• nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      The car weighs very little and is very aerodynamic. Diesel fuel has higher energy density than gasoline that came in these cars. And these little diesels are pretty efficient especially when forced induction is added, but they’re still relatively dirty and I don’t know what kind of emissions controls the builder added (likely none, from the sound description).

      • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        I’m very familiar with diesel engines. They are nothing new. They’re older than gasoline engines. We’ve seen cars with diesel engines before, and while very efficient, they’re nowhere near this level of efficiency.

        This is also not a new car and they were extremely efficient when they were released.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 months ago

          The late 90s was short of a peak of light weight and aerodynamics. Often at the cost of safety to some extent. The insight was one of the lightest and slipperiest. But it had a heavy battery pack (now removed) that was used as a power booster for the ICE. EPA was 53mpg which was good for the time.

          This guy basically built a DIY VW XL1. Except he did it with 30% 100cc less displacement and no restrictions on emissions.

          The XL1 got 240mpg for reference, 73 should be way to get and he could probably do way better with a tank of engineers and things like start/stop that the VW team had.

          Edit: I was thinking the VW was a 1 liter but it’s 800cc.