Volkswagen set themselves the goal of travelling all 48 U.S. states and setting a Guinness World Record for the having the lowest fuel consumption throughout the journey. The effort to break the previous record was taken up by two hypermile drivers in a 2013 Volkswagen Passat TDI over 12 875 km and two weeks, a truly vast journey. The Volkswagen Passat left VW U.S. headquarters two weeks ago and has just finished its epic voyage.
The manual gearbox Volkswagen Passat TDI in question has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel TDI engine with 104 kW) and 320 Nm of torque. Over the course of their 17 day trip the drivers ended up travelling 13 071 km across all 48 states and they averaged 3.0 L/100km, which beat the previous record of 3.4 L/100km.
The drivers in question were automotive journalist Wayne Gerdes, founder of Cleanmpg website, and Bob Winger, an electronics engineer involved in energy and conservation projects. “To cover 13 000 km on just 397.4 litres of fuel is nothing short of astonishing and shows just how economical our TDI Diesel vehicles can be,” said Jonathan Browning, Volkswagen of America president and CEO.
How on earth did the Volkswagen Passat TDI end up returning 3.0 L/100 km when Volkswagen themselves rate it at just 5.4 L/100 km in laboratory conditions? Gerdes mentioned using momentum, coasting between intersections, and always obeying speed limits, because he says speeding can increase consumption by as much as 30% in most cars. What do we think? Is that replicable in real-world driving?
