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You didn't actually look at the site did you?

Why wait? Plans for the XR3 (a strikingly similar vehicle) have been around for years and you can build it yourself. It basically uses a Kubota D902 diesel up front and an electric motor drives the rear wheel. The design even lets you forgo one or the other and go all diesel or all electric. But combined you get the 200+ MPG version.

Why wait? Plans for the XR3 (a strikingly similar vehicle) have been around for years and you can build it yourself. It basically uses a Kubota D902 diesel up front and an electric motor drives the rear wheel. The design even lets you forgo one or the other and go all diesel or all electric. But combined you get the 200+ MPG version.

So basically an XR3 but with an SUV shell?

http://www.rqriley.com/xr3.htm

Older designs such as his trimagnum go back years

They should strive to do something new or better or just license his

According to this article diesel is expensive and electric is expensive making the resulting hybrid REALLY expensive. If you still want one it looks like the Peugot they reference is a go although not in the US.

If you truly want to go the diesel/electric route you could order this kit and build a striking auto (technically a 3 wheel motorcycle) that gets over 200 miles to the gallon. And at ~$20,000 for the build it is still economical. I just wish they would have followed through with their plans to manufacture and sell these bad boys!

Hopefully someone will circumvent the retarded US auto laws and sell it as a "kit" so it does not have to meet ANY US safety or other laws and can be a home made car that fits under the "experimental" rules like they do iwth aircraft.

It doesn't work that way:

Homebuilt land vehicles (cars, motorcycles, ATVs), whether built from a kit or entirely from scratch, are regulated on a state level and must therefore comply with the regulations of the particular state in which they are licensed. Homebuilt vehicles are not regulated on a federal level - at least not formally. Normally, the state-level regulations that apply to such vehicles are less stringent than the federal regulations that apply to manufactured products, but much depends on the state in which you live. For example, the motor vehicle code of many states contains language requiring that all motor vehicles are equipped according to the federal regulations in effect when the vehicle was manufactured. Homebuilt aircraft and watercraft must comply with federal regulations.

Liability insurance should be relatively easy to obtain, and priced about on par with existing coverage. Collision and comprehensive insurance may be more costly and difficult to obtain. The difficulty with comprehensive and collision insurance comes mainly from the inherent difficulty of establishing a value for your car. Consequently, you may be asked to have it professionally appraised, in which case the total coverage will then be limited to the appraised value.

If you do not already have insurance on an existing car, it will be very difficult to find a company that will write a new policy on your homebuilt car.

Licensing And Insuring Homebuilt Vehicles [Rev. May 31st]

I live in a lake effect snow belt in upstate New York. The motor vehicle safety laws don't look half so retarded where the weather can turn lethal in a heartbeat.

The XR3 has been around a few years and looks a lot more like a car than any of these. Is it because it is a three wheeler?

lets see, my datsun, which i traded a broken laptop for, was advertized as getting 41 mpg, with later models claiming 50 mpg. And there is a recent confirmed case of someone achieving 61.53 mpg.

My old 78 scout diesel got in the low 20's MPG, which was pretty damm good for a three ton brick on wheels. I expect my project of dropping a 6.2 diesel into another 78 to get similar results based on the specs of the CUCV pickups

these are all 30-35 year old vehicles.

There are a few modified and custom built vehicles getting decent mileage, but nothing stock.

Let me know when 75 mpg is considered to be terrible. Then I'll start to get excited..

R Q Riley has had plans for several of the Popular Mechanics/Mechanix Illustrated 'build your own car' plans for ages. Personally, I've always loved the Trimuter, might just build one someday when I scam up some free time & about 5k...

R Q Riley has had plans for several of the Popular Mechanics/Mechanix Illustrated 'build your own car' plans for ages. Personally, I've always loved the Trimuter, might just build one someday when I scam up some free time & about 5k...

I don't care about a sedan; I commute alone, and so do millions of others. Start mass-producing these things, for the love of my wallet: http://www.rqriley.com/xr3.htm

rqriley has been selling "plans" for decades. they have been trying to get people to build the tri-magnum for 30 years without success...

http://www.rqriley.com/tri-mag.html

anyone with an ounce of mechnaical skill can do that without the "plans" and a regular car in less time with less cost.

