Want 60 MPG And 600 Horsepower? Get a Hummer

Now this is just plain crazy...

Fast Company has a new article called Motorhead Messiah, all about some genius inventor who is making the Hummer one of the greenest cars available.

For $28k, he'll convert your standard H2 Hummer to biodiesel, and tweak the engine so its gets more power and better fuel efficiency. Detroit said such beasts were impossible to make, but Johnathan Goodwin did it... even more amazingly, 90% of the parts he uses are made by GM. That's right... Detroit has all the technology they need to make a hyper efficient Hummer... all they lack is imagination and will.

His latest toy is a hybrid Hummer: supercapacitors for energy storage, and a jet engine that runs on biodiesel.

And when it's time to fill the tank, he'll be able to just pull up to the back of a diner and dump in its excess french-fry grease--as he does with his many other Hummers. Oh, yeah, he adds, the horsepower will double--from 300 to 600.

"Conservatively," Goodwin muses, scratching his chin, "it'll get 60 miles to the gallon. With 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. You'll be able to smoke the tires. And it's going to be superefficient."

He laughs. "Think about it: a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!"

woah...

I'll bet that will cost you a squidge more than $28k...

He believes (like I do) that diesel and biodiesel are important baby steps towards better fuel economy. Hybrids are OK, but hyper efficient diesel engines will have greater market penetration. They can be used in more industries than just human transport -- trucking, construction, shipping, generators -- and they are (relatively) safe, clean, simple to build and maintain. Making better diesel engines helps the overall oil problem in more ways than hybrids...

Hopefully people will listen more more closely now that the "Motorhead Messiah" agrees...