http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml
(CBS) The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines performance and practicality under one hood.
But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been waiting decades comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean bio-diesel fuel to boot.
A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School
The five kids, along with a handful of schoolmates, built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren't exactly the cream of the academic crop.
"We have a number of high school dropouts," he says. "We have a number that have been removed for disciplinary reasons and they end up with us."
One of the Fab Five, Kosi Harmon, was in a gang at his old school — and he was a terrible student. The car project has changed all that.
"I was just getting by with the skin of my teeth, C's and D's," he says. "I came here, and now I'm a straight-A student."
To Hauger, the soybean-powered car shows what kids — any kids — can do when they get the chance.
"If you give kids that have been stereotyped as not being able to do anything an opportunity to do something great, they'll step up," he says.
Stepping up is something the big automakers have yet to do. They're still in the early stages of marketing hybrid cars while playing catch-up to the Bad News Bears of auto shop.
"We made this work," says Hauger. "We're not geniuses. So why aren't they doing it?"
Kosi thinks he knows why. The answer, he says, is the big oil companies.
"They're making billions upon billions of dollars," he says. "And when this car sells, that'll go down — to low billions upon billions."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about
the former." - Albert Einstein
the reason the big automakers arent doing it is that with the current refinining processes there isnt enough farmland to grow enough soybeans to meet our current automobile energy demands
Supercharged 95 BMW 540i M-Sport
^ I also believe consumers are not ready for it either.
But E85 is the way to go.
>>>For Sale? Clicky!<<<
-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
That car even without the soybean engine is sweet, been wanting to build an Attack kit car for a couple of years now.
And even with the issue of not having enough farmland, you know that the kid was right about the big oil companies not wanting it to be used
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why cant we have other countries w/cheap labor farm it for us? then just import it, im sure it would be cheaper than gasoline
I was at the show and didnt see it. those guys desreve a @!#$ medal. thats amazing its great to watch a sterotype show everyone up.
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boobs now with Riboflabin"
I love the canola oil powered beetle better. The exhaust smells like french fries.... mmm... french fries. *drool*
