200 to 300 Miles Per Gallon for a car is to good to import to America ? Mileage tax ?

727Sky

(Jim Stone) You won’t find the 300 MPG Volkswagen XL1 in an American showroom, in fact it has even been denied a tour of America because it is too efficient for the American public to be made widely aware of, and oil profits are too high in America with the status quo in place.

Or, more likely, it doesn't meet safety standards and it's an awful car. Unless you're really small and don't need to get anywhere in a hurry. It's 8.6HP.

Most of us older fellows have heard about the carburetors which were developed in the 70s that could get a cars mileage rating up to over 100 MPG that never came to market.. Looks like Volkswagen did one better..

Well, it's done by having a motor with less than 10HP. And it's all carbon fiber, and has no insulation or noise matting, and it can hold two people the size of my kids, uncomfortably, and not even sitting side by side. You have to sort of roll into it from a near sitting position, because it's 3" off the ground, and god help you if you hit a pot hole.

The VW XL1 is a study model of witch they will produce a small batch just for fun, I guess.

The production car that is going to be fitted with the XL's power train is the VW Twin Up that indeed wont be available in the US.

Introduction VW twin up.

I guess other VAG models like the VW polo; Seat Mi; -Ibiza. Skoda Fabia and the Audi A1 and A2 might be fitted with it.

Currently I'm driving the $20k eco version of the Ibiza doing 50Mpg (real world) on a three cylinder 1.2 litre diesel engine. Can't wait to get the Ibiza-xl1 version in the nearby future. Oke it's a two cylinder 0.8 litre diesel hybrid, but if it gets me 80Mpg, I'm buying.

Who needs wheel spin anyway.

reply to post by HanzHenry


Maybe you want to put a 32 speed gearbox in a car I don't know. Clearly you don't understand how gears work and how different gear ratios work or the difference between tall and short gear ratios. You can't just say I want 100 gear ratios and that will fix everything even though I'm trying to power a truck with 20hp. lol.
With no friction or wind resistance or hills your idea would work but acceleration would be very slow.

Have you ever even done any work on a real car? I've done pretty much everything. Engine swaps, clutch, gearbox, diff, head gasket, suspension, ECU. I've mentioned the CVT transimssion with effectively unlimited gear ratios and does that give you better performance in the real world, not really. You think you know better than the major car manufacturers of the world, I doubt it.

I'm a rev head and have been working on high performance cars for many years and to tell you the truth I found most of what you said to be complete nonsense which has no bearing in the real world. What is faster a 4x4 or a Corvette? And why? And who has the highest top speed and why?

I do not believe you could build a 200 mpg car because of the limits of gas fuel ratio.

but i see a chance for a diesel getting 200 mpg as a hybrid.

reply to post by snypwsd


A lot of the cars on the list can drive with electric motors for a limited range using no fuel at all. It's more complicated than just glancing at the quoted mpg and saying this is better. If you did a city commute to work and shopping then charged the battery at home you might be able to go for weeks without using any fuel at all. Only using fuel for longer trips when the battery runs out of range.
It could be a very good system for people who live and work in a city with a daily commute within the range of the battery range.
If you were smart and didn't drive long distances very often you could buy one of these cars and use hardly any fuel at all.

Seriously $120,000 for a tiny VW is a terrible deal. I'll take a Nissan GTR for that money, with change to spare at US prices.

JimTSpock
reply to post by snypwsd

 

Seriously $120,000 for a tiny VW is a terrible deal. I'll take a Nissan GTR for that money, with change to spare at US prices.

A man after my own heart. I don't fit in clown cars. I wanted an RX-9 a long time ago, couldn't get in it. Too long from the seat to the crown. Even with the seat down all the way, I had to bend my head down or to the side. If I have to have some tiny underpowered vehicle, I'll take something that gets nearly 100MPG but is still fun to drive in town -

linky

Grant you, I still look like a bear on a tricycle on this thing, but it's better than scootching into something that Bozo just climbed out of.

reply to post by JimTSpock


Actually it's a bit more.

