Volkswagen is planning to reveal a one-seat experimental electric vehicle on September 8 in Berlin, ahead of its world premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

VW’s chief of research, Juergen Leohold, told the The Financial Times that the concept is designed for limited journeys, something that the company’s spokesperson, Ruth Holling, also confirmed today.

Although Leohold didn’t reveal the concept’s range or top speed, he did say that it would be “even better” than the XL1 SEV (Super Efficient Vehicle) diesel-electric plug-in hybrid (pictured above). And that’s quite an achievement, since the XL1’s average consumption was an extraordinary 261 mpg (0.9 lt/100 km).

The one-seat concept is just a showcase for VW’s future zero-emissions technology. However, the company has already confirmed that it will soon present an EV version of the Up! which, along with the electric version of the Golf, will be available to the US by 2013.

VW’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, expects electric and hybrid vehicles to account for 3% of the company’s total sales by 2018. By then, Winterkorn has said Volkswagen aims to sell more than 10 million vehicles annually. If you do the math that comes out to 300,000 electric cars a year.

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