Hybrid Lovers Read This and Lament 3194

Whoever

I recently saw a print article about this topic, not sure if this is the full thing, but quite interesting to me.

"The chbuttis that's sitting in a workroom on the campus of San Diego State University is painted a shade of red you'd expect to see on the lips of an attention-starved woman. On a car, the color conjures up speed, sbutt, and power. But this car's looks are deceptive. Although it can blast from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds, a single gallon of fuel can propel the vehicle 80 miles. The engine is augmented by a battery-powered motor, which can be recharged by plugging a cord into an ordinary wall socket. And the engine fuel? You can run it on diesel if that's convenient. But soybean oil works just as well."

"San Diego State University Professor Jim Burns says people have asked him where they could buy a car like this. "Nowhere," he has to say. When Burns and his team of engineering students designed and built the car -- which they called the "Enigma" -- they weren't trying to develop a commercial product. Instead they wanted to prove that it was possible to make an automobile that used no fossil fuels, got phenomenal mileage, and looked and performed like a race car. Four years later, Burns and a new team of students are attempting to transform Chevrolet's Equinox into the kind of SUV even an environmentalist could love. Their work is part of the Challenge X compebreastion, which is being cosponsored by General Motors and the Department of Energy. Theirs is one of 17 teams, and hardly among the front-runners."

The team's site is at:

Dave