Production began by mid 2013 and it will be limited to 250 units. A total of 50 units had been built by early September 2013, and the remaining 200 XL1s are scheduled to be built in the second quarter of 2014. Pricing starts at €111,000 (~ US$146,000) wiki

You need to consider that it is a very limited edition of a car that is already legendary. The VW twin up with the same drive train will sell at around $18k. While expensive for a small dinky toy, I think it will sell like hamburgers.

Just one quick point about fuel prices.

Europeans pay much more for petrol and diesel and fuel is still relatively cheap in America.

Some European countries pay more than double the price in America so consider that while you are complaining about not having more economical cars. Here in Australia it's about 50% more for petrol. I would love to have USA fuel prices. If the US government increased the fuel tax to Australian levels then you'd really have something to complain about!

www.globalpetrolprices.com...

www.aip.com.au...


18k is a bit more affordable for those concerned with economy D.Wolf. About what it's worth too. 25k-30k is OK for a tiny VW I suppose.

It must be the world's worst kept secret if we're hearing about it on a conspiracy forum. Looks like they're doing a spectacular job keeping their secrets.

HanzHenry

crankyoldman

5. the DOD vettes all patent apps before then are reviewed by the office itself - those which may prove detrimental to the energy control system are consumed.

the DOE has warehouses in Oak Ridge, Tn that contain MANY inventions and devices
invented by people that will NEVER see the light of day.

the energy scientists sometimes get to 'check them out' and play with in labs to learn something from.

Interesting, I did not know that. Must be wonderful to see things people more powerful then you won't let you truly work with. One has to wonder about the mind that cannot see the truth in the equation: "do as we say or your device will end up here and you will end up there." How does one reconcile that?

JimTSpock
reply to post by HanzHenry

 

Maybe you want to put a 32 speed gearbox in a car I don't know.

Have you ever even done any work on a real car? I've done pretty much everything. Engine swaps, clutch, gearbox, diff, head gasket, suspension, ECU.

I'm a rev head and have been working on high performance cars for many years and to tell you the truth I found most of what you said to be complete nonsense which has no bearing in the real world. What is faster a 4x4 or a Corvette? And why? And who has the highest top speed and why?

my original post was the R&D in drive train would yield great results in mpg, and a dual transfer case truck could be ran on a 20hp motor, go learn about rock crawlers and doubling t-cases.

built a sbc when i was 13, my father has a garage and we did frame-offs on numerous cars and trucks. I also was an operator in the military, ran a motor pool, spent time as chief dispatcher, etc.
My prize truck was my 72 blazer that i bought in Az, returned it to my unit and worked on it at nights. The 454 became a 468, the turbo 400 tranny replaced a 350 i burned out mudding, and swapped the axles from a m1008.
swapping an engine is childs play, BUILDING engines is what i do and have done.

PS, there are trucks that will STOMP a corvette,
and btw, 2 of my uncles owned a junkyard and were building dirt track racers in the 70's, I grew up with the best engine builders in east TN. One of my uncles built nascar engines in the 80's. That is when i learned to wrench over the summer.

My truck now is an 88 burb with a 355, built 7/00r4, FF rear axle 4.88 geared, spent a year in pieces in the old mans garage. I outrun new diesels that produce 400hp/800tq all day. why? GEARING.

It confuses me how diesel a lesser grade of fuel is soooooooooo much more expensive than gasoline . Not sure what the prices of diesel in other countries it is almost 20 cents more expensive here than low grade gasoline.

ETA I suppose with higher diesel prices will start driving up prices of commodities the cycle will just continue as they will keep raising the cost of fuel , while selling more and more diesel vehicles driving up the cost for diesel . Why not save the big power of diesels for the work trucks . I guess the vw rabbit was appealing when diesel was so much cheaper than gas , mind if someone has a car that does 200miles to a gallon wouldn't be so bad how ever trying to afford a car like that is never going to happen for me and many

reply to post by HanzHenry


If that's true then I'm sure you'd have a decent idea about how a 5 tonne truck with only 20hp would perform. No one builds a 5t truck with 20hp.

