6 Sexy Sports Cars Big Oil Doesn’t Want You to Buy
These are our favorite “green” sports cars. Some get awesome gas mileage while smoking the competition, and others use advanced bio-fuels to eek out ever higher performance over their gas-guzzling brethren. Big Oil doesn’t like any of them, because they all mean one thing: if you buy them, Big Oil makes less money.
#1 Greenest Sports Car: Tesla Roadster
Built from the same chassis as the Lotus Exige 265E is a next green sports car, the Tesla Roadster. Tesla has taken the most radical approach to being green; they removed the internal combustion engine and substituted a small 70-pound electric motor. Powered by a 3-phase, 4-pole electric motor producing 248 horsepower, which is good for 0-60 mph in 4 seconds. Despite the 70-pound motor, the battery adds enough weight to bring the total weight up to 2690, which is 600 pounds more than the Exige and Elise. The one thing you don’t hear from the bio-fueled cars is gas mileage. The Tesla can proudly say it gets 135 miles per gallon equivalent.
Download Tesla Roadster desktops in the FastWallpapers.com Tesla gallery
#2 Greenest Sports Car: Toyota FT HS
The Toyota FT-HS finishes out the line up of environmentally friendly sports cars. The FT HS is the only prototype in the line up because it will be the first hybrid sports car. The FT HS promises to be a real performer with help from an electric motor and a 3.5-liter V6 engine. The combination electric motor and V6 are said to produce around 400 bhp and accelerate to 60 mph in under 4 seconds all while producing ultra low emissions.
See more pics of this sweet concept car by Toyota here.
#3 Greenest Sports Car: Lotus Exige 265E
Another offering from the British is the Lotus Exige 265E. The thing that sets this Exige apart from any other Lotus is its ability to run E85 ethanol and 95-octane unleaded fuel. Thanks to the 109-octane rating of ethanol, the boosted 1.8-liter Toyota 4-cylinder inline engine makes 46 more horsepower than its non-ethanol counter part, the Exige S. Its low weight of only 2061 pounds does not hurt either. The 0-60 mph acceleration drops from 4.1 to 3.8 seconds. Lotus has accomplished building the fastest car ever to leave their stables and the first Lotus to promote the use of renewable energy sources at the same time.
Click here to see more desktop background pictures of the Lotus Exige 265E.
#4 Greenest Sports Car: Trident Iceni
A small British company called Trident has produced a two-seater sports car called the Iceni. The Trident Iceni is the only Diesel fueled car that made it into the line up. Powered by none other than a GM sourced 6.6-liter V8 turbo diesel engine. The V8 produces 520 lb/ft torque at only 1800 rpm. That is enough power to propel the Iceni to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and a top speed over 200 mph. Most impressively, the Iceni can do all this with 60 mpg and 1,000 miles on one tank and it runs on pure vegetable oil. The Iceni is also the only car in the line up that will unfortunately never make it stateside.
Go to the Trident Iceni desktop gallery here.
#5 Greenest Sports Car: Porsche Cayman
Porsche has proved that sport cars can be just as fuel efficient as the common car, if not more so with the Cayman. The Cayman is Porsche’s greenest car ever with a 2.7-liter, 241 horsepower, and boxer-engine. The Cayman starts at $49,400, which is cheap for a Porsche. For under $50,000, you cannot have both the speed and style if you want a Porsche. Performance is good with Porsche’s 0-62-mph claim of 6.1 seconds. The Cayman’s fuel economy is a respectable 23 city/32 highway compared to the more powerful Cayman S’s 20/27 mpg. It’s no Toyota Prius, but it gets the job done, and in style.
See more desktop pictures of the Porsche Cayman here.
#6 Greenest Sports Car: Koenigsegg CCXR
Like Lotus, Koenigsegg has found the use of bio-fuels like E85 ethanol can add substantial performance to their already powerful engine. The CCXR bio-ethanol version of their CCX sports car is the fastest, most powerful sports car that can call itself environmentally minded. With 1,018 bhp, the CCXR will hit 60mph in 3.0 seconds. Its top speed is over 250 mph. This is a car that uses Green technology to increase performance.
See more sweet desktop pictures of the Koenigsegg CCXR here.
Summary
The Tesla Roadster highlights technology that all sports car manufactures should take a look at. The Toyota FT-HS sounds great but it could be so much better and greener if they made it fully electric and dumped the V6. The battery technology is good enough that the internal combustion engine is a waste. The only reason to put in an engine into any battery-powered car is for charging the limited range batteries. Making them capable of greater distances due to the fact that charging still takes at least 3 hours compared to 5 minutes to fuel up. Currently the Tesla has a 250-mile cruising range on a single charge. The Tesla’s charging time is better then most, from dead to fully charged in 3.5 hours.
If you have any suggestions of sexy sports cars that should be on this list, please leave a comment.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:34 am
[...] the article and check out the desktops: Fast Wallpapers Blog – Blog Archive – 6 Sexy Sports Cars Big Oil Doesn’t Want You to Buy Technorati Tags: Cool Hunting Media pictures Projects You can leave a response, or trackback from [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Bruce,
Great article. I’m sure that there has to be a more fuel-efficient sports car than that Koenisegg though right? That would be an awesome car to drive though.
