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As outrageous as the idea of a 1L/100km car sounds, more reports have emerged confirming the ultra-frugal car is in fact in development and that it could be on the market by as early as 2010. At last month’s Frankfurt Motor Show senior VW exec Ferdinand Piëch claimed the car would be available by the end of the decade and now CEO Martin Winterkorn has backed up the claim as well as providing some of the production details

http://www.motorauthority.com/cars/volkswagen/vw-boss-confirms-1-liter-car-for-2010/

http://www.motorauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/VW/odds/VW_1Liter_new.jpg

The body being constructed out of plastic and magnesium sounds real expensive though...

magnesium ? yup money to burn (literally) . Interesting idea though . It may make a super suburban personal commuter .

I'd welcome it to the US market. We need something in the "flat-out mpg" class to replace the now-absent Insight.

VW has experience with magnesium - it was the material for the Beetle's engine block and gearbox. I don't imagine that too many of those burned up. In actual practice it's probably a non-issue, just as hybrid battery replacement costs have become a non-issue.

Making the body narrow helps reduce total frontal cross sectional area considerably. At the same time, it enables a wider space cushion on the driver's exposed side due to the ability to increase that dimension somewhat. I'd love to drive one.

True on the "in actual practice ...non issue" . I just remember my folks' Beetle starting on fire and it just kept burning - unrelated to any magnesium content .

Yikes! My bug never started on fire and I loved that little vehicle. I still dream of acquiring two -- one '52 bone stocker restored to show quality, and one '63 slammed, chopped, and modded up for a daily driver. That dream gets remoter as I get older, and the slammed car doesn't has as much appeal because I just want to go farther -- not faster.

I too would be interested in driving this car, but I still worry about dependability? If it gets that great mileage but only get to drive it maybe 2/3s of the time...

The picture reminds me of a bobsled. I bet it would get even better mileage if you used PP and started out pushing it.:)

is 1 liter per 100 km approx 200 MPG ?

If anyone can do it - VW can. They have done some extreme engineering with their current cars to squeeze MPG out of fairly heavy high performance cars - if they apply these same techniques to a light low performance car, they'd have world beater.

I'd go for the Aptera over the 1L VW. It gets the same (or better) mileage, but has much more interior and cargo space than the 1L VW. Hopefully it will get into production as well. I wonder what the max speed of the production 1L VW will be? The prototype they tested earlier was fairly slow (cruised at 40-50mph) and wasn't fast enough to handle normal freeway speeds.

I'm wondering what a Prius or an Insight could do with plastic body panels(doors and front and rear quarter panels) like my Saturn has?

Insight front fenders, fender skirts, and underbody panels are plastic. The rest of the body and structural member are aluminum.

The Prius could get some weight loss with the addition of plastic and aluminum.

Think there were articles on a prototype of this car - a one-cylinder diesel that could go from 0 to 60 in 20 seconds...forgot the displacement (600cc?). Second passenger sat directly behind the first. It seemed they were citing the same kind of FE