Loremo Lives: Super-Efficient Car Prototype Turns Up at Frankfurt Auto Show

This is EXACTLY what we need in the US! I drive 37 miserable miles to work. Not by choice mind you, but by necessity. The cost of real estate close to work is simply too high so I chose to commute. Until I can afford to move closer, this car would provide some much needed relief from the "gas pains" we are all enduring lately.

I drive 37 miserable miles to work. Not by choice mind you, but by necessity. The cost of real estate close to work is simply too high so I chose to commute.

No, the cost of real estate which you consider a proper lifestyle is probably too high. There is nothing "necessary" in your choices. They are choices. You could get a job closer to where you live, or you could live closer to work and perhaps not have a big house and big yard.

I have yet to post a comment on this site even though I read it about every day.Until I read "Anonymous" respond so rudely to someone expressing a willingness to try harder to lower their carbon footprint. All I have to say to "Anonymous" is "Judge not lest ye be judged"

I have yet to post a comment on this site even though I read it about every day.Until I read "Anonymous" respond so rudely to someone expressing a willingness to try harder to lower their carbon footprint. All I have to say to "Anonymous" is "Judge not lest ye be judged"

I trust you realize the irony of that comment.

There is nothing rude in pointing out the difference between necessity and choice.

Anonymous try this one on for size. My wife and I have great jobs. I live 24 miles from work yet we are close to my wife's job. I guess by your logic I should choose to give up a great job so I don't travel so far. To live close to my job I would have to live in a not so great neighborhood but then my wife ends up with a long commute. Sorry I'll keep my yard and house in the 'burbs where people don't get shot almost everyday. Yes thats a fact in some Chicago neighborhoods. Hey at least we live in a reasonable sized house (under 2000 sq/ft and well insulated) and not a McMansion where they cut all the mature trees down on the lot to fit it in.

Give me an electric car (or if GM can pull off that Volt it's perfect) that has enough range and I'll be all over it but spare me your self righteous attitude. Not everyone can choose to live close to their work.

Anonymous try this one on for size. My wife and I have great jobs. I live 24 miles from work yet we are close to my wife's job. I guess by your logic I should choose to give up a great job so I don't travel so far. To live close to my job I would have to live in a not so great neighborhood but then my wife ends up with a long commute. Sorry I'll keep my yard and house in the 'burbs where people don't get shot almost everyday. Yes thats a fact in some Chicago neighborhoods. Hey at least we live in a reasonable sized house (under 2000 sq/ft and well insulated) and not a McMansion where they cut all the mature trees down on the lot to fit it in.

Where to even being with that one.

I don't care where you live or what you do with your life. The fact that you equate living near work with "getting shot everyday" pretty much sums up your mentality -- old fashioned "white flight" thinking.

Give me an electric car (or if GM can pull off that Volt it's
perfect) that has enough range and I'll be all over it but spare me your self righteous attitude. Not everyone can choose to live close to their work.

No, everyone can choose to live close to their work. What happens is that they make other choices which are more important to them (as you detailed about your own situation). You act as if you are FORCED to drive, which means you don't want to take responsibility for your choices. This is fine, but you're deluding yourself. You can make whatever choices you wish, but don't act as if you're forced to make them.

An electric car still needs roads and all the supporting infrastructure, and if you're so concerned about habitat destruction (as evidenced by your comment about it) you're again deluding yourself about the impacts of sprawl.

This doesn't even touch all the other destructive aspects of automobile dependence (one of which is slicing highways through urban neighborhoods which creates crime hotspots, the ones you complain about).

You can externalize your environmental damage away from your own life all you want, but it doesn't mean it isn't there. And it certainly is a choice, not a necessity. So spare me comments about being self-righteous -- it has nothing to do with that, unless of course you're speaking about your own choices and attitudes.

Dear Anonymous

1) Regardless of your views, if your objective is (as it should be) to get people to change their behaviour for the better then you're not going to get very far by being a self righteous prat.

