Volkswagen’s 282MPG Car

May 29th, 2007

This story is five years old.

Do you get it yet?

Via: Canadian Driver:

A few years ago, Volkswagen took on a task that many people thought was impossible: they decided to develop a fuel-efficient, road-going compact car that could achieve an average fuel consumption of just 3 litres per 100 km (94 mpg). Not only did Volkswagen achieve this milestone in 1999, but they had an even larger goal in mind: an ultra fuel-efficient car with a super stingy fuel consumption rating of just 1 litre per 100 kilometres (282 mpg).

After three years of development in secret, the 1-Litre-Car was unveiled in April in Hamburg, Germany at Volkswagen’s annual stockholders meeting. To prove that it is a viable, road-going automobile and not just a pie-in-the-sky concept, VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech himself drove the 1-Litre-Car from Wolfsburg to Hamburg to join the shareholders meeting – averaging just 0.89 litres per 100 km (317 mpg) along the way.

To design a car with such incredibly low fuel consumption, Volkswagen engineers had to literally go back to the drawing board – they threw out most off-the-shelf body and powertrain solutions, and started with a blank slate.

25 Responses to “Volkswagen’s 282MPG Car”

  1. DrFix says:

    Boy! If I say anything someone might come along and tell me its an urban myth.

  2. Mike says:

    In all fairness, this sounds more like a low performance enclosed motorcycle with training wheels. I used to ride a motorcycle everywhere, including trips to costco that yielded stacked sport bags attached with bungee cords, so I’m far from disparaging the idea.

    Either this car or the motorcycle is a viable means of transportation for any individual who has the occaisional need to haul a single passenger or some small cargo. If it were made commonly available, I think price would be the single most important factor in its adoption. People who are really willing to give up common amenities to be much more fuel efficient could go out and get a Ninja 250 right now and get ~70MPG for $3000(MSRP).

    In order to make this road legal in the US, it would probably need to undergo some design changes that would reduce its efficiency. For example, side mirrors are likely to be required by law in many if not all states. Legal restrictions have always been a significant problem in adopting alternatives to typical cars.

    Having a prototype 5 years ago shows that someone is taking it seriously. The technology exists, but I’m sure there are legal and cultural issues that would need to be conquered before this could be considered a serious replacement for the typical car. Prototypes are expensive and tooling up to mass produce something completely unlike everything else today is time consuming and expensive.

    I think it’s reassuring that a well established car company has at least put forth the prototype money and appears to be seriously committed to the idea of a much more fuel efficient vehicle. At least 10 years of politics seems to be required for any change, so if we’re lucky, maybe we’re half way to seeing something like this produced in numbers comparable to fuel efficient motorcycles.

  3. Kevin says:

    Fuel-efficient-technology-is-expensive is the broken record mantra of doom. It’s a very tired and threadbare explanation.

    Energy Scarcity vs. Cost of the War in Iraq

    https://cryptogon.com/?p=252

    Why doesn’t anyone ever look at something like this VW thing and wonder how many hours or days pissed down the rathole in Iraq would have to pass before this could be made viable?

  4. Mike says:

    I found some more info on the future of this car here:
    http://www.whatcar.com/news-article.aspx?NA=225795

    “Volkswagen has already built a running prototype. The lightweight, two-seat, two-cylinder car is still being considered for production, and it could go on sale in 2010.”

    It looks like they’re pretty serious about using this new technology fairly soon.

  5. BG says:

    Its amazing how these vehicles just seem to vaporize into the ether…Big oil and big auto putting their foot down, squishing any would be challengers to their throne? Why not just force everyone to go fully electric within the next 10-15 years tops? If EESTOR turns out to be as good as it purports a whole new economic boom may happen…

  6. Peregrino says:

    Anybody ever consider grouping ourselves into communities that don’t require any transportation other than walking to meet our daily needs? Oh, but that would take foresight, discipline, sacrifice, and will. God forbid that the contemporary human be asked to do anything like that! Well, will or no will, soon the habitat will require that of any human who wants to survive. I imagine one of the jobs of the future will be disposing of corpses of commuters found in rusted out cars jammed next to each other on what was once a freeway.

  7. DrFix says:

    “Why doesn’t anyone ever look at something like this VW thing and wonder how many hours or days pissed down the rathole in Iraq would have to pass before this could be made viable?”….Kevin

    Whoa! You mean to say that half a trillion dollars wouldn’t be enough “seed” money to wean ourselves off of our heavy dependence on oil for automobiles? Hmmmm….. And engineers are capable of designing such thingamajigs? Hmmm…. Even sat on it for years?…. Hmmmm….

    Nah!…. Just a myth. Move along now. LOL!

