Yes, it is amazing! Here's some real world data; posted by David O'Neel on the EV Discussion List:
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Dave drove the car from his house down to Lacey on Friday, for a distance of exactly 80 miles, using 179.04 Ah, about 90% of what was available. Max speed was about 70 mph in Bellevue on I-405. The car was then charged overnight at the Lacey City Hall, at one of the two charging stations (simple 110V outlets).
The car was then shown at the Alternative Energy Fair while we raced electrathons. After the races, I drove the car back to Dave's house on a slightly different route of 76.2 miles, using 173.58 Ah. Using the nominal 72V, that works out to something like 162.7 Wh/mile. Some of the differences in the two trips besides change of driver, were heavier traffic and rain on the return trip.
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So, ~162wH/mile, on real roads in real traffic, some of it in the rain, and
without regen -- impressive to say the least.
I spoke with Dave Cloud (the builder) last night on the phone, and I hope to encourage him to continue to develop this design. I can only imagine how low power consumption it could be with a ~400 pound lithium pack (like maybe the EIG batteries used in the FVT eVaro?), and with a good regen system; again like the FVT eVaro, which gets *all* of it's braking from regen, down to 5mph when the friction brakes take over. The FVT team is at the X-Prize, and I'm sure they will be formidable, with their custom twin permanent magnet motors (0-60 in ~5s) and their custom 20kW gen set. They did all their own battery management, too... They are relatively close, up in British Columbia, IIANM.
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We learned a few things about the car, but also about the general public. As we were driving, some people didn't even notice us. Others matched our speed so they could take pictures or video, even to the point that they were backing up traffic and almost forced me to take an exit because I couldn't change lanes. It may very well be on youtube already, but good luck finding it. Overall reactions were overwhelmingly positive. :-)
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This car has that effect on a lot of us! We are drooling, despite ourselves. This car is already getting a lot of attention, and there will be more.
If there are more pictures of it from the Alternative Energy Fair, or on the road (driven in the rain is fine), I hope these can be shared, also. If anybody finds some of the video of this car on the road -- please post it!
Dave -- congratulations on an excellent design, and a really sweet build! You are a true Maker, in my opinion. And I'm a definitely not the only one...