The Lumeneo Smera is the smallest passenger car I have seen to date.  While I like that it is environmentally friendly I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable sharing an environment with a Hummer if I were driving one of these, yet that may not be an issue for long.  While this little guy is still a concept it is planned to go into production in 2009 and should bare a price tag of between 20-30,000 Euros…

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They keep getting better and better!  Here’s another killer eco-friendly sports car.  While this is still a concept, Hybrid Technologies has some pretty bold aspirations aiming to have a working prototype by this September and be on the market by lat 2009, early 2010.  They plan to produce two models of this beauty, an all electric that will have a range of 150-180 miles, and a plug-in hybrid model that they are entering into the Progressive Automotive X-prize competition and will boast a 220 mile per gallon efficiency!  The details on the specs of this Green super-car are scant.  Popular Mechanics interviewed one of the engineers working on the project, Ron Cervan.  When asked if this car would be able to match the Corvette ZR-1’s performance (638 Horses), Cervan laughed and told them they are “way out of the ballpark—it’s gonna be wild.”

Dubbed the Uno, this crazy Segway / crotch rocket hybrid is the result of teen, Ben Gulak’s preternatural engineering skills combined with his desire to help the environment.  This “motorUnicycle” actually has two wheels, side by side, and is reportedly easy to ride.  Pictured above is an actual working prototype that weights about 120 lbs and runs for about 2.5 hours on an electric motor.  The bike really has no controls other than the handle bars and the drivers ability to shift his/her weight.  Similar to the Segway, the Uno uses two Gyros to keep itself upright and to operate.  Simply lean in the direction you want to go… forward to accelerate, backwards to go back, and to either side…

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When I am surfing the Green sites of the interweb (including our own) I see a lot of very thoughtful and inspiring conversation, and I see a lot of misleading generalizations.  One of the most abundant of the ladder is the comment “that car is not Green because when you plug it in it is using fossil fuels and contributing to global warming!” Here’s an example from our post on the Aptera.  The issue of the indirect carbon emissions from plugging a hybrid into the “Grid” is an important one that needs to be scrutinized, however, those snap criticisms are misleading and hardly productive. 

Such a statement implies that because of the fossil fuels being burned to provide the electricity to these cars, there is no net reduction in emissions or the reduction is somehow insignificant.  That is just not the case. 

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