Hell go get a smashed prius, a light car you want to make a hybrid and simply put the drivetrain in the car. All done, really easy and not rocket science.

Hell it's not hard to replace the ECM for the prius with something that is more hackable if you really wanted to.

Depends on what type of driving you are doing. On the highway in a mountainous area I regularly get about 35-38 MPG in my 99 Corvette. In town I usually pull mid-twenties. I'v ebene able to get close to 30MPG in town when I consistently try to. If people pay attention to what they are doing they can save significant amounts of fuel. If their car has an "average MPG" readout/gauge and an "instant MPG" they can learn to drive in ways that dramatically increase their fuel economy. IMO the Prius having an MPG gauge of some sort entices it's owners to learn to improve their driving = just as it does in other cars that have them.

The primary non-human factor in higher MPG vehicles is mass - weight. It affects two of the three uses of energy expended. GM did experiment with a single-seater, "The Lean Machine" - a play on words. It was lightweight, three wheels (Wheels are rotating unsprung mass, particularly irksome), and leaned into turns like a motorcycle. It reported 100+MPG. In the 80's.

Hypercar shows the dramatic effect of weight on vehicles. http://www.hypercar.com/

If you want to explore the economy of lightweight vehicles yourself, try out some of the stuff from http://www.rqriley.com/.

The GM Lean Machine from the early 80's.
The Mercedes F300 LifeJet.
The Vandenbrink Carver.

Trust the British to think it's a new concept.

You can affordably retrofit a motorcycle to run on an electric engine. Your mockery aside, it is the most feasible way for an average person to green up their morning commute (not that many people will do it, but I am considering it).

It seems that the only thing that the Smart has going for it is PR hype.

Some of the ideas are sound, but I'm not sure how well they are implimented. Most of the ideas aren't new, and are indicated by basic physics and experience.

You want a car that handles like a sports/racer and gets good fuel economy? Make it small and light and put a small, fast engine in it for a high power-to-weight ratio (motorcycle engines are damn-near F1 knockoffs and cheap as dirt).

The fewer powered accessories in the vehicle, the less engine/fuel needed to power them (a small car doesn't need power steering, brakes, windows, or AC - the McLaren F1 doesn't have them either).

If you really want to knock off even more power-robbing weight and complexity, drop the rear tranny and one of the rear wheel assemblies, make it a three wheeler. You lose almost a third of the rotating inertia of the entire drivetrain!

Add some smarts to the control system. A large part of the expense and complexity of the modern automobile is the custom control electronics used to lock in the customer to the original manufacturer for repair parts. You can drop a lot of the expense by using standard of-the-shelf systems. A fast PDA could easily handle most of the control functions in a small car, and act as a removable instrument cluster/electronic key, and look! You've got a PDA also!

"Space frames" are a well-known technology. Every shade-tree mechanic that's built a dirt-track racer or demolition vehicle can build one. A well built frame is very strong and stiff, but heavy. A more appropriate technology is a stressed-skin monocoque filled with crush resistant honeycomb (like cardboard) or foam beads.

The use of changable panels, simplification of design, and cheap parts, have all been used before... in commodity goods.

These vehicles aren't meant to be "investments", they are commodity goods, like toasters, blenders, PC's and TV's.

These vehicles all have some traits in common: small, light, and look like kids go-carts trimmed out to look like their parents real cars.

Some other sport vehicles are:
Campagna T-Rex http://www.go-t-rex.com/
Norton Shrike http://unitas.lunarpages.com/~norton2/shrike.htm
Tri-Magnum http://www.rqriley.com/index.html
Vortex http://www.vortexplans.com/
The Indycycle http://www.indycycle.net/
Grinnall Scorpion http://www.grinnallcars.com/

Note to people that like bashing Americans: If you had to grow up in our society, with our history, with our government and laws, you would be us. After all, where do you think we came from?

By far the coolest-looking solar bike I've seen is the XR2-solar that won the 2001 Australian Solar Challenge. It's just a slight modification of the standard Ground Hugger XR2 plans that are available online.

By far the coolest-looking solar bike I've seen is the XR2-solar that won the 2001 Australian Solar Challenge. It's just a slight modification of the standard Ground Hugger XR2 plans that are available online.

realistic??? what drugs sre you on?

realistic is a 2 seater subcompact used as a commuter vehicle. wher 90% of fuel is used by the consumer.

