Think Blue. World Championship 2013

3.48 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers! That’s how much the winners of this year’s Think Blue. World Championship 2013 managed in Germany for the finals! The father and son duo drove down the designated 592 kilometer route from Berlin via Wolfsburg and Weimar to Frankfurt am Main. I’ve been to most of the cities in the route during my trip to Germany last year with Volkswagen and it’s hard to imagine such fuel efficiency but they did it!

This is the culmination of the Think Blue. regional preliminaries which our own country participated in. I wrote about the first Think Blue. – National Challenge 2013 held in Philea Resort, Malacca in Malaysia earlier this month which saw Mr Ong Ling Kern coming up top and going to Germany on an all-expenses paid trip to participate in the Think Blue. World Championship.

The regional competition in Germany were different – in addition to quiz questions and fuel efficient driving challenges (which were the tasks in Malaysia too), they had challenges like building miniature energy plans for renewable energy and cooking regional dishes with locally-sourced ingredients.

I thought the last one was quite interesting! It’s a concept that’s taking hold in a lots of places, like Byron Bay in Australia. In addition to the surfer culture there, there’s a lot of emphasis on low-food-miles and locally-sourced produce. The menus at the best restaurants like Mavis’ Kitchen (gotta remember to write about that) has large gardens and only cooks with ingredients that are in season and from surrounding orchards and farms!

I thought that was a really good concept for the environment – very in line with Volkswagen’s Think Blue. philosophy which is a holistic approach to foster environmentally compatible mobility and sustainable individual action by raising awareness about sustainability and eco-conscious behavior.

Back to the Think Blue. World Championship 2013 in Germany, the results on 12th September goes to Volker Muller-Tonnissen (52) and his co-driver Jorn-Luca Muller-Tonnissen (16) who is also his son! They averaged a mere 3.48 litres per 100 kilometres on the 592 kilometre route using the new Golf TDI BlueMotion. What’s more impressive was the set-up – each car competed with three occupants plus balance weight so it’s a full load! Each vehicle has a load of exactly 294.4 kilos so no one has an unfair advantage from size and built over distance (due to the balance weight).

The most efficient performance driving father-son duo were also the winners of the German national preliminary contest. There were also 16 other national winners competing (including our very own Mr. Ong Lin Kern from Malaysia) and the second place went to the team from the Canary Islands (3.63 liters) and third was snagged by Russia (3.67 liters).

Mr Ong’s team representing Malaysia came in at 13th for an average consumption of 4.08 liters per 100 kilometers.

That’s not too bad considering they came in ahead of teams from Argentina and the United States (which came in at last at 17th with 4.57 liters/100 km).

All the participants visited the International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main after the event, where Volkswagen had a stand showcasing several efficiency models. They also got a very unique experience at the Volkswagen test centre in Ehra-Lessien where cars like the diesel-powered Golf TDI BlueMotion, the natural gas powered eco-up! and full hybrids like the Touareg Hybrid were shown. To cap it all off, they are among the first ever drivers to get the opportunity to test drive the Volkswagen XL1 (the highly anticipated most efficient series vehicle in the world) as well as the first purely electric high volume production Volkswagen – the new e-up!

This is the third year of the Think Blue. World Championship and Head of Marketing at the Volkswagen Group quoted that they almost doubled the number of participating countries and motivated several thousand people from around the world to find out about driving efficiently. It’s the perfect embodiment of the Think Blue. philosophy which aims to inspire people and contribute to significantly reducing fuel consumption and emissions by adopting a more intelligent driving style.

Find out more about Think Blue.