Step aside,
Tesla -- we've just spotted the hottest Earth-lovin' supercar since the
Lightning GT. Shown off to wide-mouthed onlookers at the LA Auto Show this month, the Capstone CMT-380 prototype is an automotive beast unlike anything we've ever seen. Rather than mixing batteries and a conventional engine, this whip combines the former with a diesel / biodiesel-powered microturbine, which is -- for all intents and purposes -- a jet engine. Reportedly, the car can reach 60MPH from a standstill in just 3.9 seconds, hit 150MPH before being cut off by the electronic limiter, cruise 80 miles on battery power alone and drive from Idaho Falls to Spokane on just a single tank of fuel. It's being bruited about that the company is considering flipping this bad boy into the production line, but with an estimated asking price north of $200,000, there's sufficient evidence to think that the volume here would remain relatively low. Hit up
Autoblog Green's gallery of shots from the show floor below, but only if you love peering at high-resolution images of stealthy, sexy things.
posted December 7th 2009 12:02PM
@Bashere I'm attempting to inspire travel lust. Is it working?
Maybe GM and Ford can borrow some exterior design ideas for a economical (sub $20k) electric car that looks good.
I would like a convertible model however.
@rcappo
I agree. Why does every affordable electric car have to look like the lovechild of a Prius and a Beetle? The original Volt concept would have been amazing and probably would have been a contributing factor to GM's revival without government assistance, but they screwed that up when they made it look like every other midsize Chevy.
hrmm, An Audi R8 is cheaper, faster, looks and sounds better and isn't filled with toxic battery acid. But, the R8 doesn't scream "greenie weenie inside", so that's 1 point for the CMT.
@(Unverified) Lithium-polymer is 'toxic acid' now? (Hint: No.)
@barry99705 The Apache is not "jet powered", it has a turbine. Nearly all produced jet engines have a turbine, and most jet engine designs use a turbine. A ramjet or scramjet are examples of jets that don't have turbines. Turbines can transmit power through jet exhaust or a shaft or a combination.
Engadget could have avoided all these comments by saying that it was the same type of engine as an Apache helicopter, and many people would have assumed "jet". Same result.
I see the engadget comment system is just as reliable as ever.
gotta get me one of these bad boys.
While the black matte paint job is cool, imagine parking this out in the sun. The rest of the car is butt-ugly.
That is a factory five GTM Kit Car
I have been asking for a little while now, if a micro-turbine would be a better generator than a conventional piston engine for a hybrid.
My thinking was that the rules change when you don't need to generate high torque, nor need to be able to operate over a wide rev range. These were the factors that meant that turbines were abandoned for gas-powered cars (after several attempts to develop them).
I hasten to add that I clearly wasn't first to think of this, as these people have obviously been working on it for a while, and I only started asking these questions a year or so ago. It's just nice to know that there were people asking the same question and deciding that it did make sense.
I've always wondered why car manufacturers never had a frosted option for a paint job. I've always thought this looked a hell of a lot slicker then shiny black.
How does the microturbine work as a range extender?
For all intents and purposes, it's not a jet engine. It's a gas turbine. A jet engine is a gas turbine that uses the exhaust thrust for propulsion. This doesn't do that. Are gas turbines not interesting enough to use the correct terms?