2) Your general attitude shows gross ignorance of the current state of the global community. Reading between the lines of your posts I'm assuming you're an advocate of everyone moving back to happy little country towns, growing their own lettuces and making their own bread and living in adobe houses - maybe raising a barn in the weekend. While I've got no problem with that per-se, it's not a solution for everyone. There are a couple of reasons, first of all not everyone WANTS to live in a country town and grow their own lettuces, and while you can (and no doubt will) rant about their addiction to excess, the fact remains that unless you offer people a low emission lifestyle that they like, they'll carry right on with the high emission lifestyle they like.

You also need to consider the benefits of distributed systems in light of the likely consequences of climate change. If drought and storms etc are destroying food crops then it's often quite HANDY to have a road nearby for famine relief.

Actually I just re-read your post and you don't sound quite as polarised as I imply in the above. Out of interest, do you have any problem with people living a long way from their work if they commute by train?

Back on topic...
Can somebody tell me how you're supposed to get in and out of this thing? In a downpour I'd be sitting in a puddle of water every time I got in, not to mention the having the wind rip the whole front of the car off! This can't seriously be touted as a practical everyday vehicle that some one would actually use. Please guys give us something we can work with here!

Amazing the mindset that posts here...

One innocent yet optimistic remark touched off a flurry of self-righteous pontification.

Congratulations to the initial poster for recognizing and highlighting the brighter future this story represents.

heh. true on the part of getting in and out of the thing in the rain!!

I am waiting for the Volt as well. I choose to live 45 miles from work. I choose that because of my family, and it is my hometown.

Ha ha ha HA!

No wonder politics are so difficult in this country. Even treehuggers are polarized.

To 'Anonymous' why don't you just kill yourself for breathing. You are expelling waaaaay too much Co2 for your own good.

Impressive but yet no so. Lomero plans to have a price of around 12 to 14 USD. VW has had a design already done this and done it right. The VW 1L. One liter per 100 km and plans on a cost of 7 to 8 USD. Unfortuantly, upon contacting various part of VW and dealers, no one has any information on the car it.

"There is nothing rude in pointing out the difference between necessity and choice."

But that's not what Lee did. All Lee did is make a simple statement that can be summed up as "You can choose to live closer to your work, or you can choose to work closer to where you live." This statement is not fact, but opinion.

Lee wants you to believe that it is fact. This represents a woefully ignorant view of employment and housing. It may be possible to live closer or work closer, but just because it is technically possible does not mean it is likely or a realistic option. Then, of course, there is the difference between a job and a career. Careers work is far less plentiful. Got a grocery store within 2 miles of your home? Then you can find a job "near home". But a career job might require a 40 minute commute.

Thus, the only "choice" you have to make between driving 2 miles to work or 4 miles to your career job is which brings you the greatest cost/benefit. The career job, in the long run, could provide over a million dollars more income in 20 years than the grocery store job not to mention job satisfaction. So the 40 mile commute is only a necessary component of a greater choice -- a sacrifice.

This is entirely what narrow minded, deluded economists do not see about the world. The study of economics might just be the greatest evil the world has ever seen.

Regardless of your views, if your objective is (as it should be) to get people to change their behaviour for the better then you're not going to get very far by being a self righteous prat.

Where is all this silliness coming from? I'm not here to change behavior or whatever. Someone claimed something was a "necessity." It's not. All this garbage about me personally is irrelevant and doesn't magically make a choice a necessity through beratement.

Your general attitude shows gross ignorance of the current state of the global community. Reading between the lines of your posts I'm assuming you're an advocate of everyone moving back to happy little country towns, growing their own lettuces and making their own bread and living in adobe houses - maybe raising a barn in the weekend. While I've got no problem with that per-se, it's not a solution for everyone. There are a couple of reasons, first of all not everyone WANTS to live in a country town and grow their own lettuces, and while you can (and no doubt will) rant about their addiction to excess, the fact remains that unless you offer people a low emission lifestyle that they like, they'll carry right on with the high emission lifestyle they like.

Yeah, you sure are "reading between the lines" with that.