I assume your talking about a 454 big block V8 and 355 V8. How much hp do you get out of them and what is your 0-60mph and 1/4 mile times, if you have that info? Nice engines and a bit more than 20hp!!

So this is how dumb the EPA is. They have standards for certain parts, or say you must use these specific parts because of their efficiency, yet when someone comes along with something even better, they say "it's not on the list..." ??? Am I missing something? That is simply ignorance at its best if this is the case.

reply to post by JimTSpock


You might want to rethink yourself here. It is a proven technology that was used in the one or two off fiero that was getting over 50mpg.

By more efficient atomization of the air/fuel mixture it was able to burn more fully. Less wasted fuel, more power with less fuel and a lower than stoichiometric air/fuel ratio, much less.

So sorry, you are wrong. Many things that are taught as facts and make up the paradigms at any given time are COMPLETELY wrong...

Jaden

p.s. The historically verifiable scientific fact is that science is NEVER currently accurate.

reply to post by Masterjaden


Run your engine lean and see what happens. I guess us guys who actually work on real cars in the real world and not just on the internet don't know anything do we.

Unless your car is designed to run like that it won't be good for it. At all. Please try it yourself in real life. lol.

Running an engine too lean is bad news but you know better because you read it on the internet.

You mean the Pontiac Fiero? The one that caught on fire?

You mean proven technology that car manufacturers don't use because it's so great? Sure.

Lulz at people talking about hp like it is meaningful number.

Torque...now that is a meaningful number.

It used to be one of the most fuel efficient cars in the U.S. was sold by GM. Geo Metro. Rebadged Korean car with only 3 cylinders and 3 people could pick it up. Got just over 50MPG. Wouldn't make it in today's market as it likely wouldn't meet crash standards, and with things like direct to cylinder fuel injection that current engines use, a car with same specs could push somewhere around 70MPG.

Also you could probably delete some of the emissions stuff with direct fuel injection since fuel timing isn't affected by valve timing anymore. Get rid of EGR and run a lot leaner by shifting fuel timing in a way you couldn't before. Thing is, an auto manufacturer would have to make some push against the outdated EPA regulation that requires it. (Some cars in the late 1980s ran very clean without EGR, so it's not exactly clear why it became a requirement in the 1990s. I could only guess the reason, since it causes a lot of problems when not working correctly. Maybe they could get by using a cheaper catalytic converter if they had it?)

Some of those record-makng hypermiler cars are a bit underpowered though, might be ok in the city, but I still wouldn't want to merging on the highway with it. Particularly when it's common for on-ramps to be short and with 80MPH traffic bearing down from behind.

reply to post by 727Sky


Our beloved Governor of Massachusetts has toyed with the idea..

reply to post by ANNED

As reported in Motor Trend

Link

Just like any supercar, the XL1 demands compromises. It's noisy because there is very little sound deadening, which helps keep overall weight to just 1750 lb. Not only do you clearly hear both engines, but you also hear the tires on the pavement, the suspension working over the bumps, and the curious rasp of the tiny carbon-ceramic disc brakes as you came to halt. VW engineers considered an active noise cancellation system, but discarded the idea because of weight and the fact that it would consume precious power. Mechanical noise is part of the XL1 experience, just like it is in a Pagani Huayra.

VW has not announced a price for the XL1, saying only that it will offer what it calls "innovative financing" to get customers into the car, and that just 250 will be virtually hand-built on a special production line at VW's Osnabrück plant in northwestern Germany. Simple auto industry economics suggest this is easily the most expensive Volkswagen ever made -- after all, supercar technologies mean a supercar price tag -- and that it's a money loser. So why build it? "It's a lighthouse car," says VW Group R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg. "This is the technology spearhead of the VW Group, and all the brands will benefit."

Seems to be a very stripped down vehicle but as stated this is a good stepping stone for other car manufacturers...have you ever driven a car without power steering...yikes..