard acceleration. As an Audi engineer once told me, what you're "not hearing" is more energy spent on propelling the car forward and less on making noise. The Jetta TDI apparently bears him out. The torque figure of 236 pounds-feet isn't a small number for any car, much less an economy sedan. By comparison, the 2.0T engine from the GTI only musters up 207. It wouldn't be fair to call the Jetta a rocketship, but lined up on a runway against other cars in its class, the Jetta dominates. While the tuner crowd clamors about over horsepower, such a drag race would demonstrate the kind of force a high-torque engine brings to the table. From 30 to 60 mph and 60 to 80 mph the Jetta hauls ass with the best of them. The combination of midrange torque and DSG's propensity to choose the right gear quickly make for highway passing bliss. Just toss the Jetta's willing suspension toward the left lane and drop the hammer. Soon that Prius loafing along in the middle lane will be just an e-memory.

Highway mannerisms, eh? With its tiny little wheels and low rolling resistance tires, the Prius feels, well, hairy at speeds of over 80. The Jetta TDI, on the other hand, is Benz-solid. Want to take a trip across the country? Have a tight fuel budget? The Jetta's your ride. It's smooth, compliant, quick, and quiet. Cruising at 80 or 90 mph is totally effortless; one finger on the wheel would do just fine.

From the Jetta's highway performance, it would seem VW forgot it was an economy car. And then there are the brakes. I'm not saying that for k the Jetta should come with 15-inch ceramic discs. But at the rate this car accelerates, you'd expect more bite from the stoppers. Would your average economy car buyer notice? Perhaps not. I did.

There's another problem. The diesel question still haunts some buyers. Will they have to run frantically from station to station to find diesel? No. Is diesel more expensive? Yes, but the improved economy and range more than put the finances in balance. Don't forget, the "regular" Jetta 2.0T engine requires 93 octane, evening out the equation quite a bit.

In three days of driving, I put 248 miles on the car, and used just under half a tank of gas. Although I didn't fill it back up afterward to check VW's math, the on-board computer registered 36.7 MPG average. And I was driving HARD. You hear that people? A 500 mile plus range..... Not bad for ,000 and as much torque as the GTI R32. I just hope the oil-burner's sales figures remain strong enough to continue building and improving diesel technology here in the US.