@Whoa, suh-WEE

Not so different that William Randolph Hearst and the duPont boys didn't manage to get the industrial crop outlawed in 1937 on grounds of being the source of the cannabis scourge when there weren't no such thing yet... Do try growing your next month's supply of gas-tank filler raw material in your back lot, and check whether the ensuing DEA guys aren't reporting to somebody from the petrochemical industry.

Whoa, suh-WEET.

Y'know, the past three decades' advancements in propulsion and other technologies in next-gen/experimental energy-efficient cars are really impressive and all, but I think the best advancement in the current generation of cars of this type is that _they_aren't_friggin'_BUTT-UGLY_anymore. I think the Axon, along with the Smart, might well be the next generation of "chick magnets" just because the styling is actually halfway cool, kinda' like the old early '50s Nash Metropolitan, which I've always thought looked pretty snappy. I've always thought that the US "Big 3" corporations deliberately sabotaged the electric/hybrid/high-mileage next-gen car market in the early '70s by purposely designing cars so goddamn' ugly that no sane person would be caught dead in them.

I've no big issue with the top speed, either; the speedometer in my wife's Solara goes up to 140mph, and the thing will probably _do_ 140 as well, but I don't think we've ever driven it over 70-75mph, even on the Interstate. 'Vettes, Jags, and Maseratis are real cool and all, but who the hell really needs to go 140 goddamn' mph somewhere?

@Matt Bryant: That's "MISTER Greenpecker" to _you_, pal. You obviously don't mind paying four goddamn' dollars a gallon or more to fill the tank in a goddamn' Hummer. Oh, and do your homework about industrial hemp -- _hemp_ is not the same as _marijuana_; they're two entirely different varieties of the same plant. The industrial variety is bred to be more fibrous; the recreational variety is bred for buds and broad leaves.

And now, you'll "excuse me while I light my spliff, Jah knows I need a little lift..."

Carbon crashworthiness

Glider fuselages and cockpits have been made of carbon fibre for years ... and there are significant crashworthiness issues. Carbon fibres is so brittle that there is very little nergy absorbtion - it tends to disintegrate into a vast number of horribly sharp pieces. The cockpit areas of gliders therefore have a few layers of glass as well to absorb energy and produce softer - more "torn" edges.

Using alumimium or compistes to do the structural work of steel in a conventional car is easy. It's using them to absorb energy in crashes which is difficult.

NCAP probably not applicable.

If it only has a 500cc engine then they can class it as a quadricycle, which means no crash testing at all! Still, it will give the Greenpeckers something to look smug about as they drive around in self-satisfied masochism, and a way for the rest of us to spot them coming and avoid them! The Greenpeckers will really be screwed if some scientist comes out and makes a viable fuel alternative out of cannabis, but only if they use the whole world's crop - now that would really cause the hippies some conflicting thoughts!