Last we left the Dream Car 123, the pyramid-shaped electric automobile that always gets picked last in kickball games, it was (in the words of Addy) “pootling” along the snowy streets of Illinois at about 45 mph, with a 80-mile range. This day we have the ability to report that, while the thing still looks like all sorts of ridiculousness, it’s upped the range considerably, has bullet proof glass protecting the driver’s compartment—and cut costs to boot!

The old specs and pricing for the ironically named Dream Car were about $60,000 in supplies, and that not-so-good 80-mile range mentioned above. Today, the numbers have increased remarkably, with the Dream Car now costing about $8,000 in materials and a mass production model checking in somewhere between $16,000 and $24,000 (depending on government substitute fuel incentives). A single 3.5 hour charge give the automobile a 240 mile-range for about $5 in electricity costs.

Here’s the vehicle in action, looking like something out of Mos Eisley:

And here’s the Christmas Tree-shaped vehicle lit up like a Christmas Tree and looking like a low flying UFO:

[TreeHugger]

Via [Gizmodo]

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under General Tech News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.