World's Most Economical Car

Love all your posts - keeps the attention where it should be - progress!  Though the car still runs on the 'ol oil it's a giant step in the right direction.  If this makes it through it'll only be a matter of time before the rest comes flooding behind it, ala Steven Greer and the Orion Project.  Someone's taking the finger out of the damn!

Here's what it looks like:  http://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/supermileage.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.examiner.com/trendy-living-in-national/volkswagen-s-600-car-gets-258-mpg&usg=__jw7jITb7thSQLzc8qh1qbSk2YPU=&h=366&w=550&sz=40&hl=fr&start=2&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=62_Qbbp-52lnFM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChina%2Blaunches%2B%2524600%2Bcar%2Bthat%2Bwill%2Bget%2B258mpg%26hl%3Dfr%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=cglNTca8JcmCswbu8Z2vDw

(The link is bigger than the car.)

This link says the price is actually $31,400 to $47,100.

My Corolla gets 38 miles per gallon and cost $15,000 (when I bought it 5 years ago)

Best case scenario, that's $16,400 extra cost but I'd be getting 258-38=220 more miles per gallon. Gas at $3.10 per gallon today - that would be a savings of $.07 per mile. It would take 234,286 miles to make up the cost! Did I do the math right?? That's a shame, I've been thinking for a long time that they should make a small commuter car like this that gets super good mpg. It's way smaller than my Corolla, I can see that $600 is not the right price but why couldn't they sell this for $10,000?

http://www.notoriouslyconservative.com/2009/07/600-car-that-gets-258-mpg.html

Wait - I found another link that says the price will be $25,900

http://www.energyboom.com/rumors-and-reality-about-volkswagens-258-mpg-car

Now, I could make up the extra cost at 155, 714 so as long as I get my usual 200,000 miles out of the car it would be a money saver!

Wendy

There's an article in Wikipidia also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car

Would not surprise me if the price drops in the Western world as the car gets into mass production. 

I could sure use it around here. My normal drive into town from the 'burbs is 10 miles round trip at about 45 miles an hour, no freeways, and I often drive alone. A car like that would be perfect. I drive a '72 VW bug now, so I can even stay in the VW family! Not to mention that it's diesel, so we could theoretically make our own fuel from biodiesel, obtaining the oil locally. Very cool!

Thanks, John!!

I have to laugh whenever I see these things! Obviously - at the price they are selling this for - it isn't very economical - even at 258 mpg. Never mind the impracticality of it. One seat etc. I think I would burn half a tank of gas just getting it up my driveway - if it made it at all (all of my cars are 4x4). Reminds me of those darn "smart" cars that are all over Portland now. I call them dumb. They only get 35 mpg!! Give me a break - the original Honda Insight got 70+ and was twice the size.  In Europe the diesel Smarts get 70. My 1990 Subaru Justy (conveniently no longer sold here) gets over 30 mpg AND has 4 wheel drive, four doors and a hatchback - and that's 20+ year old technology. Where's the 2011 version that should get twice that?? Nowhere apparently. 

Don't even get me started on the car thing. The first carburetor designed for the Ford model T got 75 mpg. Guess who was financing Ford? And guess which carburetor he didn't use? The production model even back then got 30+ MPG. We've been at a standstill ever since. There are NUMEROUS patents for using the VAPOR of the gasoline to get a normal car up into the 200 mpg range - and this is OLD technology. Google the Joe cell and see what's really possible. Also check out the work of John Searl in the UK. All of this hi tech car stuff is just to "wow" us into ignoring the fact that they have been sitting on far more advanced technologies for 100+ years. 

I think this is great but you do need to remember the market it is for.......and it's one of the largest the world has ever seen.....they will be pumping these things out...

This is just a safer scooter.....perfect for getting you around a city, more comfortable and convenient than public transport...it get you out of the elements....perfect in hugely congested stop start traffic. I think you could see them in the west, europe would like them, here in australia I could see Uni students buying them and people living in the city but this is really designed for the Asian market, billions of people....

