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Originally Posted by elhigh
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Check out the links at the bottom - I'm only keeping the headlines:
More Green(er) Cars
Fisker Gets Half-Billion Dollars (!) Loan from Department of Energy
another bust, then compare that to :
Modified Honda CRX HF Wins Fuel Economy Competition with 118 MPG!
Or to the aerocivic.
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You can see he switched to a more aero body for better numbers.
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The Lotus 7 was never built for aerodynamics, but it would easily get better figures with better streamlining, at a modest weight penalty, and at the same time increase luggage capacity.
Think aerospider 6C with conventional engine lay-out.
It'd add massive amounts of internal volume.
Going with FWD, have a look at this :
It's the VW up!'s engine bay.
It's only about 70" deep or so ... and leaves massive internal volume even in a car only 12' long.
If VW made it better streamlined rather than a boxy hatch, it could do small miracles.
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The only downside on the LoCost is it's a two-seater.
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Is that an issue, with "high-occupancy" starting at 2 ppl in CA ?
Even then you still have the HO lane all to yourself ...
Been there, done that.
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Luggage capacity doesn't look that great, either.
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Neither is it on the 7 (Lotus or Caterham) but improving the aero could take care of that - it badly needs a tail to improve aero.
And a cabin, optionally.
I rate both garage-modded cars a couple orders of magnitude above the X-prize contenders - let alone finalists who received a pile of cash.
I'd rather see the aerocivic or (son of) MAX in a museum than an X-prize prototype ...
Jack's said on here as well that X-prize was an administrative nightmare to stress the production capabilities, rather than a realistic car competition.
Yet they've got no production-standard cars to show, let alone sell ...
If I pay Mike 30K or so, I bet we'll have aerocivics in low-rate production by next week or so, if he can find good donors quickly enough.
