Volkswagen has announced pricing for its extreme eco XL1 model, according to VW it’s the world’s most energy efficient production vehicle. The Volkswagen XL1 is now available to UK customers at £98 515 or 1.8million Rand.

A total production run of around 200 XL1s are being built in Germany, a proportion of which will be made available to UK customers.The first delivery was made to a German customer at the end of May, with a number of UK customers already in line to purchase a car.

800cc Diesel for Volkswagen XL1

The design brief for the XL1 was to produce a ‘one litre’ car – a car that uses one litre of fuel per 100km.The resulting XL1uses 0.9l/100 km on the official combined cycle, and this low fuel economy figure correlates to a very low carbon dioxide emissions value of just 21g/km. The results are achieved using a two-cylinder 35kW 800cc diesel engine with a 20kW electric motor, driving through a modified seven-speed DSG transmission.

Tear Drop Shape

The Volkswagen XL1was 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 Volkswagen XL1can maintain 100kph on a level road in still air using just 6 of its 55kW. In order to maintain optimum aerodynamic efficiency, the XL1 sits extremely low to the ground and features scissor-opening wing doors.

Commenting on the Volkswagen XL1, Product Manager Lianne McKnight said: ‘Knowing that production of our cars is now underway and that customers will soon be taking delivery of them is very exciting. We’re looking forward to seeing this record-breaking model on UK roads, as well as seeing technologies within it filtering down to many of our mainstream Volkswagen cars.’