Volkswagen revives plan for fuel-thrifty car

BERLIN (DPA) ― Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, has brought plans for a fuel-thrifty car out of abeyance and will display an ultra-light hybrid car at the Qatar Motor Show at the end of this month, according to a German magazine.

Volkswagen has spoken for years of making a car that can travel 100 kilometers on just 1 litre of fuel, but has never put one on sale. The magazine Wirtschaftswoche said the car, the Super Efficient Vehicle, would have a body of carbon-fiber, not metal.

Its two-cylinder diesel engine would work in combination with a small electric motor hooked up to a lithium-ion battery that could be recharged from a home charging point. The weekly said advances in carbon-fiber manufacture made the SEV suitable for mass production. It said the first SEV could roll off production lines in 2013.

Volkswagen could not be reached for comment. The “one-liter car” is a longtime interest of the German group’s supervisory chairman and major shareholder Ferdinand Piech. He drove a prototype ultralight car to a VW shareholders’ meeting in 2002.