>>I wonder what this car looks like under the hood with no engine or tranny?<<

Full of batteries :)

This car has all it's batteries under the floor, so that leaves the engine compartment free for just the inverter.

"When you open the hood, you get a great big fake gasoline engine made out of plastic so as not to scare potential consumers."

Good one, LMHO :-)

A range of 250km! Thats exactly what I'm looking for. Hopefully the in-wheel-motor can stand the test phase.
German and US automakers are still in deep sleep mode and waisting time in developing 120 year old granny oilburn technology...they might wake up too late. however, the market will clarify.

Way back in the ice ages when I was a child most cars had heavy unsprung solid rear axles. Even the cheap cars handled bumps better than most cars today.

So how does this Car do when the street is flooded,with 335 V DC Batts under the Floor Boards,Motors at the Wheels,I'd be scared to be in the car for Fear of beeing electrocuted or simply stranded.

Most people utilize the 250-350 mile range on their gas engines so that they only have to make a fill-up once per week or so. With this vehicle, you will only have to visit a fueling station a few times per year to do a quick charge on a long-haul trip. What I find exciting about this car is the fact that most people, who drive 20-30 miles/day, will be recharging their batteries from only a 10-15% depth of discharge, which will extend the battery life. But the 155 mile range still gives the option of going farther.

This could be a satisfying approach if coupled with plug-in hybrid technology.

As the autonomy of Plug-ins or PHEVs is progressively extended above 100 miles and as much as 200+ miles with higher performance batteries, more efficient drive system, much lighter vehicles, superior aerodynamics etc., the on-board, rather large and expensive, ICE driven generator could be replaced with a very low cost, very light weight (less than 100 lbs.) very small aluminum 7 to 8 KVA unit. This small ICE/generator could effectively increase the PHEV autonomy for the occassional full day long drive of 500 to 600 miles with 4 to 5 gallons of fuel for most compact and mid-size cars.

Considering that the average North-American couple is about 100 lbs over-weight, the additional weight of the small on-board ICE/generator could easily be offset by appropriate eating habits and diet.

Large Hummer, large 4 x 4 and large pick-ups trucks fans would have to install more batteries and larger ICE generators to get equivalent range and/or install large on-board solar panels to partly compensate for their taste for the big and heavy.

A new progressive $2 to $5/gallon pollution tax (on top of the coming $100/barrel for oil) would help to convince the diehards to replace their gazoline guzzlers with more efficient plug-in hybrids. The equivalent treatment for smokers help to reduce their number by almost half over the last 10 years. The pure money approach is simple, easy to apply and works most every time.

The money (new high fuel taxes) approach could also quickly convince the motorbikes, VTTs and boat owners to go with plug-in hybrids and make a lot of bystanders very happy.

The switch to plug-in hybrids would progressively increase the national electricity consumption. Part of the pollution tax should be used to offset the extra cost for the installation of new clean electric generating plants (wind-solar-nuclear) to increase the national (USA) electricity production by 50% over the next 10 years and by 100% over 20 years.

Part of the new pollution tax should be used to offset the extra cost for plug-in hybrids, especially during the first 10 to 15 initial years.

Those are win-win solutions for the next 20 years that would create jobs, develop new industries, reduce petroleum consumption, eliminate oil imports, reduce air pollution, reduce noise pollution, negate the requirements for new polluting oil refineries, reduce global warming, reduce severe hurricanes and weather extremes etc.

The $15 billions recently identified to implement the national energy policy is a drop in the bucket and is by no means sufficient to change the American's ways. The transformation from petroleum to mostly electricity for private and commercial transportation will cost at least 100 times that much over the next 20 years.

Investing $1500 billions in our future well-being is a much better idea than to spend about the same amount to finance 'OIL' wars to get ours hands on somebody else dirty polluting petroleum.

Let's go America. Let's do the right things before it is too late.

I wonder of the MIEV will be compatable with household electic. . . . plugging it in when I get home will be easy enough and well worth 40.00 savings in gas.

On another note. . . how about the pothole situation. Would the MIEV motors be damaged in rough terrain?

$ 18,000.00 sounds too good to be true.

it's very important us in the future any one of us have a economic a real Electric,ev car,I wait for it too Long times,Thanks.

I love this idea, I would prefer the GM EV1 Gen II but since GM is not giving us a EV choice I will be happy to buy a full Electric vehicle from anywhere I can get it. I prefer true EV's over any hybrid. If I'm going to pay for an expensive battery, I never want to visit a gas station.

Add a quiet diesel generator running on bio diesel @ 7500 watts of power and you should be able to cross Canada on about 100L of diesel with no net cost to the environment.