Camping indoors

This is right up my alley. All the fun of camping while indoors in vintage trailers. [Link]

Images of Base Camp Bonn Young Hostel, the world’s first camping trailer and Pullman coach hostel, in Bonn. The hostel which was opened in August of this year in a former storage facility, consists of 15 various vintage camping caravans, two former railway Pullman coaches and four used U.S. Airstream trailers all with shared washrooms. The prices of the 120 beds in the 1600 square meter indoor complex range from 22 to 69 euros per night. Each trailer was individually designed by film and TV outfitter Marion Seul.

VW BlueSport, the 57 mpg roadster

This looks cute. I like my VW and my next car (sometime in the distant future) will probably also be a VW. Fast, sporty, and fuel efficient. [Link]

The car is powered by a 180 PS Clean Diesel TDI engine that uses a NOx storage catalytic converter to reduce CO₂ emissions. Using a 6-speed DSG dual clutch transmission, the Concept BlueSport gets 54.7 mpg (US); punch the Eco mode button to get 57.36 mpg in city driving

235 MPG VW

To go into sort of production as early as 2010. [Link]

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg.

Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle -- so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers -- stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.

But VW's decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.

According to Britain's Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They'll probably be built in the company's prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That's not a lot, but it's enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve.

A little small and a two seater doesn't really work but make it a four seater and I'm there.

VW Plug-in Hybrid

I'll take one. [Link]

VW boss Martin Winterkorn says gas and diesel engines will be around for a long time to come, but "the future belongs to all-electric cars." The automaker is staking a claim to that future with a plug-in hybrid drivetrain it calls Twin Drive. It will debut in a Golf fitted with a 122-horsepower diesel engine and an 82-horsepower electric motor.

"While the e-motor on a typical hybrid model just supplements the combustion engine, the exact opposite is true on Twin Drive," Winterkorn said during the car's unveiling in Berlin. "Here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor."

Start-stop technology will save power and regenerative braking will help generate it. VW says the car will use lithium-ion batteries and have an all-electric range of 31 miles. The company recently signed a deal with Sanyo to develop li-ion batteries; the electronics company plans to begin production next year and says it will spend $769 million on the effort during the next seven years.