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Exactly: diesel. Fuck hybdrids. A good diesel has relatively low emissions, will produce better MPG than a Prius (e.g. http://www.carpages.co.uk/guide/skoda/skoda-octavia-estate-s-1.6-tdi-cr.asp [carpages.co.uk]), and doesn't have cart around a heavy battery.

No, it has to carry around a very heavy engine instead. Diesels are great and I'm a big fan of diesels but hybrids (can) have demonstrably lower emissions, are capable of better fuel economy per horsepower, can be designed to use zero oil based fuels for commuting 10-40 miles, have even better torque characteristics than the already impressive diesels, and have other advantages besides. While I would happily buy a diesel, the long term prospects for hybrids are much brighter.

What I would like to see is large trucks using diesel-electric hybrids similar to those used in locomotives. I think that would be a huge win for fuel economy and pollution reduction.

I'd like to see about a hybrid truck as well, perhaps a hybrid TDI because of the inherent fuel economy advantages of a modern diesel.

Exactly: diesel. Fuck hybdrids. A good diesel has relatively low emissions, will produce better MPG than a Prius (e.g. http://www.carpages.co.uk/guide/skoda/skoda-octavia-estate-s-1.6-tdi-cr.asp), and doesn't have cart around a heavy battery. Furthermore, the environmental costs of making that battery outweigh the fuel savings (http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101018/OEM01/310189979). The Prius is just a status symbol for "green" conspicuous consumers.

Whereas I only get a theoretical 356 miles out of my 2009 Fiat 500 - it only has a 35 litre / 7.7 UK Gallon fuel tank though.

However the model with the 1.2 litre engine has a theoretical range of 427 miles and next year's models are rumoured to get the same if not greater horsepower from a 0.9 litre turbo charged engine which should increase the range even more

There isn't a car on the road today that seats four comfortably, swallows volumes of luggage and gets 100MPG while running the air conditioning.

The Note doesn't either and I'm calling you out on it. http://www.carpages.co.uk/nissan/nissan-note-review-part-1-24-05-06.asp

You sir are either a liar or ignorant. Either way no one should be listening to you.

A website from almost exactly three years ago says the same thing here, too...

There's already a solution to the fire engine problem.

You could make a sellable car that does 50mpg by taking my Smart Roadster and adding some lead ballast to waste a bit of petrol. It's rated at 65.7 mpg (imperial gallons) which is 54.7 miles per US gallon.

The difference between this idea and simply mixing ethanol into the petrol is that the ethanol is injected first, so it vapourises, cooling the compression chamber down, in a similar way to a water injection intercooler. Quite how they arrive at a huge power gain from this isn't adequately explained though, and they do seem to ignore the difficulties of strengthening an engine enough to cope with triple the power, and a few thousand freeze/thaw cycles per second, and the extra weight that's going to add.

Getting a lot of power from a small engine isn't very difficult, the Brabus tuned version of my Smart Roadster (review here) gets over 100bhp from a sub 0.7 l engine, and my less tuned 80bhp version give me about 60 mpg (and thats using our smaller british gallons!). The downside is you don't get lots of torque, which is why you'll only find this engine in a light sporty car, not an SUV.

Good examples include the transformer Peugeot ad, that one I never tire of.

wasn't that a citroen?
http://www.carpages.co.uk/citroen/citroen_c4_13_11 _04.asp

[an american that doesn't own a tv [or get cable] brought you this comment]

For those who are curious about what "live" action might look like for a robot movie, start here with an intro to the Citroen commercial, and then get the commercial here.

With Spider-Man 3 (May 2007) and the Transformers (July 2007) coming out in the same summer, it looks like I'll be spending a lot of time in the theatre in 2007!

Oh yes, what we need is some sort of rotary engine that runs on something other than fossil fuels... oh, hang on, look what they did! http://www.carpages.co.uk/mazda/mazda_world_premie re_of_renesis_hydrogen_rotary_engine_22_10_03.asp? switched=on&echo=543043390

What kind of motor offenses land you in Jail? Here in Iowa (in the US) only Drunk Driving will put you in jail, and usualy only for multiple offenses.

Speeding

Refusing to pay a Speeding ticket

Causing Death by Dangerous Driving through drinking

and usually to escape being identified by police officers and manslaughter

Yes, going by the adverts produced by Honda (Can Hate Be Good?) and RailPower Technologies Corp. (Green Goat low emission locomotive), it would appear that stricter emission controls actually create jobs as researchers and companies develop products to match these requirements.

Modern diesel engines are very competitive with gasoline engines when it comes to performance, and always outperform "gassers" in fuel economy. As an example, the Mercedes E320 CDI outdoes the gasoline E320 in many ways:

• 0-60mph acceleration (CDI 6.6 seconds, gas 7.1 sec);
• torque (CDI 369 lb-ft, gas 232 lb-ft);
• fuel economy (CDI 27 mpg city and 37 highway, gas 19 and 27).

Given that the current land speed record for a pickup truck is held by a diesel, diesels can go very fast. In the case of the land speed record, the truck from Banks Power is street legal in California. It hauled its own team trailer to the Salt Flats, and then immediately made qualifying runs of 172 and 192 mph. After some "tuning," it set an official record of 217.314 mph. A peak speed on another run was 222 mph.

Slightly more mundane, but still impressive, is the speed records set by a production Honda Accord diesel. As the article states: Honda's new Accord 2.2 i-CTDi Sport has this week set no fewer than 19 world speed records and achieved 3.07 litres / 100 km (92 mpg) fuel economy to boot. (Note: Imperial gallon is 25% larger than U.S. gallon.)

So, you can pass all the gas cars on the Autobahn, in your diesel, and leave them really far behind because you don't have to stop to refill your tank!

In the UK there is (or was) a huge modded Car scene but was mostly been off-line, probalby because it predates the Web. It featured Clubs a few good magazines, such as Classic Car and CCC (sadly it in is last month), with had decent technical articles and ran awesome track days.

However this has increasingly been replaced by a Street (Racing) Cruising (some of the links will not be work safe) scene based on more mainstream, non-geek pop culture (not work safe). It does feature a younger and more-internet savy demographic, but is increasingly based on existing performance and professionally modified cars rather than DIY mods.

... or for a variable sun roof. The Maybach 62 - a Mercedes for people with too much money - has an adjustable rear roof. "The laminated glass pane on the inside has an intermediate layer in the form of a liquid crystal membrane of conductive polymer plastic. The membrane has a cable connection to a control unit which generates an AC output of 90 volts. Switching the power on arranges the crystals in the plastic membrane in such a way that the glass becomes transparent and allows daylight into the rear of the Maybach 62 over its entire area. The special feature is that as soon as the AC voltage is switched off, the liquid crystals lose their transparent arrangement and the light is fragmented in all directions. The glass becomes opaque and filters the daylight to produce a pleasant, diffused glow, with only approx. 76 per cent reaching the interior. This electrically controlled transparency has its world premiere in the Maybach 62. Thanks to this unique roof technology the rear passengers in this luxury motor car can decide in accordance with their mood or the weather conditions whether to enjoy a bright interior flooded with daylight in which to admire an exclusive, panoramic view of the scenery, or whether to relax beneath a semi-transparent glass dome."