QUOTE (Hero @ Oct 29 2009, 10:16 PM)

The Chevy Volt gets 230mpg on the bat which are only good for about 40 miles from chevy's own figures which is oddly the same as a Toyota prius, and I wont start on hrbrid's other then they are a waste of money and you can get the same mileage from a 1990 Honda Civic.. To finish that of, what I mean is Hybrid are useless until you start getting to things the size of semi's and buses.
Just use common sense when figuring out what fuel and range figures are. A sports car in 2050 and up would be at least 25 mpg since its a sports car and sport cars don't like to run lean. You can only take way so much fuel until it becomes so lean it does not burn when sparked. And as for the econo boxes, those will probably get 50mpg average. 60 at most for the smaller cars(K-car sized). Took a bit of auto shop in high school and lots of book reading so I have a decent idea of how things will improve in the near future, can only take away so much fuel before you start to impact operation of the engine. I cant say much about fuel cell cars since that's something is relatively recent in the automotive world(Recent for automobiles is like 10 years usually).
So a mid-range sports car with a 15 gallon tank(Evo IX) should about 375 miles to a fill up, unless modified to hell. You dont loss much until you get past the 60bph increase point and then it gets sever up toward the 100+bph range.
Econo Boxes would be about 10 gallon tank and that would get close to 550-600 if you feather the throttle and piss off people on the freeway by doing 45mph. The larger ones should be good for 400 to 450 for the larger 4 door sedans.
Diesels are another story, they would give a huge boost in mileage and performance. And if you think Diesel cant be fast, just look up Audi and the R10 TDI race car. As for econo boxes, those can reach a good 80mpg if you decide not to get anywhere on time. But average driving should get about 50mpg with usual driving habits. Diesel sports cars and GT cars should net 35mpg.
I don't know, Hybrids are very useful, if you never travel more than 20-30 miles a day in your vehicle (like I do)... at that point they are very efficient... Though I do agree with you that for the price, they are indeed a little off... My Truck gets 30 miles to the gallon in town (Chevy S-10, Standard, 4 Banger)... and my Mazda got almost 45 MPG... both made in the 1990's...
The technology exists to provide such things, however, it is not economical to change over as the prices for said technology are still to exorbitant for the common man... until it reaches a reasonable level (and the lobby's for the Oil Industry are broken), this technology will not flourish...
Keep the Faith