Very Light, Gas-Powered Car Gets 100mpg

The X-Prize competition for fuel-efficient cars is, as you might expect, dominated by hybrids and electric cars. So the Edison2 Very Light Car stands out. It’s a four-door sedan—the last such car remaining in the competition—and it runs on good old-fashioned gasoline, NPR reports. Developed by a retired racecar driver, the car weighs just over 700 pounds, making it so light that it should be able to hit the prize’s 100mpg-or-better target.

“With racing, it’s all about pushing performance to the absolute,” says one of the racing veterans working on the car. “With the other automakers, they've become so stuck because the cars that they're producing next year rely on parts that were used this year.” And yes, he says, the car should be safe to cruise the highway with, because it incorporates the same features that allow so many race car drivers to walk away from crashes. (More Automotive X Prize stories.)