04/07/08

1L/100 km: Volkswagen's target by 2010

A two-person car with limited production

Fotogallery The source is the British “CAR Magazine” and the news, though not yet confirmed, is very exciting mainly for high-tech fans and the ones who are keen on the issue of mobility. Anyway, Volkswagen’s top executives seem to be in the process of starting up production of a stunning car capable of running 100 km with one litre of fuel by 2010.

To tell the truth, it is no shocking news; actually the company has managed to speed up a project based on the “1L” concept launched six years ago and whose implementation had been scheduled by 2012, when, according to the estimates, the cost of the carbon fibre chassis-body would decrease from € 35,000 to € 5,000. So the project has been carried out two years earlier.

The car being produced, though in limited numbers, will not differ much from the 2002 prototype; it will be a car with two seats in tandem, whose body will be made from carbon fibre and whose weight will not exceed 300 kg. This thrifty car, much longed for by Ferdinand Piech, Ferdinand Porsche’s grandson and designer of far-reaching projects for Porsche, Audi and VW, will not be, though, a super-economy mass car capable of solving the problems of pollution and sky-high oil prices, but it will represent a real car fitted with record advanced technologies.

The single-cylinder diesel engine, which the prototype is equipped with, will be replaced by a two-cylinder diesel one (at the moment this system is considered better than the petrol FSI technology) assisted by an electric motor, thus making the car a very thrifty hybrid one. The future 1L will feature a remarkably refined aerodynamic design, the wing mirrors will be replaced by video cameras and the materials will be very lightweight; actually it will be a gem for very few car fans, not comparable to the sophisticated and expensive VW Lupo 3L and Audi A2 3L produced some years ago.

As far as pricing is concerned, the British magazine thinks that the car’s rice will range from € 20,000 to € 30,000; in the first case it would be a great price, since, still being an experimental car produced in the special VW assembly lines, it is equipped with ABS, ESP, airbags, automated direct shift transmission system and LED lights. In the second case, instead, the price would make the car quite ‘unattainable’ though not impossible to own as only 1,000 units per year are planned to be made. Anyway Piech will ultimately claim that while others talk, VW people are busy in producing and selling the “1L/100km.