complicated = expensive batteries & electric motor = expensive Did somebody mention carbon fiber?
Hardly anybody that could afford it would be willing to be seen in it.

A worthy thought, but if you have 4 people going anywhere, where do you put, for instance, grocery bags? What should be a boot (trunk?) is full of batteries.

Apologies - Read th story, then checked out the pix. There appears, #15, to be a little space left at rear.

We need a better way of comparing the economy of hybrids. Plug in hybrids such as the Volt should show the steady cruising range and economy after the battery has been exausted of its initial charge as well as the government combined figures for short trips. If I want to drive to Queensland from Melbourne (2000km approx) will the 33litre tank in the TwinUp get me there without re-fuelling ? I do think there is a place for hybrids but misleading fuel economy figures do not help.

They just are tricking the regulations with these hybrids. It's just in like Formula 1, you just have to find a way to go around the rules. This will not change until they will not implement a consuption cycle where a car is run until all kind of energy tank is depleted, then the consumption is calculated.

Carbon fibre has no place in road cars, unless in a part of the vehicle that is not likely to suffer impact damage, as it is prone to shattering into projectile shards in the event of a crash. Apart from that, it isn't a material that most body repairers will have been trained to deal with.

Good ol' Slowburn. Always in a hurry hatin' anything EV or even hybrid related. Yes carbon fiber was mentioned in regard to driving the XL1's price tag uphill. It escaped Your attention that This car is NOT the XL1.
The Up! seems like a perfectly viable intermediate solution towards a sustainable future if humanity survives to see it.
Don't even try to justify any of our average gas-guzzling toxic fumes spewing monsters of yesterday (with Your usual subsidies non-argument).
I told You before and I'll tell You again: Should You live to see old age, You'll see the inevitable decline of Fossil fuel burning vehicles. You will be able to dwell in atavistic nostalgia by visiting Your truck in a museum probably called "the human stupidity memorial".

This is mind-blowing!

Yeah, for the right price I think I could see myself in one of these....wonder if it'll take racks for my kayaks and what the extra drag will do to efficiency.

It is insane that a small fuel efficient car is this expensive. All you need is a 600cc diesel engine running a small generator, a small bank of super-capacitors (perhaps linked with a small Li battery) and electric motors driving at least 2 wheels, to get 150-200mpg. How complicated is that? No complex transmission system that is cost-prohibitive to repair. It's not complicated, and maybe that's the problem. No one seems to be stepping up to create something that is affordable and fuel efficient. It certainly shouldn't cost over $30K to get something like that built in semi-mass production. VW values this car at $145K? What a joke! Maybe for a prototype. Fuel efficient cars are needed by everyone, not just the elite. VW (and everyone else for that matter) needs to step up and produce these cars in quantities enough to see affordability. And if they need someone to show them how to do it, I'd be more than happy to.