Welcome to the car of the future – the Volkswagen XL1! This amazing car is finally due to come to UK shores and it is priced at £98,515 on the road. Whilst a total of only 200 cars will be built, as a legitimate design study on maximising fuel efficiency and minimising emissions this is a beautiful thing.
The design brief for the XL1 was to produce a ‘one litre’ car – that is to say, a car that uses one litre of fuel per 100 km, equivalent to 282 miles per gallon. The resulting vehicle uses just 0.9 litres per 100 km, or 313 mpg on the official combined cycle, and this high mpg figure correlates to a very low carbon dioxide emissions value of just 21 g/km. This is achieved using a two-cylinder 48 PS 800 cc diesel engine with a 27 PS electric motor, driving through a modified seven-speed DSG transmission.
The XL1 was also aerodynamically optimised, adopting the classic ‘tear drop’ shape and utilising innovations such as removing traditional wing mirrors and replacing them with small cameras called e-Mirrors which transmit exterior images to interior displays. With a drag coefficient of 0.189 the XL1 can maintain 100 kmh on a level road in still air using just 8.4PS.
I’m sure you’ll all agree that the design of the XL1 is like nothing else. Scissor opening wing doors and a very low stance make this quite an unusual car to take in.
For more information on the XL1 or to register your interest in purchasing one, visit www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/xl1.
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