Greetings,
I've been watching for super-high efficiency cars, and they are starting to emerge. This first one is called Aptera, and you'll need to forget any preconceptions you may have about cars:
(Click on this image to get to the Wikipedia entry)
Let me cut to the chase: this two person car gets a claimed
233MPG !!!
(click on this image to get the the Aptera web site)
It will be available next October(ish) in two versions: an all-electric with a 120 mile range, and a version where they shrink the battery pack a little, and add a gasoline powered generator (12kV) to recharge the batteries on the fly. It seats two, weighs ~850lbs, has a drag coefficient of 0.11 which is outstanding. They claim it is very crashworthy (borrowing F1 techniques) and it has a 45" frontal crush zone. It has available side airbags, GPS/computer, three camera/screen rear view system, and a solar PV climate control system, that can run even when the car is off.
Oh, and it does 0-69mph in about 10 seconds, which is pretty typical for most cars.
The loaded all-electric version is ~27K, and the loaded hybrid version is ~30K.
Some more pictures of the Aptera:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos/aptera/422170/
http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos/aptera/422168/
Pretty amazing.
Here's a different car -- much more conventional (or is it?).
Loremo's site
Hmmm...this is different...
A bunch more:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loremo/tags/car/
The Loremo seats four, weighs ~1,320lbs (600kg) and it will come in two versions initially: a
157mpg version that has a 20HP turbo diesel, and a
85mpg version with a 50HP turbo diesel. They plan on either an all-electric and/or a hybrid, as well. The target price is under 15,000euro and by 2010 at the latest.
Here's new-but-familiar face; the VW space up! blue:
(click on picture for link)
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/16/is-the-vw-space-up-interface-developed-by-apple/
(click on picture for link)
This is a
hydrogen/electric hybrid concept car -- it has a
hydrogen fuel cell and batteries, with electric drive, weighs 1,090 pounds, and some PV solar cells on the roof. Kewl!
Here's another
very interesting concept car, from Toyota called the 1/X:
(click on picture above for link)
(click on picture above for link)
It has a 926-pound curb weight (420 kilograms -- about one third the weight of the Prius), gets 125mpg, and seats four -- what's not to like?!