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Volkswagen Unveils 313 MPG XL1, Slates Production For 2013
An anonymous reader writes "Volkswagen just unveiled a new car at the Qatar Motor Show that gets an astounding 100km for less than a liter of diesel fuel – that's the equivalent of 313 miles per gallon! The XL1 concept car is an upgraded version of the VW L1 vehicle, and it features an ultra-efficient diesel engine in addition to an electric motor that is powered by a lithium-ion battery. The vehicle is currently slated to enter production in 2013 and is expected to cost approximately $29,500." Autoblog calls it 261 mpg, which isn't too shabby, either. At less than a thousand pounds empty, I hope this comes with a really good bike lock.
This seems to be a better article. It mentions that the weight of the vehicle is around 1,750 pounds. Not sure where TFS got their figure of less than a thousand pounds from. They are also speculating that the 261 mpg figure does not count the contribution of the batteries.
261*1.2 = 313
At 1000 lbs 40hp actually is very sporty. In fact, most Formula Vee race cars will reach 120mph and post lap times comparable to a Z06 Corvette.
The ratio of 313:261 is the same as for Imperial:US gallon. The 313 claim was reported by Timon Singh who is apparently a resident of the UK, and thus likely more familiar with Imperial than US gallons.
the difference in the MPG will be cause by the difference in gallon sizes between USA and the rest of the world. US Gallon approx 3.78 litres Imperial Gallons: approx 4.54 Litres. so - and imperial gallon is 1.2 the size of US gallon. 313MPG/1.2 = 261MPG. And this is why the US should move to the damn metric system, or at least use the same size gallon as the rest of the world.
Nope.
Film at 11: Crash.
One word: Rollover. Sadly, many places in the US still have decreasing radius turns (cloverleaf off-ramp), and this, combined with the dangerously high center-of-gravity of the average SUV results in statistically abnormal rollover rates. In fact, driving an SUV is not only more dangerous for the SUV driver, but everyone else around.
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FWIW, the two stated mileages in the summry are effectively the same, but they are stating it in two units of measure. The 313MPG figure is miles per imperial gallon, which is 261MPG by US units. That being said, I have no idea how to get that to 235MPG unless Qatar has invented their own mile or gallon.
It makes some comparisons a little easier. The distance you want to go is, in a sense, constant, while the amount of gas you use (aka the money you have to spend) is the variable. Some Duke researchers even got a journal paper out of it:
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2008/06/gpmfuqua.html
(That's a popular account; the original article is in Science, behind a paywall.)
The key comparison: going from 18 mpg to 28 mpg saves 198 gallons of gas over 10k miles, but going from 34 to 54 mpg (again, 14 mpg) saves only half as much (94 gallons).
Slashdotters are used to doing the math in their heads and probably don't much care, but for the less math-aware, having the constant of the distance they want to go in the denominator makes the math more intuitive.
99 mile An Hour is too slow??
That's near enough to 160 K/hr!
I think it would be safe to say that in most parts of the world that speed is going to get you walking home after the authorities take your licence.
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