Volvo Slightly More Popular in France

That's nothing new. In India as well diesel is subsidised while petrol (gasoline) is taxed.

The reason was that most trucks use diesel and they perform a service by transporting essential goods and services. While cars are a luxury good and owners of cars can afford to pay more.

The unintended consequence? Nearly every car manufacturer has a diesel model.

That's interesting. In Sweden Volvo's market share are around 20%, so there are a rather large amounts of Volvos on the roads (I drive one myself). But the thing is that I don't know anyone who has a diesel-driven Volvo, I asked my father and he came up with three persons who he knew had owned one, and two of them are taxi-drivers. In Sweden diesel are less taxed than regular, unleaded, fuel. I would say the difference are about 20-25%. But at the same time, the owners of a diesel-driven car pays a lot more when it comes to vehicle tax. For instance, I pay 1777 SEK per year (about 234 USD) in vehicle tax for my car, a Volvo V70. If it were a diesel I would have to pay almost 4 times that amount, 6797 SEK (894 USD).

My wife drives a Volvo V40. (If you remember, I drive the Hyundai--such is marriage). The diesel model--which gets extraordinary fuel efficiency on a very small engine--is not available for purchase in the United States except as a direct ship from the plant or from a foreign dealer.

Volvo also have cars that run on natural gas.

VOLVO'S BI-FUEL ENGINE RUNS ON GAS, UTILISING PETROL AS A RESERVE FUEL. THE 2.4-LITRE FIVE-CYLINDER BI-FUEL ENGINE FOR THE VOLVO S80, S60 AND V70 IS AVAILABLE IN TWO VARIANTS: ONE POWERED BY METHANE (NATURAL GAS - CNG OR BIOGAS) AND ONE THAT RUNS ON LIQUEFIED PETROLEUM GAS (LPG). A FOUR-CYLINDER 1.8-LITRE BI-FUEL ENGINE RUNNING ON LPG IS AVAILABLE FOR THE VOLVO S40 AND V40.

Re "... except as direct ship from the plant or a foreign dealer..."

Is it actually even possible to buy a foreign-spec ("foreign" here implicitly excludes Canadian) car from a foreign dealer and get your local DMV to register it for use in the US? Aren't there emissions laws that would prevent that or something?

If not... boy, that would be way cool. Alfa Romeo, here I come.

(Note that you wouldn't necessarily have to pay the probably-prohibitive costs to arrange trans-Atlantic shipping for a single car; there are European colonial dependencies in the Caribbean where Euro-spec cars are sold-- St. Martin, for example-- and you could get it shipped to Miami from one of those places).

I think you have to have an import specialist look at the car first, and make necessary mods. That's how one company is already starting to import SMART cars into the US.