Out of interest, do you have any problem with people living a long way from their work if they commute by train?

I don't have a problem with anyone doing anything. The only problem I have is when people start claiming that choices are necessities. Cars are never necessities. If they were, we wouldn't be here (as they are a relatively new technology, historically speaking). Food? Necessity. Water? Necessity. Car? Choice, or the product of a choice (like living dozens of miles from work). Job? Also a choice, or the product of a choice (educational choices and such).

The reason this is important is that one can change if something is a choice, but if it's a necessity, then one can't do anything about it. It's quite common to hear the refrain of "I need my car" which is frequently qualified with the "no affordable homes near work" line. I have never seen a single case where this actually holds.

One innocent yet optimistic remark touched off a flurry of self-righteous pontification.

Someone saying they commute 37 miles on an environmental website is "optimistic" and "innocent"? That's a ridiculous length for pretty much anyone, environmentalist or not.

Interesting design,Tho I would love to get those mpg's. The way you would have to enter it kinda draws me away.

I'm giving up on these message boards. Why should I even ask a question if someone going by the handle anonymous is going to break it down sentence by sentence and make me feel stupid for even trying. Maybe next year will be my time to go green, but for now I will stick to the other crowds who give me a helping hand, not a tongue lashing

I am totally with anonymous on this one. Americans that refuse to take responsibility for their own decisions are the source of all of these problems. All-electric cars with 300 mile ranges are just going to be a salve. The underlying problem is a level of waste and consumption that is astronomically high and a belief that it is in some way justified or necessary.

Actually read what anonymous wrote. Don't just respond. Think. Just because 'everyone' agrees with you doesn't mean you are right - it means you are in the middle of the flock.

P.S. I am American (U.S.) I live 12 miles from work. I bike in everyday. I haven't owned a car since 1999.

no doors?

Anonymous you are completely wrong! These people are too nice to tell you that bluntly.

>I don't care where you live or what you do with your life. >The fact that you equate living near work with "getting >shot everyday" pretty much sums up your mentality -- old >fashioned "white flight" thinking.

Come of it! You don't know where he lives.. what he does and a whole lot of those things. You are also ASSUMING that he has "white flight" thinking where it can actually be real. But no, you have to be right in your own world. You have a poor attitude and you clearly are a bad character. Your opinion does not matter and i don't care what you say. In fact, don't say anything.
(take some of your own medicine)

Anyhow, going back to the article. I think it is a positive thing to cut down from massive gas guzzlers to smaller cars. I really don't see a point in carrying 3 tons of metal around when all that is needed is yourself and maybe couple of bags. I welcome the idea and encourage anybody on cuttng down their carbon footprint.

Anonymous says: No, the cost of real estate which you consider a proper lifestyle is probably too high. There is nothing "necessary" in your choices. They are choices. You could get a job closer to where you live, or you could live closer to work and perhaps not have a big house and big yard.

Hey Anonymous, the Earth is already too hot for your flaming other people. Great work at bashing people who want to do something about the environment by putting them down for not doing "enough".

If I did not bike to work nearly everyday, I would drive this car in a heart beat if the claims were correct.

Yet, this car would flop in the US even in California. It is EXTREMELY small, acceleration is very poor, and its dangerous at 1323 lb.

This car even would get smushed by a Honda Insight.

@Anonymous, who said "There is nothing rude in pointing out the difference between necessity and choice."

There isn't really is there? Except, in this case, I'll make an exception with you due to your lack of apparent appreciation as to what choice really is. Can't quite remember? Let me refresh your memory by utilising a quote from a very well known recent film:

"choice is an illusion created between those with power, and those without"

Go away and think about this quote for a while and just maybe the world around you will start to make a bit more sense. If it doesn't, I have blatantly wasted my time posting here.

"choice is an illusion created between those with power, and those without" Go away and think about this quote for a while and just maybe the world around you will start to make a bit more sense. If it doesn't, I have blatantly wasted my time posting here.

Oh no, you haven't wasted your time. It's very valuable to get your learning from fictional films as opposed to leaning language properly in an educationl setting.

