Amazing read. The question is however how much did VW cheat to get those figures???

http://underdns.co.uk/wordpress/?p=153

What do you think to the look of the car? I personally would say its the worse looking car I have ever seen..

I quite like the styling, but I suspect the real World carbons are going to be more like 50g/km. Which suggests more like 90mpg, and my Octy claims that in 30mph cruising.

Yeah I read somewhere, I think it were on here that car manufacturers are now cheating when it comes to these tests.

The guy who made that claim clearly didn't understand the difference between a rolling road dynamometer and an actually moving vehicle though.

They mentioned using tape to seal gaps,removing the alternator etc etc.

I saw the piece; taping gaps doesn't always work in the real World, and certainly won't work on a rolling road since the car isn't moving to experience aerodynamic drag!

Looks like that crap Honda thing from years ago

http://speedlux.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/honda-insight-most-fuel-efficient-car.jpg

I quite like the styling, but I suspect the real World carbons are going to be more like 50g/km. Which suggests more like 90mpg, and my Octy claims that in 30mph cruising.

They claim some daft MPG figure, but in real tests it did about 150mpg or so. Aerodynamics are very impressive.

Bare in mind it's got a battery, so uses no fuel until that runs out and drops onto the noisy little 2cyl diesel.

An Octy is not going to compare with that.

What is more interesting is that they say this system will fit in a VW UP!

So they will filter some of the tech down to other VAG cars, which is the only point IMO as the car is far too compromised to be sensible.

Two people, not sitting next to each other, very small boot, crap visibility etc...

They claim some daft MPG figure, but in real tests it did about 150mpg or so. Aerodynamics are very impressive.

Bare in mind it's got a battery, so uses no fuel until that runs out and drops onto the noisy little 2cyl diesel.

An Octy is not going to compare with that.

You haven't realised it, but you've put your finger on the problem. In real-World extra urban driving it's going to spend most of its time on the diesel because you're not going to regenerate the accumulator that often.

I wonder how much more efficient an Octavia VRS petrol would be with all the fancy materials in place. Carbon fibre body smoothed out body, Mg wheels. Bet you could get 60-70mpg from it without touching the engine.