  8. Eric says:

    C’mon folks. Ultra-effecient automobiles won’t hit the sales floors unless big oil companies can profit from them. PERIOD. Go out and rent “Who Killed The Electric Car?” if you haven’t already seen it. Saturn leased electric cars to people in California in 1995 in an attempt to get ahead of the game and comply with a law that said a certain percentage of all new cars sold in CA by a certain date must be electric. They made them so hard to lease that even some high profile celebrities couldn’t get them. They were amazing. The only maintenece they needed was a tire rotation and the windshield washer fluid changed. In the end Saturn didn’t renew any of the leases and reposessed every car. Someone discovered a back lot in Burbank, CA with 80 or so electric Saturns. GM (Parent company of Saturn) claimed that there wasn’t enough demand for the cars and they went out of production. To prove GM wrong, people barracaded the entrance to the lot for several days. The group also got enough money to buy all 80 electric cars. They had a check written out. GM’s response? They sent police in and black tractor trailers which hauled all of the cars into the desert where they were crushed. In another segment of the documentary they feature a news piece where a reporter goes to a car crushiing yard on a totally unrelated human interest fluf story but the reporter sees that there are acouple of BRAND NEW electric Saturns waiting to be crushed. “What are these being crushed for?” he asks, “I’d sure like to have one of these!”. The operator responds by saying all he knows is that the dealer sends him a few a weeks saying they must be destroyed for “insurance” reasons. Yeah. Insurance that big oil keeps flowing.

    http://tinyurl.com/ug6fd

    Let’s not forget that Los Angelese used to have a huge trolley system and GM bought it and dismantled it so people would buy cars instead : -> http://tinyurl.com/cczvj

    Actually… almost every major car manufactuer made electric cars and ONLY LEASED THEM and they were all reposessed and crushed du to a “lack of demand”. Bull&^%^&!

    http://tinyurl.com/ysraww

    -eric

  9. Eric says:

    Correction: The Saturn EV1 was released in March of 1998 NOT 1995. -eric

  10. Matt Savinar says:

    Dr. Fix,

    There is a big diff between a 300 mpg glorified motorcycle made with advanced (read: very expensive) materials like this and a 300 mpg three ton bohemouth (sp?) from the 1940s like the one your uncle suppossedly came across before the MIBs from GM came by to take it away.

    If you got enough money, yes you can afford a 300 mpg glorified motorcycle like the in this story. The thing is real. A 300 mpg steel goliath of a vehicle that slipped out of some GM vault back in the 1940s like what you talked about a while back? Sorry but that is an urban legend and I’ve heard it with 1,000 different small but inconsequential variations over the years.

    If GM can proudce high mpg SUVs as your Uncle’s story would have us believe, they would be producing and selling them right this minute. Look how well the Prius is selling and that’s not even an SUV. If Americans could buy 60 mpg Hummers, they would be selling their first borns to get at ’em and GM’s bacon would be saved. But GM is not doing that. Instead, they’re teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and clining to their 10 mpg SUVs.

    If Big Oil and Big Auto was so all-powerful, they never would have let Toyota develop the Prius and steal all the private investment that has flowed away from GM/Ford and to Toyota. Instead of seeing their bulbous bodies on every street corner, you’d be hearing stories on the internet about how Toyota had developed a 60 mpg car but some mysterious MIBs from Big Auto strongarmed them and stole it, put it into a vault, etc.

  11. General Patton says:

    This site supposedly lists a long history of free energy repression. I don’t know of the magnetic motors and other devices work, but the patents for vaporizing gasoline among other things are quite interesting: http://www.byronwine.com/

  12. nsr says:

    @Mike: Yes, they are serious about this thing. My parents own the 3-litre-model. And that one is far away from “a low performance enclosed motorcycle with training wheels”.

    Of course I have not seen the 1-litre-model so far but I guess it not either a motorcycle.

  13. George Kenney says:

    Imagine if this were possible to create N+1 amounts of Hydrogen Energy from Salt Water using N amount of electricity without violating the laws of thermodynamics?

    Saltwater into fire 2 (John Kanzius)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI
    http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:John_Kanzius_Produces_Hydrogen_from_Salt_Water_Using_Radio_Waves

    Water Car Inventor Murdered
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3333992194168790800&q=Stanley+Meyers&hl=en

  14. Tsk tsk. I thought you guys “got it.” I guess I was wrong. These stories appear cyclically every so often. Prosperity is just around the corner. Fuel efficiency is just around the corner. Utopia is just around the corner. It’s the same tired lie, over and over and over again.

    What would happen if the promised became the real? Everyone would stop working and there would be no more centralized control.

    The point is to keep people hopeful, so they’ll keep working, keep consuming, and keep having children; but not too hopeful, or else they might free themselves.