Cars are never necessities.

Hey Anonymous, the Earth is already too hot for your flaming other people. Great work at bashing people who want to do something about the environment by putting them down for not doing "enough".

Where did I "put them down"? I simply pointed out what "necessity" means. Are you yet another person who can't distinguish between free will and determinism? There sure are a lot of you here today.

All the ranting in the world won't change the meaning of words.

@Anonymous - I hate to say it, but whether you were right or wrong, your point was lost as soon as you posted your first comment. You came off rather smug, and quite rude as well. I can understand your point, but try that practically in other cities, other than where you live. I live in Orlando, FL. Moved here several years ago to attend college. I was able to bike to school, because most of the apartments in the area I'm in are very close to the schools. However, I now work at a Disney. I have student loans to take care of, and I'm not making all that much money. There is no (let me repeat that, because if there were, I wouldn't be driving nearly as far as I do) no apartments or housing closer than where I'm at now that I can afford. I'm not a picky person, and while I know you'll probably reply to this with something along the lines of "no, theres no housing that suits you near there", let me assure you, any housing that avoids me having to drive in Orlando would be suitable (those who have driven here know what I'm talking about).

ok anon since you don't seem to be willing to budge based on logical arguments I'm just gonna say you're a douche and be done with it

Geesh... how bout 'nice car'

Really people, if anyone who has commented here has a right to be indignant it would be Anonymous. Almost every post in reply to his has some kind of personal attack in it, even fewer have rebuttals in them.
A 3000 sq. ft. home with a large front lawn that’s forty miles from work is a choice. Filling said home with possessions is a choice. Your “environment“doesn’t sign the payment check for said home and possessions. You choose to do these things, no matter how you try to externalize them.

@Anonymous - I hate to say it, but whether you were right or wrong, your point was lost as soon as you posted your first comment. You came off rather smug, and quite rude as well. I can understand your point, but try that practically in other cities, other than where you live

This observation is clearly not limited to where I specifically live. Anyone who thinks they can't afford to live near work, let alone closer than 37 miles from work, is actually saying they can't afford the kind of housing they imagine they should have (which includes house and yard size, the "safety" of the town or place, the school district, access to quiet and clean air, and on and on).

This doesn't even address the fact that one's job, one's relationships, their jobs, and so on, are also choices.

Nothing wrong with having priorities and making choices. What's wrong is when people abdicate responsibility for their choices by labeling them as necessities.

This notion that I came off "smug" is purely subjective and something that people are saying from a defensive position, and has only been exacerbated by the increasingly nasty tone of the remarks.

There is no such thing as needing to drive 37 miles each way, every day, in order to live. It's just not so.

OK STFU about your 'personal choices'. This is supposed to be about the car in the article!

I'd be all for a small diesel or electric car, but...

1. Designers have to give us real doors, not top-opening bubbles. Agree with other poster about getting in, in the rain.
2. Looks like any little bump on the fender is going to send this baby in for expensive repairs. How about some old-fashioned (but decent looking) bumpers?
3. Do little light electric cars like this even drive in the snow? Here in the US NE (or midwest or NW) where we get snow, can this move? Get over snow piles of miniscule size? Lots of these super high MPG cars seem like they take no weather or adverse effects into account. We need some suspension travel and option for just slightly bigger snow tires or chains etc.
4. It has to have a little bit of space/utility. I don't want to have to own an SUV or pickup for hauling my groceries home. Do little cars like this have trunks? This one seems so small I'd think not.

Whether you live close to work, work close to home, or choose, or are forced, or believe you are forced, to live further away, this car is an improvement over, say, the Hummer H2.

I hope they are successful bringing it to market.

Wow! Polarity is very alive here! What's interesting is that in the US, fuel is so cheap, that living 50 miles from the office isn't costly enough to warrant comparing living in a smaller home, closer to work (or simply living close to public transportation). It's an accepted norm here. Everyone on this thread is trying to address the issue through what's ecologically right. Haven't we learned that this mentality doesn't work en mass? People will opt for larger homes and larger yards if it's perceived to be financially less expensive.

