Volkswagen Launches 261 mpg XL1 Plug-in Hybrid, World’s Most Efficient Production Car

Yes but that is like a brick aerodynamically compared to the xl1
Automobile drag coefficient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

cdA for the XL1 is 0.279 meters in the XL1 versus 0.474 for the insight, and 0.580 for the gen II prius. This should greatly reduce high speed consumption.

The big battery and plug should give it a big advance in city mileage, as do the higher efficiency at low power ratings for the 2 cyclinder diesel. The vw diesel likely has much lower emissions than the 3 cylinder lean burn honda.

 

Not sure. It takes 8-10 hours to fully charge on a 110 outlet though.

 

Recalculated using 6.2 kw at 100 kph,
One gallon moves the car 16.17/0.062 = 260 km.

I still cannot reconcile this calc with the report of 260 MILES/gallon. I'd guess that km and mile were mixed up, but that would not explain the reported 0.9L/100Km

I'll have to guess that the highest numbers reported, if not simple error, are test courses ran for a limited distance and starting with a charged battery. If so, this is just the "300 MPG" nonsense that GM tried to pull a couple of years ago with the Volt.

I'll be interested to hear the 'charge sustain' MPG figures

 

its light and efficient so it will get good mpg... but it is pointless excercise in PR. They should have used that money to create hybrid/plugin that can sell 100k a year... not 1k... besides, article says that they have permission to make 1k/year, from whom? I dont get it.

 

Spwoolf, do you know the car weight ?
Between the battery and the transmission used in the VW, I doubt it is anywhere near Honda Insight light.

 

If you have spare pedaling capacity, why have an electric bicycle at all? Just get a bicycle.

 

From what I understand the 261 mpg is based on a combined European Test Cycle which is much more generous than the combined USA EPA test Cycle. The Chevy Volt has a combined USA EPA test cycle MPG rating of 93 mpg ... BUT the Chevy Volt gets 232 mpg in the combine European Test Cycle!! The VW XL1 in its current iteration would likely to get about 105 mpg in a our combined USA EPA test cycle -- which is still very very good .

The VW XL1 has very low aerodynamic co-efficient factor and a very small aerodynamic frontal area which means it should be very fuel efficient even at speeds over 70 mph. Add to the fact that it is a plug-in and you have a HOV lane sports car if there's no speed governor!

From what I understand VW uses carbon fiber to reduce the weight of the XL1 body-frame which is probably going to make the XL1 a very very expensive roadster. American purses are safe at least for now because VW is only planning to sell the XL1 in Europe.

 

The VW XL1 weight slightly under 1900 pounds . VW XL1 uses several engineering tricks to get the curb weight down that low: one of the more expensive thing it did was to use carbon fiber extensively for the body frame to keep the weight down. The XL1 is a two seater and only carries 2.6 gallons (US gallons) of diesel fuel in its gas tank, too. Because the base curb weight is low VW was able to scale down the battery size to keep the weight down ( you see this with the Toyota Prius c too - Surprise! Surprise! A smaller hybrid/plug in is better off with a smaller battery! ) VW has gone through several prototype versions of this car and its been in the news several times - they have been tinker and tweaking it here and there for years.

 

Researchers into human powered vehicles have developed hi speed recumbent canopy bicycles that can go over 50 mph - but you'd have to be physically fit to sustain that kind of effort for any length of time..

 

For reference, the Insight (gen 1) was between 1850 and 1960 pounds depending on options.

 

The answer for the 261MPG (0,9l/100km) result is the european cycle normalization for PHEV:

Tests in 4 urban cycles +plus a open road (sum:11km, avg.33.6km/h)

consumption C1 (litres/100km) - totally charged
consumption C2 - totally discharged (commonly referred CS mode)

Result
C =(De.C1 + Dav.C2) / ( De + Dav)

in which De = total distance possible with a charge
De = average between charges, equaled to 25km in the standard EU doc...

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:158:0034:0105:ENDF

The higher the distance the car is capable on one charge, the lower the consumption. The lower the CS mode consumption, ibidem.


