Can this car save the world? Oliver Kuttner's betting on it
The hulking white warehouse looks like any other industrial building in any other industrial town– there's no sign or marking, nothing to hint that a solution to America's oil dependency might lie just a few steps inside, where rough, weatherstained concrete suddenly gives way to a modern 22,000 square foot workshop with gleaming hardwood floors and a variety of high tech machines. Here, tucked away on Kemper Street in Lynchburg, nearly a dozen men– some of the world's top auto mechanics and engineers– are working furiously on an automobile prototype that they believe could avert the country's energy crisis and might even prevent another environmental catastrophe like the BP spill.
Sleek and narrow with a bullet-shaped nose and tail and four wheels set apart from the chassis, the prototype they're building by hand is named the Very Light Car, and appropriately so. At less than 725 pounds, it's about one fourth the weight of a Mini Cooper. If these men achieve what they've set out to do, the Very Light Car will be the first of its kind: a car that gets 100 miles per gallon while meeting all federal and state safety and emission standards, and which can be mass produced and sold for less than $20,000.
SIDEBAR- Local protestors target BP station
The signs drew honks of support and occasional jeers from passing drivers.
4Better Or Worse
Essays
Real Estate
Real Estate - On the Block
Movie Reviews
On Architecture
Eco-apts: Ground broken on city's first 'green' apartment building
Developers Jim and Cynthia Stultz get mean in their efforts to go green, taking the first whacks at the old apartment building they o
The Brazen Careerist
Letters
Full Stories List for June 17th, 2010 issue #0924
DRHOOK- Socket wrench: Contacts great, but can cause trouble
STRANGEBUTTRUE- Placid rein: Your ancestor's tomb may tell tales
THE SPORTS DOCTOR- Bench press: Celts' back-up boys make the difference
4Better Or Worse
News
House-scalping: Teen sentenced in notorious, puzzling incident
Buzz: Rock, rattle, roll: Latest from 6 Day Bender frontman a sure thing
On Architecture
Cover Stories
Cartoons
Essays
Letters
Movie Reviews
Real Estate
Real Estate - On the Block
