new fuel efficient VW denied tour of US

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Supposedly because of fuel efficiency but I imagine their union friendly policies are in play also.

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/04/vol ... cient.html

http://en.volkswagen.com/en/models/xl1/highlights.html
^ the car at the volkswagen website, and below, a quote from the article at the mind unleashed website.v

"We will never see truly clean running and efficient cars in America, because the FED has mandated that American cars be intentionally stifled by horribly fuel wasting parts that add to the cost of the vehicle and do absolutely NO GOOD, how much more efficient and clean can you get than 300 mpg? The exhaust from the Xl1 has to, by simple math and the laws of physics, run at the theoretical threshold of emissions perfection."

no major progress in energy storage technology in 100+ years sounds fishy to me.

what a world.

Speaking of steam, the Stanley brothers must be spinning in their graves.

humanity doesn't seem to be making that much progress.

This aricle very skewed and many of the details are incorrect. This vehicle has already begun a tour through the US. This is a limited run production (250 vehicles in total)
The cost is much higher than the vast majority of Americans would be willing to pay, the gas mileage in the article has been rounded up, and is an MPG equivalent (based on using a full battery charge and a full tank of diesel over a flat, smooth surface with zero wind resistance) which is the mathematically derived efficiency, not the efficiency from testing. To put it into perspective, a Tesla S gets around 85 MPG equivalent as found during their extensive test phase.

This vehicle also has the unfortunate effect of sounding like and old FedEx truck badly in need of repairs. This is a vehicle that would lose massive amounts of money in the US. It has nothing to do with big oil. Not to mention severe limitations on maximum speed, load capacity, and passenger capacity. It also would not pass US safety standards without some more very expensive R&D and testing.

Tesla is doing ok in the US, even though oil companies are upset about it. The only problems Tesla is having are all coming from the lobbying groups of car dealerships and American auto companies, not oil companies. Most major auto companies are working on (or have already released) highly fuel efficient or electric vehicles.

These kind of rumors about big oil keeping magic wonder cars under wraps have been going on forever, and they seem highly unlikely. An auto manufacturer would make a fortune pushing these vehicles, so why would they give 2 sh*ts about big oil?

Whew ! ! I knew it all along. The Government would never do anything like that to the people of the USA.

Detroit still needs to be making a truly good little car and not just cheap [but still overpriced] shitboxes like they normally do to satisfy CAFE requirements.

why can't they study cars made for india [much more lightweight and economical] and borrow some of those economizing tricks for American cars? wheels could be made of plastic instead of heavy metal. those fat rubberband low profile tires so popular nowadays do not roll easily and suck up horsepower that might otherwise go to propulsion. there is no reason other than vanity that a family sedan has to have almost 400 horsepower [the latest ford Taurus], reduce that to 150, lighten the car with aluminum manufacture, add 10-20% to the fuel economy. the dashboards of modern cars are HUMONGOUS! 2 feet deep. there is about 6-12 inches of excess overhang over front and rear, that could be reduced as well for less weight. so many tweaks could be made relatively economically, that would improve efficiency. but Detroit only acts when their back is against the wall.