That Lane-Splitting vid is incredible. It'd take some getting-used to for flying between sets of side mirrors, but wow...

I saw an interview with the creator of this car. He hopes in the future he will be able to incorporate regenerative braking in this car like it is used in the Prium and other hybrids. He figures it will DOUBLE the range on the car. He also thinks if someone is ingenious enough to give it a try, you can incorporate solar panels on the hood and roof to give the car an endless fuel supply.

I also saw in the interview with this guy that the reason it is so expensive is he has to manufacture them by hand. He has no facilities like Ford or Toyota to mass produce them. He has been trying to partner with an automaker to mass produce them but no of them are interested. Too tied in the the oil industry I guess. He says if he could mass produce them on an autoline, he could get the price down to around $20,000

Here's an electric car which, while still funny looking, looks better:





Problem is this one costs $660,000. But it'll do 0-60 in less than 5 seconds, and you can take this car to lover's lane alone, and not necessarily leave alone, if you see what I'm saying.

This may go the way of the Edsel but many features/specs won't. I can't wait to see what Big Auto (foreign and domestic) and/or Big Motorcycle does with this from a technology standpoint. Once production costs drop due to economies of scale and battery technology advances a little more I could see big acceptance of this type of EV, escpecially where autos are less endemic (Beijing?).

Alden Bowles
2005 Toyota Prius II HSD

A few weeks ago I saw a Tango on eBay. The manufacture was selling them. You may still be able to find them. Excellent almost free advertisement.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."