We need to change the equation. The root issue is that we drive too many road miles per day. What's the root cause of this issue? Cheap fuel and plentiful roads (which, by the way, cost tax $). How can we address the root causes? Develop a long-term methodical approach to making driving more expensive. Increase fuel taxes by 10-20 cents per year, maybe convert some free roads to pay roads. By doing this in a slow, controlled manner, it will minimize the impact on the suburban lifestyle/real estate as people would see things slowly changing.

The additional fuel tax revenues could be used to expand rail/public transportation and maybe even for alternative energy (possibly solar and wind along the public transit routes).

This sort of plan should address the issues: increasing public transit to make it a more viable alternative in more areas, steadily make driving more expensive to encourage living closer to public transit and/or work and to decease road miles travelled each day, hopefully decreasing demand for building more roads.

At that point, we still aren't telling people what lifestyle they should live (which I feel is wrong to do), but we are more accurately portraying the overall costs of the decision to live further from the office. Then, it's a personal decision. If someone has a ton of money and wants to live in the country and own a couple acres - more power to them. At least they are now paying what I would consider an appropriate price for their choice.

Brian

Brian nails it -- if we bring the cost of the externalities of suburban sprawl into the equation and start charging people an appropriate price for their choices, the market will respond. Of course this presumes that geology (Peak Oil) doesn't make these choices for us.

Furthermore, other mechanisms can be introduced on the supply side of the equation -- funding new residential/commercial infill in decrepit downtowns, for instance; or backing low-cost loans for first-time homebuyers; and mandating that some percentage of a new project be earmarked as 'affordable housing', to encourage a mixed-income neighborhood of renters and owners alike. The City of Montreal has pursued all these avenues with a good degree of success.

For instance, the neighborhood where I live was once written off as the semi-industrial remains of an old Irish slum, but in the past 5 years there's been a nonstop residential influx, with new condos and student residences, shops and restaurants revitalizing the place -- over 1500 new residents, by my calculation. And it's maintained an efficient compactness.

The comment about 'white flight' might be better rephrased as 'suburban flight.' It becomes a vicious cycle - people moved away from downtowns into suburbs where they paid lower taxe and, rightly or wrongly, felt safer (while benefitting from the central city's infrastructure, employment, etc.). Cities with good planning spend a lot of making downtowns safe (Montreal is very safe, relatively speaking) and this is what is attracting people back from the burbs.

Ideally yes, we'd all wake up and realize the unsustainable nature of a car-based society. I for one wish that Treehugger would kind of have a 1-month moratorium on any car-related posts as I think it lends legitimacy to a lifestyle that most of us will see disappear shockingly quickly - within our lifetimes - which throws into question many people's entire living arrangements. I'd prefer to see a focus on rapid transit, public transit, subways, bikeways, and compact urban design. Not to mention something the original poster didn't mention as a possibility -- telecommuting.

I WOULDN'T MIND STEPPING OVER TO GET INTO A CAR. SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO GET DOWN INTO SO MANY OF THE LOW CARS AS THEY ARE. LOTS OF TRUCKS ARE BIG ENOUGH TO HAVE TO PULL YOURSELF INTO IT. I LOVE THIS IDEA. AND FOR THE RAIN IDEA MAYBE YOU CAN CLIMB IN THE BACK AND OVER THE SEAT TO KEEP THE WATER OUT.

AJ Kandy -

Thanks for agreeing. I am a believer in the market. I live in Dallas, TX, and talk to many people that live in the suburbs. They almost all do it because the housing in cheap. They do complain about the drive. In fact, the lease on our office came up and we relocated 16 miles North toward the burbs where a large % of employees live because they all complain about the drive (kindof annoys me that people make choices, then complain and pressure other people to change for their benefit, but that's a different discussion completely). Luckily for me, I am smack dab in the middle - I'll drive 8 miles North instead of 8 miles South when I'm not telecommuting (like I am today).