August 7th, 2007 at 6:56 am
While it isn’t yet a production vehicle, wrightspeed have produced a proof-of-concept micro-sports car based on the ariel atom chassis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightspeed_X1
This thing takes apart carrera GTs and 360 Spiders even when you give the petrol cars the advantage of a rolling start. Follow the video links at the end of the wikipedia article and be prepared to pick your jaw off the floor.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Now that is what I’m talking about. Lotus for President.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
I was surprised that the Loremo did not make the list (www.loremo.com) being that it is incredibly sleek/sexy and also gets 80+ mpg on standard diesel or veggie oil.
August 8th, 2007 at 7:49 am
[...] their recent article “6 Sexy Sports Cars Big Oil Doesn’t Want You To Buy“, Fast Wallpapers Blog rated the Tesla roadster #1, calling it the “greenest sports [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Speed, sexy, sporty….blah blah blah. Lets talk about the elephant in the room shall we? You want to reduce the impact on the environment of gasoline powered cars? then you need the following in THIS order:
1) a car that carried FOUR people not two.
-WHY? Because that is what most people drive. Families need more than a two passenger car. Business people need to be able to handle accommodate four people (look at rental car companies, they cater to business because that’s the majority of renters and business people are always taking 1 to 3 other’s somewhere).
2) a car that can go at least 400 miles before a recharge/refuel at roughly the same (or lower) cost as the standard gasoline powered four passenger car.
-WHY? because that’s what is standard today and noone wants to screw around with extra time and work. You aren’t going to convince the average person to convert to something less – just not going to happen so keep your “people need to change their behavior” nonsense to yourself.
3) performance equal (or better) to that of standard gasoline engines
-WHY? Because people want what they have or better and simply won’t settle for less. These cars are better but with the caveats of #’s 1 & 2 above, will have ZERO impact on car buying habits or on the environment.
Successful technological advancement – as in those that actually get adopted – are those that meet clear, practical needs above all else. These cars don’t so its just mental masturbation.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
The problem about your list is that it’s all about producing lots of horsepower by any means. Green driving is not about listing what sorts of fuel an engine can take. Green driving is about having a fuel consumption as low as possible.
Porsche recently claimed that their engines are the most efficient, producing lots of horsepower per CO_2 emission. Their claim is BS obviously. Listing Porsche’s Cayman here is not much better.
August 8th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
The Chevy Corvette gets 28 MPG on the highway…
August 9th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Why do we keep using auxiliary engines to replenish batteries? why not use a system
of electrical generation tapping into the forward movement of the vehicle or
the revolving parts of the drive train to replenish the batteries(???)Doug Rosbury
p.s., another Idea would be to use computer technology to utilize the free magnetic field of the planet to produce motive energy. (???)
August 9th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Nice but how about incorporating the technology into something we in the US can use on a daily basis? We are the world’s biggest energy hogs and need to be taught a lesson, namely, that there are others in the world who might seek the pursuit of happiness.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Needs more diesels. Plenty of power with very little fuel consumption, but the states is to retarded to consider anything other than gasolene.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Now all we need is some ethanol stations to fill them up at and we’ll be good.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
[...] Re: Cars – Green or not so Green ? How about one out of these six ‘green sports cars’? Fast Wallpapers Blog – Blog Archive – 6 Sexy Sports Cars Big Oil Doesn’t Want You to Buy [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Interesting lineup of sexy cars, but it’s hard to consider any of them green (with the possible exception of the $100,000 Tesla). They’ve just high octane, wasteful, expensive hot rods which happen to use diesel or ethanol. What we need is a $20k plug-in vehicle with reasonable range and performance — and room for 4 passengers.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
You know, this talk of “green” cars and everything is great, but where do you all think the electricity they use is coming from? I mean, the Tesla does not have an onboard engine, so you have to plug it into something, and that electricty has to come from somewhere. Then, given American’s irrational and illogical hatred for nuclear power, that electricity comes from either coal or gas. Sure, they may be better than an internal combustion engine, but they are far from “green”.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
porshe cayman mmmmmm….super!
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 am
Reply to
“Doug Rosbury Says:
August 9th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Why do we keep using auxiliary engines to replenish batteries? why not use a system
of electrical generation tapping into the forward movement of the vehicle or
the revolving parts of the drive train to replenish the batteries(???)Doug Rosbury
p.s., another Idea would be to use computer technology to utilize the free magnetic field of the planet to produce motive energy. (???)”
-the problem is, you assume the efficiency of an electric engine and a generator is 100%. But no, it is not! When I was kind of 5 or so, this was my idea of making a perpetuum mobile, but hey it can´t work for itself, not to mention wanting it to move an additional mass, a car!
But yeah,there already is braking recuperation, a technology which uses the engine as a generator when the car is slowing down, driving off a slope, or braking. All hybrids use this and I´m quite sure the TeslaRoadster does, too.
-Now what do you mean by “use computer technology to utilize the free magnetic field of the planet to produce motive energy”? Computer technology is for computing not for moving anything! The magnetic field of the earth is too weak and to get this idea working you culd use some sort of additional magnets and come on, you would stick to the first metal pole in your way and other cars, too, not to mention lots of sharp stuff flying your way…
Really don´t waste your time, inventor!
February 13th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
The Telsa Roadster is an awesome car with so many great qualities and deserves to be number 1, but also check out the sexy green Karma Fisker. 4 door, solar roof, 50 mile “zero” emissions, sleek design, just awesome. http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/
May 13th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Great Post!!
Car Pics are looking gorgeous!!
I like sports car.
thanks
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
OMG I was stumbling, I found this site, and then this was the very next one I found! Add it! Now!
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/11/the-40-mpg-450/
October 30th, 2009 at 7:03 am
ace cars