Affordable 150 MPG Car Coming Soon

[Guest]

Budapest (Hungary) - You wouldn't expect the country of Hungary to be an automotive powerhouse, but it strongly desires to be the green car capital of the world.

Affordable 150 MPG Car Coming Soon : Read more

 

[three0duster]

LOL back to the stone age, "get in and pedal dear" , ha.

 

[velocityg4]

600lbs, how safe will this thing be in a crash? At this weight and probably small size it had better have a crash cage as durable as a NASCAR and four point restraints. Just think if this was hit by a 6000-8000 Lb truck.

 

[Reynod]

Great ... geeks will love these.

Till they have to pedal

X
C
P
U
S
.
C
O
M

Sucks ballz

 

[eltouristo]

I havnt heard anything about work on makine lightweight cars safe and quiet. The quiet part would come from advancements in decoupling vibrations and insulative, multilayered materials. Mabey the safe part would come from larger than normal crumple zones and andvanced airbags.

 

[truehighroller]

I say get the water powered cars from japan or china whichever it was that had it over here,, and every where,, and quit screwing around with hybrid gas electric bla bla bla crap..... and resolve the obvious issues we are having with gas as a fuel for our cars... right now...

 

[Kari]

[citation][nom]velocityg4[/nom]600lbs, how safe will this thing be in a crash? At this weight and probably small size it had better have a crash cage as durable as a NASCAR and four point restraints. Just think if this was hit by a 6000-8000 Lb truck.[/citation]
well people drive motorcycles that weigh less. and 8000Lb is nothing, howabout a 52000Kg tanker/log lorry head-on on a highway

 

[lopopo]

yaba daba du

 

[nekatreven]

that was kind a dumb statement. They don't run on water, most of them run on hydrogen and the exhaust is water.

Among the seemingly countless problems with these vehicles are concerns about the shelf life of their fuel tanks/cells, and the question as to whether it actually uses more energy and is more environmentally harmful to get the fuel cell produced and filled vs. just using gasoline. ...enegry put in vs. energy received.

...its almost like you said lets all go buy lead paint, or something.

 

[tkuhl87]

Flintstones anyone? For anyone that cares, Engadget had this story the other day w/ pictures.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/24/antro-solo-gas-electric-hybrid-promises-150-mpg/

 

[clay12340]

[citation][nom]Kari[/nom]well people drive motorcycles that weigh less. and 8000Lb is nothing, howabout a 52000Kg tanker/log lorry head-on on a highway[/citation]

Unless you're driving a tank you're not going to live through that anyhow, so it is kind of a useless point. I'd be curious to see how they handle being in an average crash at 55mph.

Motorcycles are just about the dumbest thing on the road, only bested by bicycles and scooters. It'll be a great idea to drive around at 60mph in the open air with nothing to protect my body aside from a helmet and some crappy clothes. Lets toss in tiny size that easily hides in blind spots for a little more fun.

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

People are obsessed with safety. If every one drove small car there wouldnt be the safety problem except the trucks..obviously

 

[mr roboto]

By 2012 Antro Solo want to produce a solar, human and gas-electric hybrid vehicle that drives more than 150 miles per gallon of gas.

Human? Are we bio fuel now?

 

[gm0n3y]

I'm surprised at all the negative comments. This could not only help alleviate pollution / oil / money concerns but could also help the obesity problem that apparently 40% (or something like that) or Americans have.

Why are people (especially Americans) so obsessed with having to drive a huge vehicle because of safety concerns? Considering that I ride my bicycle to / from work every day I have no safety concerns about driving a vehicle like this one. I would definitely consider getting one of them.

There are a few potential downsides to this car though. Its made in Hungary, which could be bad for quality. How the pedals work could be an issue (can you move them out of the way if you aren't using them, is legroom compromised because of them). If they are keeping the weight that low is the interior going to be empty? I don't want to pay $20000 for a vehicle that has uncomfortable seats, no sound system (doesn't have to be great), no sound insulation. A/C would be nice, though I can understand why it wouldn't be included.

I get that carbon fiber and batteries are expensive but I'm not going to pay $20000 for not much car. I'd be willing to pay maybe $10-12k for a bare bones version, but for $20k I expect a little more than just a car that's cheap on gas.

 

[bounty]

Why pedals... they just add weight... who the hell wants to pedal a 600lb bicycle? I'd rather walk. As for saftey, stay at home. I agree, for 20k it better have Heat, AC, CD/radio and not feel like a death trap.

 

[bounty]

take out the pedals, and build the cheap death trap version and I'll drive it for 10k

 

[Kari]

lol Leave your kids in the car pedaling -while you go shopping for croceries- just to get you back home. GREAT!

 

[stevo777]

The pedals are for the generator (to keep the battery juiced up) and not propulsion. Actually, there is a difference--a big one.

Jeez man, can you imagine people being forced to stay in shape and not be lazy fat asses--the nerve of them lol.

On a serious note, I see the low aerodynamic skirt as being a big problem in pothole prone areas such as the northeast US. I could see that thing bottoming out very easily.

Looks kind of interesting in my view.

 

[stevo777]

BTW, a lighter vehicle wouldn't have the same momentum as a heavy vehicle, so it actually could be safer in certain circumstances, such as stopping quickly--if you disperse the force properly with a good belt/airbag system. Especially, using super lightweight and super strong cutting edge materials.

Here's a new polymer material called Dyneema I learned about tonight that is very lightweight and much stronger than steel.

http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/hpf/home_dyneema.htm

 

[kamm]

gm0n3y: "Its made in Hungary, which could be bad for quality."

Ouch, the beauty of the combination of arrogance & sheer ignorance...why posting without any clue, seriously?

Had you have any clue about cars or Hungary you'd already know that *ALL* Audi TT comes from Hungary or that Suzuki supplies most of Europe from its Hungarian plant, GM (under Opel brand) makes its engines in Hungary (also for trucks), Ford has a complex parts mfr'ing operation - all this, of course, brought up the whole net of industry suppliers and additional part manufacturing plants (brakes, tires, engines etc) etc in Hungary in the past 15-20 years. Most recently even the very picky Mercedes started building its first-ever non-Western plant in Hungary, the home of their 3 new upcoming vehicle classes. What'sfunny is that even dirt-cheap Indian carmakers are reportedly surveying Hungary for possible sites, to have a HQ in Europe, where they can attack the EU market. A telling number: IIRC some ~20% of total manufacturing output of Hungary is coming from the car industry...
In fact most Central or Eastern-European countries are the biggest car makers in Europe: Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Slovenia etc all host several car factories of major brands/makers.
Icing on the cake: all article I read recently said their output will be doubled in the next decade - which leads me to think that more and more of the auto industry will move into the Central and Eastern European region.

 

[gm0n3y]

@kamm, touche. I had no idea that Hungary was any sort of manufacturing powerhouse. I was ignorantly lumping Hungary into the same production quality standard that existed under the iron curtain. In North America when we think of eastern European cars, we think of the Yugo.