The traffic over there is nuts!...Lol...people going in and out and all over the place...vehicles people have built in there sheds...serious...and they carry things you would have sworn would have been impossible to carry had you not just watched it go bye......in Thailand in the middle of all these scooters, cars and Tuk Tuk's (3 wheel Taxi's)....you will see 4 and 5 people packed onto one scooter, even babies a few months old just being held in one of the passengers arms....no helmets....there roads are crazy and dangerous....and yet safer because they all look out for each other, unlike here where our roads are WAR, every man for himself!...Lol....

Horses for courses......

I don't think our solutions or answers are any one thing...it's about a bit of everything and I look forward to when we will see electric, gas, diesel, solar etc all being utilized for different vehicles and purposes...

Something else to check out are hydrogen convertors for your cars...bought mine on ebay...., the unit and theory is solid but it won't talk properly to the computer in my car, I have a mate who knows about cars and he could install it properly, I will probably wait to try it when I get my next car, if it blows this car up then I won't care...Lol......but yeah as "another" alternative available to us to reduce the poison we spray out of our cars, these things look worthwhile to me....

L

Jez

Hi Jez-

Please keep us posted about the hydrogen converter and how well it works for you if/when you get it installed. I have thought about getting one for my Corolla. Do you plan to buy an older vehicle without a computer? - I'd like to know how you plan to get around the computer problem.

This whole computer technology to control appliances really annoys me. I wanted to buy one of those new more efficient, verticle washing machines but come to find out they all have computer controls - no more fixing it yourself - you have to call an expensive repair man who will really just replace parts and doesn't really know how to fix anything. We are keeping are old, less efficient washer that my husband knows how to fix.

I have wanted a one seater car for years and I'm also frustrated at the lack of technological advancement. I do have to agree that this one seater is a bit too low - I think it would be a major safety hazard - but other than that I would love to get a smart car type vehicle if it really got a lot more than 35 MPG - what a joke!

Thanks for the references, Jeff.

Here’s a simple and entertaining overview of John Searl’s work.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Ohwf1-Xqk

Another car inventor who got squelched:  Tucker: A Man and His Dream (trailer)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL-AFSAIln0&feature=related

Wendy, maybe what you need is an auto rickshaw:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw  If you live in a historic town, you can give tours to the tourists in it.

If you're feeling really handy, you can build your own ATV:  http://www.yamaha-motor.com/outdoor/overview_byo.aspx

Hey Wendy, 

When you use a hydrogen convertor you get an extra oxygen molecule...the one I have just has a little dial that you can turn to richen or lean off the engine...it's like what you used to see on early LP gas conversions...even if I disconnect the sensor and use this my motor will know something is not right and switch to a backup setting...new LP gas systems don't have this dial and they have proper electronics...essentially this is what I need......it's no big deal, 

Will keep you informed if I play around with it....

L

Jez

Thanks Jez,

I must have been confusing your device with another that suposedly boosts your mileage - something similar to running your car on brown's gas. Where do you get a car that runs on LP? Is it like a deisel engine?

Cute Noa, my town is historic but those rickshaws would never make it through the New England winters.  Your link led me to this Wikileaks link that has all kinds of microcars that get great mpg. I assume there must be some stupid legal restrictions that prevent people from driving these in the States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcar

Wendy

Thousands of cars here run on LP gas...it is  a simple conversion to your standard motor.....slightly less power but it works fine, does not damage your engine and much less pollution.... but not that much cheaper because like everything else today it does not cost what it is worth but instead what they can get for it.

It takes years to get back the money that the conversion costs..if the oil price goes up they match it with the LP gas price....Australia has massive natural gas reserves and we could totally go to gas if we wanted...all servos here have at least one gas pump...

Hydrogen convertors work by using water to produce hydrogen which then gets fed in with the fuel...ordinarily our motors are burning less than 35 percent of the fuel we run through them...it is the unburnt fuel which is the pollution...with this the hydrogen causes a better explosion resulting in much more of the fuel burning ...more power, better fuel economy and much less pollution....

I was told there was an underground market in San Francisco that installs these, Peru as well...they are not new and you will find lots about them on the net....