What's Wrong With This Picture: The Very Model Of A Modern Mainstream Automobile Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

The Automotive X-Prize is over, and the Edison2 Team has won the “Mainstream” class with its Very Light Car. It may not look like any mainstream car you’ve seen recently, but it does fit four passengers, offers air-con, heater, an audio system, and a 200 mile range. And using a 250 cc ethanol engine, it got 102.5 MPGe, while accelerating to 60 MPH in 14.2 seconds. But this was not necessarily a hard-fought victory: Edison2 was the only team that even made it into the finals in the “Mainstream” class. Meanwhile, the X-Tracer motorcycle shown above won the “Alternative” class. In fact, it won the whole damn competition with 197 MPGe while accelerating to 60 MPH in just over 6 seconds. So, despite the ego-boosting rhetoric from Nancy Pelosi, and the other politicians speaking at the awards ceremony, the Automotive X-Prize didn’t so much advance America closer towards a fuel-efficient future as it proved that motorcycles are way more efficient than cars are. The much-maligned gas guzzlers that we know as “mainstream cars” are in little danger from this lot.



Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Djoelt1 Djoelt1 on Sep 16, 2010

    I think the better way to look at these cars is, when gasoline is $20 per gallon we can still drive a private car. If you march down to your local car dealer and the only thing they have on the lot is cars like this, are you going to skip car ownership and ride the bus? Didn't think so. The bigger question is, if people would drive this rather than take the bus, why not do it now and prevent gas from ever reaching $20 per gallon?

    • Psarhjinian Psarhjinian on Sep 16, 2010
      The bigger question is, if people would drive this rather than take the bus, why not do it now and prevent gas from ever reaching $20 per gallon? Because that's COMMUNISM!
  • Facebook User Facebook User on Sep 17, 2010

    Motorcycles already CAN get ~ 100mpg+ regularly. Google for KLR650 diesel. If only they'd be mass produced...The military (supposedly) buys a lot of these. For those of you unfamiliar with the KLR650 it's (in gas form) a 35hp or so bike that can do 90mph witout much trouble. Even stock rebel 250's can get 85'ish and creep up to 70mph or so. If you commute on this for 6k miles/year, the difference between this $2k used 85mpg bike and one that gets 200mpg is not much. 6000/85=70.5 6000/200=30 at $20 gallon, the difference is $800/year. For that $800 you get (probably) cheaper parts, a proven design (20 years+?) a probably more comfortable riding position and a dealer network that exists everywhere. Add in cost of tires (special for this "e" motorcycle?) parts (also special?) original cost (??), insurance, etc and it would take forever to make up the difference. I'd gamble that the rebel is cheaper & a better buy on pretty much all front's.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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