    It is a fine political line to walk.

  15. DrFix says:

    Matt, you’re being an arrogant ass. If compared to vehicles of the day, where they barely if ever broke double digit miles per gallon, if some vehicle made 15 or “GASP” 20 MPG, to the country bumpkin confronted with such a revelation it would “appear”, seemingly like magic, to never use any gas. Hell! they might even say “it seems to run forever” in some fumbling hickish manner. This does not mean that such an automobile didn’t exist, but in our eyes you look upon it and simply yawn because it doesn’t rise up to our expectations.

    We have also had fifty further years of lies and slick marketing driven into our skulls to accept every booby device that comes out as being “technologically advanced”. Thats right… don’t work on saving fuel but give me that shit that plays surround sound, keeps the kids hypnotized with DVD’s and lets me prattle on the cell phone all damn day long. What utter BS! Thats pretty pathetic.

    Regardless, mankind can indeed engineer and build things far better than the excuses constantly offered up as being “new and improved” and the only way big motor will ever sell what you want is when you quit buying their shit! Oh, they may make mumbling kowtows for the sake of publicity but it will never change when people continue to stand in line for the latest crap-o-matic.

  16. Ross says:

    It wasn’t just in LA. The auto and oil industry together destroyed light rail’s prominence in every major American city. And though I can’t help but get excited by a car that gets ten times the fuel mileage of today’s vehicles, I also realize that in the U.S. we need to change the entire ethos of our culture such that driving ceases to be a mainstay of daily human activity. In other words, 250 mpg cars aren’t the answer. They are, in fact, a mirage.

  17. Eileen says:

    Dr. Fix has a point here Matt, and its not that you are an arrogant asshole. I’m kind of perplexed that you, of all people, don’t seem to get the total economy behind the oil driven machine. “Who Killed the Electric Car” is only the tip of the iceburg in an attempt (pretty good I thought) to expose the extremes that the oil industry and the many headed hydra industry that revolves around and depends upon it for survival. Oil filters, oil change, spark plugs, duh. Think about what’s under the hood of an oil driven machine and you have many, many, many who need to maintain the industrial oil complex for corporate survival. It’s not an “urban legend” that countless patents and technologies for non-oil driven machines have been bought up time and time again by the Fords, GMs, Exxon’s, and the countless who have a vested interest in keeping an oil/gasoline powered economy viable. Many an elder in my profession as an auditor have observed this phenomenon. Emerging technologies that are not oil driven are derided from the get go. There is much to lose by many when a machine of any type that isn’t run by oil and gasoline hits the market. I spent some cash last year buying a Sun Pony garden tiller. This little creature kicks *ss. Put the rechargeable batteries on it and it goes better than the acinine gas powered tiller of the same size and type of machine that I could never get to work right. Plus is I don’t have to smell gas fumes, hear the roar of the engine etc. I am a happy lady without oil driven machinery. Just down the road from where I live on weekends the Amish are kicking *ss ploughing their fields with a ploughing disc powered by horses. Matt, you could make a fortune writing a story on all of the oil free patents that have been sold into oblivion. Investigate sold patents,and look into investing into a large stable of horses. The chiquita you are searching for will find you. Happy travels.

  18. Matt Savinar says:

    Eileen, others,

    Ford and GM are on the verge of bankruptcy. Toyota, on the strength of the 60 mpg Prius, is kicking ass and making money hand over fist.

    If the MIBs at Ford and GM have super fuel efficient technology stored away in a vault somewhere it would be coming out right now.

    Do you have any idea how much money they would be making off a 75 or 150 or 300 mpg car? Come on . . . GM would be bigger than Wal-Mart, Halliburton and all the oil and weapons companies combined. They would rule the world. But you mean to tell me they’re not going to pull that sucker out of the secret vault so they can go from bankrupt losers to masters of the universe overnight? Oh puh-lease . . .

    Let me guess, that can’t happen because MIBs at Shell and BP will head over to the MIBs at GM and Ford and kick their asses right? Sweet Jesus. . .

    If the MIBs at Ford and GM were as all powerful, as so many of you think, Toyota never would have allowwed to develop the Prius. The MIBs would have showed up and either killed the Toyota engineers or stolen the tech, or watever. But that didn’t happen.

    Have Ford and GM conspired to screw people over? Yes, I’m sure you all know about it the stret car conspiracy, how they built the third reich’s fleet, Henry Ford getting a Medal from Hitler, etc. So yes, these companies have done some evil horrible things. No doubt about it.