There are some GREAT efficient cars that are tiny overseas made by ford and others that get damn near 50mpg but they flat out REFUSE to sell them here.

I hate to break it to you, but you do not need a 8 passenger, 107 cu foot cargo area 6 wheel drive with 57 inches of ground clearance and 1.5 lanes wide vehicle to drive to work on the interstate.

I know it's a shocker but it is true.

I drove a 2 seater sports car that outperformed most sports cars on the road and still got 55Mpg in college. I built it from plans I got from here

instead of using a goldwing I used a different honda motorcycle (magnum)

if someone from basic plans and no real engineering background can build a commuter car that outperforms nearly all efficient cars on the road today from cast-away and old parts, then engineering students and firms can certianly do better.

Yes, I met all state and federal safety requirements, I had to before it would get licensed.

and it was licesned as a car not a motorcycle.

I sold it for 4 times what it cost me to make after I put almost 50,000 miles on it. still wish I never would have sold it though, in high school / college you have all the time in the world to do such things.

If you follow these plans you can build a stylish 80's looking sports car that gets 128 MPG! This plan is not even for a hybrid. It's a straight diesel engine.

I do not work for this company, it's just a cool looking car that I hope to build one day

The key to fuel economy with internal intermittant combustion engines (like reciprocating gas engines found in cars) is to use them at their maximum power setting with as few combustion events per unit time as possible. In other words, wide open throttle and low RPMs (high manifold pressures). This car gets 128 miles per gallon at 35 MPH, and it's just a pure diesel engine.

Hydrogen is a losing proposition because there isn't any lying around free. It has to be made, and that takes energy. In fact, it takes more energy to make it than could ever be returned by burning it (Thermodynamics... increaing entropy...).

Currently I think that the gas/electric hybrid is the best touring vehicle (as opposed to a commuting vehicle) platform, but I have yet to see one that I like. The Toyota Prius I got to look at closely a few weeks ago was very disappointing. A 1989 Honda Civic CRX gets better milage! The Toyota drive system is overly complicated with a gearbox that allows the wheels to be driven by either the electric motor and/or the gas engine. The added complexity and weight of the gearbox offset any efficiency gains of the electric system.

As several people have noted, the hybrid seems to be the way that auto manufacturers are going for "reduced emissions" vehicles.

At a recent "Engineers' Week" party, the local Toyota dealer had a couple of Prius available for inspection and demonstration. I was unimpressed. The drive system is overly complicated and 50 MPG is pathetic for a "reduced emissions" vehicle that has economy as its main selling point. Granted, it's better than 20-30 MPG I get in my eight-year-old Firebird, but it's not impressive. A ten-year-old Honda Civic or Geo Metro can do that, and they're pure gasoline!

This car has it right. The most efficient way to run an internal combustion engine is to have it operate at high manifold pressures and low RPMs: Wide Open Throttle. By using a 17 horsepower (12.7 kW) diesel tractor engine and a tall final drive ratio allows this car to get around town at 35 miles per hour while achieving 128 miles per gallon. Of course, it has a top speed of only 65 miles per hour.

Of course, I'm just taking a stab - could be wrong.

Actually, because of centrifugal force and gyroscopic forces a spinning disk is inherently stable, and resistant to any turbulence or wobble. Likewise, the aerodynamic crossection of a hardrive platter is pretty negligle. Flywheels often spin at several times the speed of sound, often well over 60,000 rpm using disks measured in feet. Most operate in a vacuum condition, where there is nothing to turbulate. If a flywheel breaks vacuum suddenly the efffects might be catastrophic, The energy released during the failure of a 1 kW-h flywheel is enough to lift a mid-size car 100 feet into the air

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot, that he himeself could not eat it? HS

This Link is from a car company that sells plans for some pretty strange looking economy cars. However I'm betting that the same principles could be used to put your very own Mach5 together, providing you have a bit of patience, some cad prowess and a decent donor car.

(disclaimer-this passage in the text worries me, maybe why I haven't made my GF's geo into a DeLorean yet;-))
"But despite the strength-to-weight advantage of newer materials, nothing matches the original polyester-resin/glass-cloth/urethane-foam composite for quickly producing a tough, lightweight product at rock-bottom costs."