Hi-tech car is a costly flop, VW admits

Volkswagen has abandoned its costly effort to develop a ’super-economy car’, admitting that there is no mass market for the product even at current high petrol prices.

Bernd Pischetsrieder, VW’s chief executive, said the two-seater vehicle, which is shaped like the cabin of a Messerschmitt fighter, had little chance of ever making money. “The vehicle can’t be produced at a reasonable cost,” he said.

The carbon-fibre car is designed to drive more than 60 miles on a single litre of diesel (almost 300 miles per gallon), and can reach speeds of up to 75mph. Twenty engineers have been working on the high priority project for the last three years, though only a handful of prototypes have ever been built.
Volkswagen said it could not produce the 0.3 litre engine car for less than