    I am blown away that so many people fall for these urban legends about 500 mpg cars or the free energy devices that MIBs inevitably show up to take back to the secret vault just moments before the inventor can videotape his device and post it to youtube and myspace.com

    @Eilenn: from the sound of your post, like many people who buy into these myths, it sounds you don’t actually understand what a patent actually means. It *does not* mean the thing actually works anymore than a copyright notice means what you are saying is true or fact based. It signifies that something is your intellectual property. It does not mean it actually works or produces energy.

    Head over to the uspto site and do some searchs. People patent all sorts of things, some of them quite ridiculous and laugh-worthy.

    There is an archetype of person I run into a lot in PO and collapse circles. I call him “Free Energy Fred.” This is the guy who usually finds a way to get my phone number and talks my ear off about some free energy device just around the corner. The moment I politely request they send me a video of their device actually powering something they reply, “why don’t you believe this?!” and “you could make so much money writing about it!!!!” I’m like “yeah I know, so post a god-damned video of your device to YouTube and I’ll link it up on LATOC and the world will know by this time tomorrow.”

    I’ve heard it 1,000 times and read about it 10,000 times. I used to always look into this stuff and it always turns out to be some doofus with a tube of fizz in this garage that he’s convinced is going to “revolutinize the world!!! (TM) Then comes the inevitable request that I pass the info on to Richard Rainwater because he needs money before he can post the video of his thing actually powering something to YouTube like I suggessted. Oh god, it never ceases to amuse me . . .

    All these inventors have to do is post a video of their device or 500 mpg car or whatever to to Youtube.com and the whole world will know about it overnight. But that never seems to happen now does it? . . . Oh let me guess, the MIBs would take it down. Okay, then post it to liveleak.com. send it to me and I’ll post it to LATOC. Can’t do hat either, those MIBs again . . .

    Come on people . . . There ARE physical limitations to what can be done here in 3D reality.

    Guran-damn-tee I get replies or pms saying the MIBs got to me or some other nuttiness.

  19. Matt Savinar says:

    And before somebody tells me to go watch “Who killed electric car”, please oh please use your brain.

    All those jack-asses driving EVs were just burning up coal and gas.

    Is it possible to run them on solar and wind? Yeah, if you want to strip mine every last ounce of copper, silver, and platinum in the frekin world so you can build the amount of wind and solar necessary.

    And we are running out of those resources just like we’re running out of oil and gas:

    http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19426051.200-earths-natural-wealth-an-audit.html

    The mining process for these things is horribly polluting. And don’t even get me started on the battery tech.

    Guys (and gals): there is no free lunch. When you buy into these 500 mpg car and free energy myths ou’re just buying into a slightly tweaked version of the capitalist myth that “man can always overcome nature through technology.” You’ve just added an addendum to the myth which is “so long as the evil MIBs get out of the way of the amazing technologies.”

  20. Jake says:

    Matt,

    You are ignoring the possibility that it’s part of the overall plan for GM et al to go under, taking the remaining middle class with it (of course, the execs will have their golden parachutes, funded in non-dollar specie). I can see the powers that be keeping this technology off the market until the’ve “dealt” with the rest of us.

  21. Eileen says:

    I want to post here to reply to Matt, but this comment belongs also to another item just posted. Follow up to the latest article posted. Thanx.

  22. Mike Lorenz says:

    I’m going to have to side (more or less) with Matt on this one. I think that assuming there is some sort of super-efficient car -stolen, hidden, or otherwise- that will save us misses the point in a couple ways. First, let’s pretend that tommorrow GM did roll out some car that gets 200 mpg or one that runs on salt water; would that really prevent the coming collapse? Would it do anything about the sub-prime mortgage debacle? Would it do anything about overpopulation? Would it do anything about the fact that we are rapidly depleting lots of other resources besides oil? No, in fact, it would probably exacerbate some of those problems further by allowing us to continue down the road we’re on.
    Which brings me to my second point: looking for a super efficient automobile to save us is a bad idea because this whole auto-dependent, plastic, disposable, commercialized, zombified thing we call modern industrial society is bullshit to begin with. Anyone who is honestly interested in creating a “sustainable” society needs to look somewhere in between the Amish and some Native American tribes. Attemmpting to run the current arrangement on something other oil is only delaying the inevitable, and probably not by much.
    – Mike Lorenz

  23. Matt Savinar says:

    Jake,

    Right. Because the Anglo-American Corporate State is going to *intentionally* bankrupt one of its war machine’s backbones just as it makes a final grab for the world’s rapidly diminishing oil supplies.

  24. Matt says:

    Matt,

    Stop being so logical. We conspiracy freaks get all dizzy and confused when we read it.

    Matt

  25. Jake says:

    Matt,

    Looks like that backbone is going bankrupt regardless. If it was that critical at this juncture (it isn’t), they would be saving it by any means necessary.

    This doesn’t disprove my theory.

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