oh and the golf gets 47 mpg
5.4L, my mistake so that will make it a 2.9 litre difference. Most cars here are sub 2 litre just to give you an idea. A 2.0 litre tdi makes 170 hp at 4200 rpm and produces 260 lb-ft of torque at !!!1800!!! RPM. And this is in a VW golf. So no, you don't need 4.4 litres to tow anything. You'll see when diesels finally start hitting the market in the US. Even a 1.4 litre TDI polo will pull off in third gear without touching the throttle.
4.4L is massive by any measure. Just to prove this to you, i've looked up the specs for the 5.7L V8 in a standard F150, it produces 365 lb-ft of torque, that's a lot, ok. Audi's 2.5L tdi (6 cil) produces 332 lb-ft of torque in standard trim and given that 90 percent of it is available at 2000 rpm, it'll be a lot smoother to tow things with. That's a 3.2 litre difference.
4.4L is not "massive" for a V8 for one. also they are trucks and they want torque the whole point of a diesel truck is what you can do with it! I agree they should release a diesel Focus or something and see how that goes.