Comment by RajT88
Yes and no. I had this happen recently and looked into it.
My wife has been using my car, which is a Diesel Golf with a fuel capacity of 14.5 gallons. We set off driving one Saturday to visit my parents, and I noticed the fuel gauge was below empty already. By the time I got to the gas station, I put 14.3 gallons of fuel into it. I calculated that that works out to be about a cup and a half of fuel.
So once you hit empty on my car, you definitely have a ways you can drive still. I feel comfortable driving about 30+ miles, and it's never died on me. That puts it at no more than 1 gallon of fuel left in the car based on my experience (not scientific I know, but I've owned 2 of these cars, with about 190k total driven miles). It's a lot less than 10 liters from E to Dead on the roadside.
You shouldn't tempt fate with a diesel, or any direction injection car for that matter. The high pressure pump will shred itself very quickly as the diesel is used for lubrication.