So this sounds great... and I love the idea, but its the weight that worries me. I drove a geo metro for a long time, which is a car that weights around 900 pounds, and it is light, really light. You feel how light it is every time the wind blows, or every time a larger car comes flying by you, and I imagine that if you ever got hit by say, a range rover, you probably wouldn't live to tell the tale.

I'd buy one happily but I'd want to see security ratings first.

They are simply going to have to designate special lanes for lightweight vehicles like this and the Smart car. Accordingly, they should start classifying SUVs and light trucks as "trucks," which require special licenses, special lanes and higher tolls. This should really bring down the demand for those monstrosities.

mc, you're off by a factor of two- the 1995 Geo Metro weighed 1950lbs.

The target weight of 926lbs for this thing is pure fantasy. An Indycar, which is all carbon fiber, tiny, seats one, and has no sound deadening, interior trim, minimal systems, etc., weighs 1500lbs. An F1 car, which is even smaller, weighs about 1200lbs (although a couple hundred of that is ballast required to meet the minimum weight). It costs tens of millions of dollars to build a single seater that light. Building a four seater that's a couple hundred pounds lighter still, meets crash and NVH standards, and would sell for normal money is not possible with current technology.

I've owned several cars that handled poorly in high winds, some were light and some were not. I think it was more a matter of poor engineering of suspensions than wind.

I'm very enthusiastic about this car. Carbon fiber structural components are many times stronger than steel while remaining lightweight. I have a lot of faith in Toyota's engineering. I think it will be a very safe car before it goes on sale, they can't afford a blemish on their reputation.

Light-weighting of automobiles is the next obvious step to greater fuel economy. We must stop using 1908 technology to produce 2008 autos!

A high school teacher of mine once pointed out that is cars were made from dynamite, people would drive alot more carefully. The reason cars need to be safer and safer is because there is always some elohssa out there driving way to dangerously in a tank. I'd happily exchange some crash safety for a lightweight plug in hybrid because I drive sensibly and defensively. I agreee that SUV's and stupidly heavy and wasteful cars should be treated much differently to sensibly sized cars.

I'm interested in knowing how they will deal with collision damage. Do they have the car built in several smaller sections that can be easily disassembled and replaced? Carbon fiber isn't like steel where it can be bent back or cut and a new part welded on.

Perhaps the 906lb weight target is before drivetrain? I'll admit, that does seem too low. It should be noted that:

1. F1 and Indy Cars are built to absurd strengths. They have to handle 3G turns, 1.5G acceleration, 5G deceleration, and have to be stout enough to protect the driver from a crash at almost any angle at 100mph+. A lot of the weight (I believe 110-160 lbs) is ballast.
2. A pedestrian vehicle would never have to be that strong and could therefore achieve a low weight easier than you think. Adding seating for three passengers is incremental and probably only 50lb per seat is necessary in weight gain. I'll still concede that the 900lb weight target is looney.
3. Cars that are unstable due to "wind" or "passing cars" are so due to either their suspension or their aerodynamics. Proof would be a Lincoln Town Car compared to a Mini Cooper S. The Lincoln blows all the hell over the place in high wind but the Mini is solid as a rock.

Doors are required by law in many states, although I've seen many jeeps that have the short canvas doors so assume "minimal doors" is still a door.

I like this design better than the current Prius. The more vertical back end will probably increase the cargo space and make parallel parking easier.

A lot of the weight in an auto is the engine/drivetrain.

This thing has a tiny engine, 1/2 liter. That's where a lot of the weight savings is coming from, even with the additional weight of the batteries. Compare it to the Prius, already a light car. The li-on batteries, even with a lot more capacity, probably weigh the same as the Prius' NiMh battery, yet the 1/X engine is 1/3rd the size of the Prius.

For those claiming that light weight is difficult to achieve, look at two real world examples of lighter-is-better street cars:

Loremo: 1300 lbs + 20hp motor == 117mpg
Ariel Atom: 1000 lbs + 300hp == performance better than a Lamborghini and around 35 mpg (if I recall correctly)

The main question is not whether such a light car can be made, or even whether it can resist strong winds and gusts from other cars. The issue is whether such a car can be made to meet our modern expectations for a) cost b) safety and c) performance, and probably in that order. If the car costs $50,000 to produce, nobody will buy it. If it protects its occupants barely better than a motorcycle, nobody will buy it. If it can't reach and maintain highway speeds, few will buy it.

Carbon fiber is great stuff, but hard to mass-produce and very very expensive. There are efforts to develop new manufacturing methods for mass-producing carbon fiber components, but they're not mainstream yet. And d*mn that stuff is expensive, and getting more so all the time it seems. This prototype will never see the light of day as a production vehicle for this reason alone.

A large part of the safety of modern vehicles comes down to two things: controlled deceleration of the vehicle in a collision, and controlled deceleration of the passengers in a collision. That means well designed crumple zones and well designed seatbelts and airbags. Seatbelts are easy, and airbags are tricky but a known technology. But designing crumple zones into a carbon fiber shell? I'm not sure if it's _never_ been done, but probably pretty close. I've also heard that while steel deforms and crumples, carbon fiber tends to splinter into a bunch of passenger piercing nastiness when it fails. Designing a car that is rigid and strong using carbon fiber may be simple, but designing one that will crumple and absorb the impact of a collision may be much more difficult. As an analogy: you can make a spring out of steel, but you can't make one out of carbon fiber. The first will compress, the latter may be 'stronger' but will snap rather than compress.

The Atom is a bit pricey (though a bargain for the type of performance you receive), so will receive a limited market.

The Loremo on the other hand is targeted at a reasonable price (~$20,000), and uses a unique low weight steel chassis that is designed for crumple zones from the start (only computer simulations of collisions at this point, but they're trying). So in theory (pending a full production model) the Loremo meets the a) price and b) safety requirements. Performance with the base 20hp model will be somewhat sluggish, but they do offer a 77 mpg model with a 50hp engine which should help meet target c) performance.

Hopefully the Loremo will be successful enough to teach the big automakers what is possible - they seem to only want to show us what we want in prototype, not-possible-to-realistically-produce, mockups.