On a DEKRA-supervised test run, the Volkswagen Golf TDI BlueMotion has proved itself to be a real three-liter car. On the trip from Nantes to Copenhagen, the Golf with the 81 kW/110 PS TDI engine used only 2.92 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers. The distance between the two cities – 1602 kilometers – was completed with a single tankful!
Just to note, DEKRA is a vehicle inspection company founded in Germany and is the largest vehicle inspection company in Germany and third in the world. Simon Thomas, Head of Marketing of the Volkswagen Group and the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand: “this is a really impressive result. The trip shows that the interaction between fuel-saving BlueMotion efficiency technology and a well thought-out proactive driving approach allows economy figures that are hard to match.”
The highly varied route of the trip led from Nantes in the West of France, the “European Green Capital 2013”, via Paris, Antwerp, Bremen and Hamburg to the Danish capital Copenhagen, situated on the Baltic, “European Green Capital 2014”. The “Think Blue. Eco Ride.” shows that the standard consumption figure based on the NEDC driving cycle, which is already extremely low at 3.2 liters per 100 kilometers and 85 grams of CO2 per kilometer, can even be beaten.
Drivers from the Volkswagen Driving Experience succeeded in reaching a verified value of 2.92 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers in normal traffic over a driving time of 20 hours and 45 minutes. The standard 50-litre tank was filled in Nantes, where it was sealed by a DEKRA inspector. At the end of the trip, 46.92 liters of diesel were filled into the same tank under the supervision of the same inspector.
The Golf TDI BlueMotion is one of the technical highlights of the Golf family. Like all the other Golf models. It has a standard start-stop system and regenerative braking mode. In addition, the perfected aerodynamics, the low weight of the vehicle, the modified six-speed manual gearbox and especially the tires, which have been optimized for low rolling resistance, contribute to the high efficiency of the Golf TDI BlueMotion.
“Think Blue.” Is the internationally-based holistic environmental sustainability strategy of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand. The initiative includes innovative, environmentally compatible products with various powertrain technologies and is intended to encourage people to rethink and join in. Simon Thomas: “Through ‘Think Blue.’, we show that low-consumption driving can be combined with driving pleasure. This is why Volkswagen offers fuel saving training in a number of countries, for example ‘Think Blue. Ecotraining’ in cooperation with ‘Naturschutzbund Deutschland in Germany.’“
Now I myself drive a diesel car and fuel consumption has always been in my mind. One of the key differentiating points that we have is that we use the Euro 2M standard of diesel here in Malaysia and it is also blend of biofuels as well. I relive the times of when I used to watch the three crazy guys from Top Gear on telly especially with their endurance races and the diesel cars really do go the distance. If you can remember the old episode where they travelled several hundreds of miles from Europe to Blackpool to turn on the famous Blackpool lights, Richard Hammond won that challenge using a VW Bluemotion 3-cylinder diesel.
