I have drove a lot fast cars, but 100 miles per hour in this? Then again 96 mpg around town mite not be all bad. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/93631839-famed-f1-designer-unveils-96-mpg-100-mph-smartcar.html
The capabilities aren’t practical. 100 mph 8 foot long car is extremely unstable giving it’s length, small tires and wind sensitivity at speed. The 96 mpg exists only at low speeds and then only for a limited range. The Prius is a real car, safer and more practical at 70 to 80 miles an hour. A Teslar sports car it isn’t. It won’t be on my shopping list !
$10-$20 a gallon gasoline and diesel will force our grand-kids into cars like this…But $4-$5 gas will not…
What can I say except its better than a smart car. Thing is most people don’t just drive a car around town and then use something else for the road, and something else again to pull a boat. Most people need a mix of capabilities, so cars at the extremes are too segmented for a large enough market.
Dag, Tesla would be much higher on my list than Prius, but I agree with everyone’s point that very few people can have task-specific cars. Most folks need a renag of capabilities in one daily driver.
Besides, I guarantee that if 96mpg cars became common, the feds would mandate 125mpg CAFE requirements.
As well they should. Nothing wrong with pushing car makers to do better.
That said, at the current rate of mpg improvement requirements, we and our grand children will be long dead by the time the government gets anywhere near to requiring 100+mpg.
BTW, the Owosso Pulse got very close to this 20 years ago in a much cooler looking package. It used a stretched Honda Goldwing with outriggers and a cabin covering to achieve up to 80mpg, and could go well over 100mph.
Cannot agree on the government point, Shadow, but I love the Owosso Pulse.
OK by me. I still respect you 
My government point, though, is just that oil is a finite resource, and we need to get much better at using it conservatively (both through public transportation and increased efficiency in cars) in order to buy us enough time to work out the next energy source we will use, before the one we’re using now runs out. If we run out of oil before we have completely converted away from it, humanity is in very deep trouble.
I tried to buy a Pulse a couple of months ago, and yes I would have commuted to work in it. A car museum was closing its doors and auctioning off its collection, which included an almost perfect Pulse. Unfortunately, the price got to the point that I could have bought a new Boxster with a good hunk of cash left over. Too rich for my blood. 
The fallacy is that these short cars are as efficient then longer ones (Corolla size) at any thing greater then 40 mph average speed. They are aerodynamic slugs good only for restricted size city hopping then only for two at a time in any comfort with the realization they are not as crash survival as larger cars.
I’m hoping everyone noticed that this is an electric vehicle (powered by a lithium ion battery), so the MPG value is somewhat bogus.
That things smacks of the VV1 Venture based on the Carver and was supposed to have been in production and for sale back in 2007. My opinion at the time was that the company was just playing the venture capital and government grant game while producing nothing but BS and a computer generated picture; along with solicitations for investors.
The VV1 was claiming a 100 MPH and a 100 MPG on a lithium battery too.
After a few years some people bailed, the company got a new name, and the same old continued followed by folding up shop again although the website is still up.
People were apparently naive enough to think that engineering could be completed, a prototype built and tested, government hoops jumped through, and a dealer network would be set up; all in a year’s time.
I did a little search, and apparently the vehicle, the Pulse, is actually an iteration of the Litestar Pulse, of which numerous variations were produced with different powertrains. I’ve attached alink to some info, but there are a number of other sites about it. Shadow, it mi9ght yet bs possible for you to have one. Ther were apparently over 300 made.
http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/litestar_pulse.html
hehe. Having done similar research to yours, also with an eye to prices, it seems that they dip lower than the price of a brand new Lexus only when they’re in really lousy shape.
It would almost be better to make a mold and have it custom fabricated at a glass shop and then modify a motorcycle to put it over myself as far as the economics goes.
Ahh well. I’m spending enough money restoring the MR2. That’ll have to be enough for now