The 1-liter car from VW is so named because it takes a mere .99 liters to propel the vehicle 100 km. That translates to about 235 MPG! Hypermilers move over, hybrids and fuel cells hide in shame, this car was originally prototyped in 2002! Now the car will be produced in small quantities by 2010, I've not found anything that says if it will be sold in the US, but if it is I'm getting one!
Back in 2002 I emailed Volkswagen and offered to drive a slightly-modified version coast to coast in the United States on a single tank of gas. It would only need 12 gallons of gas to get from New York City to Los Angeles! If I could get my hands on one I'd drive it with one of those mini-laptops and a pcmcia card for broadband access and set up a digital camera on the dash so that the world could see the entire drive from coast to coast (accellerated of course). I'd have to make sure that the camera also showed the fuel gauge and the odometer. I'd blog about the trip and post the videos. Long story short, they wrote me back and told me that they appreciated my interest in the car.
Now, the big news is the car is greenlit for production at the automaker's prototype shop, which can only produce 1,000 cars per year max. They're aiming for pricing 20,000 and 30,000 Euro ($41,200 to $61,800). They've made a few changes from the prototype; however, the stunning mileage numbers are not expected to change hugely.
Well if anyone from Volkswagen is reading this post, the offer still stands. Let me show that car off from New York City to Los Angeles!
If you're as passionate about the 1-liter car as I am you may want to check out:
The Original 1-liter Press ReleaseFerdinand Piëch - The car exec that made it all possibleFerdinand Piëch - 70th Birthday Press ReleaseThe Wired Article About the Re-releaseThe Dallas Fox Article About the Re-releaseThe CarCentral Article About the Re-releaseThe Autoblog Post About the Re-releaseA VW page about the 1-liter car
