I like how ugly and vulnerable the system is. Reminds me of Griff Tannen's BMW from Back to the Future II (http://jalopnik.com/5067674/man-restores-griff-tannens-hover-bmw-from-back-to-the-future-2)

At some point, old Detroit steel like my Fairlane is going to be running on something other than gasoline. By that point, maybe a system like this will fit inside the brake drums.

well, discount or not on a new car... some (like me) own our car... so purchasing a new hybrid would be pointless (givin' a good car already). The add on would be much less expensive and still save. My '03 civic gets nearly 50MPG (on long hauls (cruise)) and 40 regular driving. So, this would/could be a nice addition to the regular city driving.

What the hell is going on I drove a civic hybrid on a road trip and it got 44mpg over 2400 miles
while my uncles 80' something honda crx with 750,000 miles on it still gets 50+mpg cars are going downhill with all the smog crap and worthless electronics bogging down the engine. Get a car with no AC, stereo, power anything,(especially the crap like seat and mirror heaters and stupid GPS) and take all the extra weight out of it if you REALLY want to get good mileage and not just whine about it. And then take that same car and put a tiny little diesel in it and see what happens.

What happens if you get one of these and add it to a civic hybrid, do you go back in time?

This brings up a lot of interesting questions and possible points:

A) The article states that we need 15 horsepower for 70% of normal driving. Wouldn't that mean that 30 horsepower is more than sufficient? Meanwhile we are building cars with 300 horsepower and fuel economy suffers. Let's just build cars with smaller engines instead of huge hybrid systems.

B) Does anybody know what happens when the tires need changing? The system would have to be partially removable and hopefully idiot proof so that people can still rotate their tires without screwing up their new investment.

C)What about 4x4 trucks or all wheel drive vehicles? These types of vehicles need the hybrid system the most but it looks like a truck could go off roading and easily damage the system and all wheel drive car's transmission could be hurt.

PS:

Let's just pretend we drive a vehicle that gets 20 miles to the gallon and we drive for 15000 miles a year. At 2 dollars a gallon, it would cost 1500 dollars a year. THIS IS THE AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY OF MOST VEHICLES AND THE AVERAGE DRIVING DISTANCE OF MOST DRIVERS IN A YEAR.

Now lets install their hybrid system and suppose that it really does give a 70% boost like the article makes it out to sound. That would mean the same vehicle gets 34 mpg and 15000 miles a year would cost 882 dollars in gasoline at 2 dollars a gallon.

At that rate you would need to own the hybrid system for over 8 years before its even worth the money. Since most cars aren't designed to last more than 8 years, I'd make sure this hybrid system is interchangeable.
That would make it totally worth the money, as long as it does give a 70% effiency boost and can be transferred to your new vehicle.

Yeah yeah technical stuff...
I'd paint it yellow so it would look like a parking service boot

Yogurt: Keeping a car moving is a lot cheaper and easier than getting it moving in the first place. People spend 70% of their driving time moving, not launching off the line. This is the seat-of-the-pants high horsepower moment that sells cars. If gasoline engines were 30hp, you'd have amazingly slow and fuel efficient cars like the East German Trabant, BWM Isetta, Messerschmidt or the VW 200+mpg concept. Zero to 60 in about never.

It's folly to assume that gas prices will be a constant of $2pg. Enjoy it while it lasts, done get used to it. Prior to the Iraq invasion, prices were in the $1.20 range. This shows a conservative price hike of 80% at the low end, while the $4.60 price is nearly 400% increase. In either case, the psychological hurdles as well as the real economics of the situation are going to combine to make regenerative hybrid systems a lot more palatable to people.

You also fail to take tax incentives into the TCO.

This system is first gen. It'll be prettier and cheaper by the time it's relevant. I'd put the timeframe for this process at 5 years, unless we hit $5 per gallon in the next year. Then it'll be more like 3 years for this to hit the next major step in its evolution and any noticable market penetration.

If it works out to tie into BetterPlace somehow, you could see this model on the streets of SF and Hawaii sooner than later.

The idea of their being 5 dollar gasoline just can't be helped with you guys can there?

Last I checked gas topped out at 4.40 which is not even able to be rounded up to the 5 dollar mark.

Also the United States congress approved drilling measures for more domestic oil production. This allows for cheaper oil because there is more of and its THE ONLY REASON why the price of gasoline fell.
The United States saying they weren't going to pay high prices to people who hate them caused OPEC to go "Whoa! Hey we need their money, lets raise production and kick out the speculators. 30 dollars a barrel is better than no dollars a barrel."

Oil went up in 2 years and has fallen in 4 months. God Bless America, and those who don't think the same can enjoy your 40000 dollar electric vehicles. If GM survives long enough to produce it.

PS:

Mr Obama will never let us reach five dollar a gallon gasoline because he knows that the magic recipe for us blaming Bush. There's no way Obama wants to be hated like the guy who got him elected.

However, lets just pretend we have the mythical five dollar a gallon gasoline.
If that's the case, People would no longer drive for 15000 miles a year, it would be more like 8000 miles or less. Hell let's take the bus!

At 20 mpg, that would cost 2000 dollars in gasoline at 5 dollars a gallon. Hybrid the car and get 34 mpg - saves 824 dollars.

4550 divided by the savings of 824 dollars = 5 and a half years.

Well way to shoot me down. Woo that price of gasoline really makes a difference. Ps even at 15000 miles a year it still would be over 3 years just to pay for itself... and do you really expect people to get used to 3 years of five dollar gas?

For nerds on a scifi thing, most of us can't stand math can we?