Not your average 220 mpg car

When this car zips passed you on the interstate, you're probably not going to be thinking that it's an environmentally sensitive vehicle. But Hybrid Technologies, a small company in North Carolina, says that when it finishes building the first prototype later this year, the vehicle will get around 220 miles per gallon.

Several other companies seem to be following this peculiar path to eco-friendliness, most notably Tesla Motors. The thought is that, since these cars are going to be expensive anyway, we might as well make them appeal to people who buy expensive cars.

In theory, I like the idea. It creates a market for these new technologies. As prices drop, they can be adopted for more mainstream vehicles.

In reality, however, I'm kinda tired of seeing mid-life-crisis machines all over EcoGeek's pages. Sometimes I feel like it's more indicative of the rising age of dot-com billionaires than actual need for these vehicles.

Hybrid Technologies has been featured on EcoGeek before. The company makes most of its money by converting current vehicles (from the Toyota Yaris to the Mini Cooper) into full electric vehicles. It costs a ton, but Hybrid seems to be making pretty good money doing it. But now it's spending some time and money on a creation of its own.

There will be an all-electric version of the car with a range of up to 180 miles and the lithium-ion hybrid version. Hybrid is aiming for a production date of 2009 to early 2010, which, with the problems Tesla has been having, seems pretty optimistic.

More info at Popular Mechanics.