VW shows 170 mpg tandem diesel hybrid two-seater

Volkswagen rocked the automotive world at a lunchtime press conference on the first day of the Frankfurt Motor Show with a carbon fiber, half width, 1-liter hybrid electric diesel tandem two-seater car named the L1. When the car makes production in 2013, four years from now, it will almost certainly be the most fuel efficient car available with a combined diesel fuel consumption figure of 1.38 l/100km, thanks to its frugal motor combo, feather-like weight – 380 kg in total – and an aerodynamic drag co-efficient of just 0.195!

Seven years ago, we reported on the development of Volkswagen’s tandem 1-Liter car. At that time, the prospect of a production version of the radical two-seater, which achieved fuel consumption of one liter fuel per 100 kilometers, was so remote as to be unthinkable.

Though the car was driven from Wolfsburg to Hamburg as a public demonstration by Dr. Ferdinand Piëch, at that time Chairman of the Board of Management and today Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group, it was clear that a production version lay in the far future, if ever.

The L1 is the second generation of the 1-liter car, and close to production readiness. And its dimensions are intriguing – the length of the L1 at 3,813 millimeters is still similar to that of a Volkswagen Fox, and its height of 1,143 millimeters nearly matches that of a Lamborghini Murciélago, while the car’s aerodynamically optimized width (1,200 millimeters) has no comparisons in the world of today’s production cars.

Read more . . .

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Tags: diesel fuel, electric car, ferdinand piëch, frankfurt motor show, fuel consumption, fuel efficient car, green cars, Innovation, production cars, volks wagen, volkswagen fox

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Automotive, Cutting-edge Research, Innovation, Project Energy, gizmag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.