Toyota's uber-efficient petrol-electric pioneer was a technical tour de force. Richard Lane hails the Mki Prius and two other hypermiling hybrid heroes. When Ferdinand Piech drove from Wolfsburg to Hamburg one April morning back in 2002, he did only what so many business types in the region still do every day. The normality of his 140-mile journey was reinforced by the weather (cold, rainy) and his old-school attire (flat cap, checked scarf). He didn't listen to the radio, because there wasn't one. With just 8.5bhp at his disposal, neither did he do much overtaking. Bobbing along in the autobahn flow, Piech simply drove his car for three hours in order to get from company headquarters to an important shareholder event. All quite typical, for a certain sort.
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