Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Volkswagen: Das Auto



As usual I stumbled across another interesting piece of news. The headline proclaiming “The World's Most Fuel-Efficient Car” had caught my eye. Temptation and curiosity led me into digging deeper.

“Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH”, founded in 1937, was renamed "Volkswagenwerk GmbH" in 1938. A car designed by Ferdinand Porsche was the first one to go onto production at Volkswagenwerk plant and from then on there was no looking back. Volkswagen went on to break the world car production record with the “Beetle” and rest is history as they say.

I guess the year was 2002 when Volkswagen had come with a concept car that would run a 100 km per liter of fuel consumption. The engine had only one cylinder and weighing at 26 kilograms, displacement of 299cc, a 6 speed gearbox, the concept car can travel at 120km/hr max.

The car is a two seater with the passenger sitting directly behind the driver and looks like a rocket ship from behind. Overall it looks like a futuristic car.

But one thought kept gnawing away in my mind. Though a conventional engine that runs on fossil fuel makes sense in the immediate of things, for a concept car saving on fuel, I was expecting it to be powered by fuel cells or at least a hybrid.

But as they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. Over to you, Volkswagen.

Image Source: Cars World and Treehugger

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