HO-LY SHITE!!:Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg.
Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle -- so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers -- stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.
But VW's decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.
According to Britain's Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They'll probably be built in the company's prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That's not a lot, but it's enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve.
VW unveiled the slick two-seater concept six years ago at a stockholder's meeting in Hamburg. To prove it was a real car, Chairman Ferdinand Piech personally drove it from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. At the time, he said the car could see production when the cost of its carbon monocoque dropped from 35,000 Euros (about $55,000) to 5,000 Euros (about $8,000) -- something he figured would happen in 2012. With carbon fiber being used in everything from airliners to laptops these days, VW's apparently decided the cost is competitive enough to build at least a few hundred One-Liters.

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Comments

[likeawoman.livejournal.com]

between this and the Mercedes 2015 commitment, I'm beginning to suspect that Germany (along with Asian manufacturers) will be rocking the auto industry to the core with these innovations. meanwhile, the best the Big Three can bring to the party is hybrid SUVs and flex fuel stuff that still can't compete (in terms of efficiency), at supposed high efficiency, with the 2001 Passat my partner just bought. I guess they've planned obsolescence-d themselves right out of the future.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

I guess they've planned obsolescence-d themselves right out of the future.

*Cracks up*

[mtdrake.livejournal.com]

Does it fit a car seat? If so I'm all over it.