Volkswagen XL1 - A Silent And Ghostly Super Hybrid

With its ostrich-winded doors, Volkswagen’s new mileage champion is the Veyron of hybrids.

If you drove a Volkswagen XL1, you’d be unlikely to encounter anything like it coming the other way. That’s because VW plans to build only 250 copies of its 283-mpg hyper-hybrid, and also because GM long ago crushed most of its EV1s, from which the XL1 looks almost entirely plagiarized.

If you drove a Volkswagen XL1, you’d be unlikely to encounter anything like it coming the other way

Here’s another example of VW chairman Ferdinand Piëch going to extremes – in this case, to show his many critics in the German Green Party where to stick it. The XL1 is 1800 pounds of carbon fiber, aluminum, and plastic propelled by a two-cylinder turbo-diesel engine sharing the trunk with an electric motor. As of this writing, this Karmann Ghia of tomorrow may be sold or leased, VW hasn’t decided, but any sticker price should exceed $120,000. Sorry; European distribution only.

Just 45.4 inches tall, the XL1 is half an inch lower than a Lamborghini Gallardo, and it would be impossible for anyone but Tom Thumb dipped in Vaseline to enter through conventional doors. Even so, normal people climbing in have to bow deeply under the forward-winged hatches, step over a sill that is nearly a foot wide, and drop into a body that clears the ground by a mere three inches. If you expect this Volkswagen XL1 to be a sports car, with its proportions and ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber tub with attached aluminum crash structures and body panels, you are mistaken. Push the starter button to see.

Instead of engine yowl, an indicator at the bottom of the central speedometer simply reads “READY.” Pull the lever of the seven-speed, magnesium-case, dual-clutch automatic to “D,” and push the accelerator. The electric motor integrated into the gearbox gently whirs like a blender, and the XL1 moves off. The low-rolling-resistance Michelins sound like grinding millstones – they are sized 115/80R-15 in front and 145/55R-16 in back, and no, that is not a misprint. The front rubber, just 4.5 inches wide, is inflated to 44 psi.

The XL1 is 1800 pounds of carbon fiber, aluminum, and plastic propelled by a two-cylinder turbo-diesel engine sharing the trunk with an electric motor

The skinny tires provide a comfortable ride up to city speeds. As the car accelerates on electric power, an orchestra of mechanical noises plays from the wheels and the transaxle. Every push of the brake pedal is accompanied by the rumble of pads sanding the ceramic discs. “We did not use any insulation,” says VW development engineer Ulrich Mitze, stating the obvious. “And the side windows are made of polycarbonate.”

Saving weight was the major developmental target for the second most extreme project within the Volkswagen Group after the Bugatti Veyron. The goal was a saleable “1-liter car,” or one capable of averaging 1.0 liter/100 km of fuel consumption. That’s a target of 235 mpg, nearly five times better than a Toyota Prius’s EPA combined rating, and VW claims to have beaten it.

After teasing the world with two prototypes since 2002, VW gives birth to an XL1 that’s more than a foot shorter and nearly five inches narrower than the Golf, with an extremely low drag coefficient of 0.19 and a European test-cycle label of 0.83 l/100 km (283 mpg). The 27-hp electric motor from the Jetta hybrid works in tandem with a 47-hp two-cylinder diesel engine, which is basically a Euro-market Golf’s 1.6-liter turbocharged and intercooled TDI cut in half.

The side windows are made of polycarbonate

The XL1 should run 31 miles solely on electric power, says Mitze. But on the cold and rainy April day we drove it, the small, 60-cell, 5.5-kWh, 150-pound lithium-ion battery pack needed a recharge after only 22 miles. Recharging can be done with a 220-volt outlet in one hour or on the fly by the diesel engine.

When we decide to proceed, the diesel engine kicks in smoothly. It runs with little vibration but sounds a bit harsh at city speeds. And it manages to both refresh the batteries and provide rear-wheel motivation with its scant 89 pound-feet of torque. Regenerative brakes assist the recharging effort, lift the throttle and the XL1 coasts, but gently depress the brake pedal and the system switches to regen mode. Push harder and the hydraulic brake start biting. The tipping point from regen into friction braking is easy to control.

The XL1 can cruise at 80 mph with the flow of power from the engine, motor, and battery detailed on the dashboard info screen

When the motor boosts the engine, the XL1 is surprisingly agile. Zero to 60 mph happens in about 12.6 seconds, which seems quicker when you’re only three inches off the pavement. Outside the city, the unassisted steering lightens up, and the XL1 seems to run more quietly as road roar drowns out the car’s mechanical noises. Out of EV mode and into hybrid mode, the XL1 can cruise at 80 mph with the flow of power from the engine, motor, and battery detailed on the dashboard info screen. If needed, the XL1 does 99 mph as the diesel engine twitters excitedly. “Due to the excellent aerodynamics, we could reach 124 mph,” Mitze claims, “but the engine is governed in the interests of efficiency.”

According to the on-board computer, we are fuel hogs. Having started with a full tank (2.6 gallons) and fully charged batteries, we ended our trip after 67 miles; fuel consumption plummeted at one point to a dismal 128 mpg. Achieving the XL1’s theoretical 7490mile range would take a right foot as light as a moonbeam.

But as far as the day-in, day-out functionality of the “Lighthouse Project”, as the engineers call the XL1, it is sufficiently practical for everyday use by cashed-up mpg-aholics. Europeans who can’t afford the expected six-figure price can wait until 2015 for the Up! hybrid, which will feature the same two-cylinder diesel-electric unit that’s in the peewee Up! hatchback. A similar system with four-cylinder-diesel/electric propulsion will be offered in the Golf hybrid due next year. But only the XL1 comes with flying doors and two actual Lamborghini parts: the aluminum interior-door handles. Oh, what party conversations the XL1 will spark. So much for saving CO₂.