If fuel were $5/gallon and electricity were $0.20 per KwH, people would chose smaller houses and live closer to their offices. We would be forced to make choices and have a better understanding between what we NEED and what we WANT.

Brian

Just on question for Anonymous and one comment then on to the car, where do you live?

Just to be clear it's not a "white flight" issue with me it's a I work on the south side of Chicago and hardly a day goes by without a news report of shootings plus then my wife would need to drive a long distance to work instead of me and I really like my job so I'm not quitting it. My english teacher would cry on that one.:-)

So the car, Chris covers a lot of good points. The method of entry is just stupid, sure young healthy people would have no problem but even a 20 something woman is going to have trouble in a evening dress. All weather traction is a worry too with such light weigh. I don't see a car as being viable if it's not a 365 day car that will work in the mid-west 'cause then I need another car to do the job that this one can't. Although I'm not a fan of the Prius' looks it is a 24/7 365 day car. So will a E-Flex/Volt and many other hybrids. I have lived in Chicago since 1999 and I've yet to see snow that kept me from driving and any car I buy must be able to handle it.

I have to agree with the first anonymous poster.

The people attacking him/her are exhibiting lots and lots of cognitive fallacies.

I think it is rather funny they are getting so defensive about it. Some people just don't 'get it'.

Just to be clear it's not a "white flight" issue with me it's a I work on the south side of Chicago and hardly a day goes by without a news report of shootings plus then my wife would need to drive a long distance to work instead of me and I really like my job so I'm not quitting it. My english teacher would cry on that one.:-)

Right, you've just described your preferences, which are choices, not determinism.

@Another Anonymous

Some people just don't 'get it'.

How correct you are!

@Anonymous

Right, you've just described your preferences, which are choices, not determinism.

*sigh* Let's start again shall we? It's really very simple but you just don't seem to be 'getting it'.

I can indeed acknowledge your initial point in your very first post. But you really do not appreciate, realistically, the difference between necessity and choice, and how these quantify with the world today, where human nature is concerned.

I stand by the original quote above. Choice is an illusion, created between those with power and those without. In this world, money tends to be directly related to power. Although this is one such example, it's the most common and obvious one to highlight. Funnily enough, Al Gore, in the film, An Inconvenient Truth, makes the link that I came to realise some years ago - which is more important? Our planet, or money? I would say our planet, because money can't even exist if there is no space rock for us to survive on.

You can only ever make choices from a finite set of options that become available to you. And of course, one such possible choice is not to take any of these options. People, for what ever reason, have more options available to them than others. This is most noticeable when you compare the rich, and the poor, as money tends to be the governing factor in this case, as it is directly related to power. If you have an endless supply of money, you can choose to have a flash car, a mansion and even maybe... buy yourself a trip to the NASA space station - all of which are definitely choices, and not necessities.

But, very few of us are in this position. We are governed by the limited options available to us, and our current circumstances. So we choose (yes, we make a choice) options which will help us progress in life, to be in a better position than where we were yesterday. And that's the way things are. Unless you are extremely retarded, you do tend to try and pick options which will allow you to live a fulfilling life, and let you progress. That is, options that allow you to move up each run of the ladder, rather than falling off it completely, back to square one. Which, one might argue, is not a choice, but a necessity of life, otherwise, there's very little incentive to be here. In other words, choices become necessity.

Right now, I live in London as it is helping me further my career opportunities. But you are going to sit there and undoubtedly say "that's my choice to have moved to London and now live there". Well, indeed, but it was a necessary choice, for me. This is no different from someone who has made the choice NOT to relocate their life (where they live, and their job) to lower his or her carbon footprint. Would you be prepared to do this if you have, say, friends and family and solid foundational social and business relationships where you are based? You would give all that up, to move, re-locate, and effectively be back at square one? If you are prepared to do this, you're more stupid than I ever thought possible. Yes, this is human nature being selfish at its best - we always put ourselves first over the planet, but this comes as no surprise to me and nature tends to have a way of balancing such inbalances out over time. And our time will come, that I am