You there. Yeah, you — the one who smugly parks in the “Reserved for electric vehicles” parking spot outside Whole Foods. The new VW Passat TDI gets a whopping 78 mpg, making it more fuel-efficient than ANY [gas-burning] CAR EVER, including hybrids. How do you like them German apples?
Volkswagen has announced the company’s Passat TDI has set a new world record for the category of “lowest fuel consumption-48 US states for a non-hybrid car.” Drivers Wayne Gerdes and Bob Winger managed an impressive 77.99 miles per gallon over 8,122 miles, trouncing the previous record of 67.9 mpg. The duo also sailed past the hybrid record of 64.5 mpg, another record set by Gerdes.
Volkswagen has yet to confirm my hunch that TDI stands for “totally damn impressive.”
The manual 2013 Passat TDI running on clean diesel is expected to get 31 mpg in the city and 43 mpg on the highway. The record-breaking Passat was equipped with extra bells and whistles like Continental PureContact® with EcoPlus® Technology tires, because everyone knows the more trademarks, the better fuel efficiency.
This is all very impressive, but the VW Passat TDI still doesn’t get as good mileage as my bike. The latter gets 100 miles to the gallon. Of Slurpee.
UPDATE: Even a very efficient diesel car still uses more gas than an all-electric car, so we’ve clarified that this is a fuel-efficiency record for gas-burning cars. The previous record, set by a hybrid, was 64.6 mpg.