Obviously it is very efficient car, but numbers don't show everything: this vehicle is also powered by electricity grid (by some means), VW's marketing is flawed because relies on a calculated value.

 

So basically this is all just bullcrap. I'm so sick of seeing headlines like this. Whatever happened to truth in reporting?

Reporters are crying wolf way too much these days and you know what happened to the boy who cried wolf.

 

Take it up with Eheath, the OP. He likes to post diesel headlines
The rest of us just bring things back to Earth

 

Whenever you see figures from Japanese or European tests the numbers are inflated compared to real driving and the EPA test. This car does get more mpg in CS mode than anyone other "production" car though. Its not BS, but it does accelerate slowly and is expensive. VW did not ignore any efficiency gaines because of costs. The fact is hybrids are more efficient than cars without battery buffers and electric motors, and the big battery 5.5 kwh allows them to downsize the ice more. I'm sure the size was chosen as a compromise between weight and storage, to achieve the best charge sustain mpg. It is more efficient to fill it up from the wall though, instead of using the ice as a generator so VW chose to add a plug. On the EPA test in CS this may be a 2 liter car instead of a 1 liter car though. Its an engineering marvel that hopefully will help vw add better aerodynamics and lighter materials to their next generation cars. As already mentioned they have chosen gasoline instead of diesel for their hv and phev cars because after working with cars like this the trade off of cost versus extra efficiency favors gasoline ($2K more price isn't worth the fuel savings, that $2K could buy a bigger battery to save oil). We should see vw's first lower priced phev car with some of this technology next year in a golf phev.

 

What is the CS mpg ?

 

As for EPA CS mpg, I'm sure they have not tested it, but we can guestimate from the numbers they have given us.

City should be around 150 mpg, Highway around 100 mpg - again the big battery should allow it to do very well on the test, but I would expect much lower mileage in the real world. Current the city mileage champ on the epa test is the prius c at 53. This shaves weight and should have only 70% of the rolling resistance, the ice should be about 20% more efficient per gallon, but the big gain I am imagining will be a higher percentage of braking can be put back into that battery, then pulled out for acceleration.

 

Does the NEDC have a CS result ?

 

Telmo summarized the NEDC weighted result --

Tests in 4 urban cycles +plus a open road (sum:11km, avg.33.6km/h)

consumption C1 (litres/100km) - totally charged
consumption C2 - totally discharged (commonly referred CS mode)

Result
C =(De.C1 + Dav.C2) / ( De + Dav)

in which De = total distance possible with a charge
De = average between charges, equaled to 25km in the standard EU doc...

If the total run is 44 km, of which 25 km is electric, then
the car used 0.396 liters to travel 19 non electric kilometers,
so the CS mpg on the cycle is 2.08 L/100 km = 113 miles/US gallon.
If we normalize for the higher CO2 content of diesel, the MPG(e) is 98 mpg.

The Prius is rated ~ 62 miles/US-gallon on NEDC

If the ratios stay the same, the combined EPA CS result will be about
49*98/62 = 77.4 MPG(e)

 

I think VW is claiming just under 50 km of EV range. Where did the 44 km of range estimate come from?

The bottom line is that, very roughly, the VW is probably about 70% more efficient on both electricity and petroleum fuel when compared to the Prius Plugin using NEDC-style estimates.

I'm looking forward to seeing more precise numbers that can be clearly sourced.

 

I'm sure there will be software tweaks until it reaches production, after those we may have firmer numbers. This will kind of stand as the most efficient you can get with four wheels, side by side seating as your design constraints. If mazda were to team up with Toyota or ford on their 2 platform, they likely could get most of the city gains by Sawing off 1 cylinder of their 1.6L 14:1 compression skyactiv and tune the new 1.2l 3 for efficiency, you want more power use premium electronics control for high efficiency. Replace the transmission with hsd, shove a 5kwh battery in somewhere. It would use more fuel, but really get rid of the most expensive changes, plus you should get a car that gets you to 60 in 8.5 seconds instead of 12. I do like seeing VW pulling out all the stops though.