What gives? Err... I'd guess it's car companies' long standing personal and friendly relationship with gas companies mahn. Henry Ford made his first car to run on hemp alcohol made out of hemp plastic panels. Now cannabis is illegal. What gives? Oil's cheaper, that's what gives and by wiping out the nearest US growing competitor (yeah brazilian sugarcane or palm oil work better, but they don't exactly do well in washington or north dakota or even for that matter cali, do they?) they made its lead even greater. They switched it out w/ hemp as the cornerstone of our textiles and fuel industries. Neat trick, huh?

BTW, I'm not a big fan of the goracle like you guys. I kinda thought it was pathetic when Gore called his mentor, the guy who told him all about global warming at harvard and who came up w/ the whole "human involvement" thing in the first place, senile. Why? B/C the guy got guilty feeling in his old age and said there still wasn't really any evidence that CO2 was a greenhouse gas at all, much less fueling a human led global warming. Apparently 100mil wasn't enough cash for gore lol, he wants to keep the gravy train rolling.

the insight was cancelled because it sold poorly. they are coming out with a refresh of the insight in 2010.http://www.leftlanenews.com/honda-insight.html

What gives?

the answer to that is government rules and regulation. There are so many rules set by the government for safety, environmental etc. that the car companies are handicaped fromt he start.

true creativity and inovation will not come until the government stops deciding what they think is important.

I drove an Insight from 2004 to 2006. It was great, although MPG was more like 40 in Chicago. I believe Honda pulled the car when NPR's Car Talk dissed the Insight as "totally unsafe".

lol has a scant brain case with a few marijuana seeds to make silly rattling noises. From what I gather, he also believes the auto/oil companies bought up the rights to the 200 mpg carburetor also. Amazing the urbanity and gullibility of the slightly informed and truly bored.

cars aren't as aerodynamic as that one, because they try to be safer in order to avoid fatalities.

The front tends to be rounded off as to minimize damage to a person in case the car runs over someone. If you use this aerodynamic design, it will simply cut off the legs of anyone it runs over.

That's what I call safety.

Really? I call "safety" not running over people to begin with.

personally I believe we're doing too much to prevent Darwinism from taking place. I'd take off a couple sets of legs if it meant better fuel efficiency. Maybe people shouldn't run out in front of cars, or here's a novel concept, have people take responsibility for their own actions so when they do get cut off at the knee all they have to blame is themselves.

As for the 200MPG carburetor, I'll believe it when I see the specs and what makes it so special to do that.

Are big oil companies manipulative? yes. Are major auto makers in bed with them? I would say that at least a good portion of their decisions are "helped" by large funding from the oil companies. but honestly who's to turn down a big pile of money? which is why the rest of us are left with crappy cars that cost way too much and break down every month. it's the nature of this market, if you think you can change it, you're delusional

I seriously doubt the car pictured gets 95 mpg simply because someone sharpened the front bumper and covered the wheel-wells. A 5-10 mpg increase perhaps, but not as much as they claim.
Lay off LOL, people. We should be proud he motivated himself enough to put down the "special brownies", get off the couch, and spend 5 minutes typing. Next, maybe we can get him a part-time job at McDonalds so he can move out of his parent's basement.

Funny, no one touched the CoD error. CoD for this monstrosity would be (claimed) .17, NOT 1.7 (which I think would be like a brick stood up in a wind tunnel)... Hahahaha!

The civic may just have managed its fuel economy as claimed. First of all the guy is an experienced hypermiler (people trained in getting the best fuel economy) and second most of the increase in fuel economy would be due to the full camback mod on the rear of the hatchback. This washes the wind resistance off of it.

Another point is that he has claimed to have hit deer and the deer and car are virtually undamaged. If what he says is true, that would ruin any hopes for super morons to get their legs chopped off. I know, I'm disappointed myself.

Try driving that in snow country and you will get the wheel well caked up in no time. See how much MPG you get out of it then...

From the looks of it, the turning radius is going to be big too as the front wheel are covered.

lol is correct hemp oil was the mainstay until made illegal it was our biggest moneymaker and then it was crushed by the goverment and big oil they worked together to crush that indusrty so before you talk crap or belittle someone else take the time to read it may improve your life or give you some small clue to what really goes on around you

That car is amazing! It takes some big cajones to be able to drive that car around, mang.

But really, if he had spend a bit more time and maybe used expanding foam and sanded it down... it could've looked half-decent!

I like it.