Volkswagen Concept Car Averages 262 MPG

coolnumbr12 writes "The Volkswagen XL1 averages an amazing 262 mpg, and although it may never hit streets in the United States, the technology behind the car could impact future Volkswagen vehicles. The keys to the incredible mileage in the Volkswagen XL1 were reducing the weight of the vehicle and eliminating wind resistance. The XL1 only weighs 1,753 pounds — that's more than a thousand pounds lighter than the Toyota Prius, which weighs in at 2,921 pounds. The wheels on the Volkswagen XL1 are as thin as road bike's and wrapped in custom Michelin rubber. The XL1 chassis is a single piece of molded carbon-fiber, and has a drag coefficient of only 0.189 – similar to a bumblebee."

Comments

Re:And what's that in metric?

[Trepidity]

Which of the two widely used metric standards do you want? ;-)

If you're from one of the countries that uses the km/L measure (Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Korea, etc.), then this Volkswagen prototype gets about 110 km/L.

If you're from one of the countries that uses the L/100km measure (Germany, Italy, Australia, etc.), then this prototype uses about 0.90 L/100km.

Neat, but unsafe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the drag coefficient, I assume this car exhibits Laminar flow. This can get disrupted by external factors (say getting passed by a buss) and result in localized turbulent flow. This would drastically increase the drag on one part of the car, causing a sudden unexpected side load, likely causing a turn (into the passing bus). An airplane bouncing around is not much of an issue, but when your car moves over 6 feet sideways on the freeway unexpectedly, it can be rather bad.

Generally maximally aerodynamic cars are not safe. They may not have gotten to that point, or may have cleverly worked around the issues, but given the lack of side mirrors, I think mileage was the priority over safety here. Its a neat technical feet, but as mentioned in the article, its dangerous in multiple respects.

Re:And what's that in metric?

[Attila Dimedici]

You are missing his point. Since you apparently are someone who uses U.S. Standard Units, I will convert his point to those. It is easier to compare the gas efficiency of two cars if you use Gallons(Liters) per 100 Miles(Kilometers) than it is to do so using Miles(Kilometers) per Gallon(Liter). For example using mpg (or kpl) it appears that a vehicle that gets 40 mpg is as much better than a vehicle that gets 20 mpg as a vehicle that gets 20 mpg is better than one that gets 10 mpg. However, if you convert that the Gallons/100 Miles(gp100m) you discover that a vehicle which gets 10 mpg gets 10 gp100m, while a car that gets 20 mpg gets 5 gp100m and one that gets 40 mpg gets 2.5 gp100m. Meaning that you save 5 gallons per 100 miles traveled when you go from a vehicle which gets 10 mpg to one that gets 20 mpg, but you only save 2.5 gallons per 100 miles traveled when you go from a vehicle that gets 20 mpg to one that gets 40 mpg.
Understanding this makes clear how much it is costing us to make ever smaller incremental changes in improvements in gas usage by vehicles. Paying attention to that will allow us to more readily recognize when further improvements in fuel efficiency are not worth the cost. It is called the law of diminishing returns, a law to which we as a society pay too little attention.