[sidecar]

Ultimately the only thing that makes any sense is a lightweight more or less open wheeler body 3 wheeler much like a FWD Morgan, which means the stock trans equipment and FE can be used entirely. Handling isnt too compromised on this type of trike configuration, and its certainly making the most of drag reduction and having a capacity for lightness.

Performance expectations are reasonably high, as it would deal with most of the traffic off the line quite easily, the CVT should wind up in the higher gear ranges fairly quickly too.

As for modding a Prius, work out the specific fuel consumption in lbs per HP per Hr, then sort out an electric drive, with battery supply and full time gen set. The car drives on electricity off the gen-set, and any surplus power goes to the battery. So in high demand situations the battery also provides power.

I guess you could call it load levelling as much as anything else. The object is to store normally wasted energy in batteries, and consume that as supplementary power as required. I think you would be looking at something around 10Hp gen-set, but it would need to be very efficient.

Prius is perfect in some ways, it is already a proven aerodynamic shape of what is a full sized 5 seat aluminium car, and it conquers aspects of power brakes and power steering quite neatly.