good lord..it folds up like used tin foil...

 

Ohhhh my goodness. The top view is really deceiving...then you see it from the side

 

Brilliance. Indeed.

 

Not going to happen. The US public will never tolerate those kind of gas prices. Most Americans "feel" its their right to have cheap gas, no matter how they get it (in relation to prices elsewhere). Its more than pricing. Its the vast distances between cities as well. If anyone thinks rail or busses or whatever is going to take over, they are dreaming. The American Dream is NOT to move into inner cities and take a bus, its to move to the suburbs and rural areas. America is not Europes. The Europeans fled Europe to come here. (hmm, now you know why .... cheap gas!)

As to the F150 test, its time to get over that, its old, very old news and pretty much meaningless today in relationship to 07/08 cars.

 

Sorry to pick nits, but in collisions, you are really paying attention to momentum(p = mass x velocity). SUV advocates claim they are safer in their gelandenwagens because of all the extra structure to protect the occupants in a crash. There is a nugget of truth in that, but a 6-7k pound vehicle has a crapload of momentum when travelling at 50mph and in a collision all that energy has to go somewhere. I cannot seem to remember the name of it, but all of you have seen on a desk somewhere the little rack with the marbles or ball bearings connected to string/wire. You pull one back and let it go, and it hits the stationary ones and on the other end, the last one "bounces". If you pull back two and let it go, two on the other end bounce. If the are an odd number, say five, pull back three and what happens? The middle one keeps moving with the opposite two during the "bounce". I know this is a crude example, but I can't think of a better one right now.

From the video of the Brilliance, it looks to be rather flimsy in terms of structure and it deforms so much that the passengers will be seriously injured. I was really alarmed at how the front end deforms from the head-on impact.

 

So, it looks like the only way for everyone to be safe while traveling US roads and to save gas is for the US government to mandate that everyone drive the smallest vehicle that has the highest fuel efficiency with the best crash test results while abolishing all other personal automobiles. :D