Driving Sports

This week, Driving Sports TV brings you another Extra! news update. First, we visit the Bridgestone Proving Grounds where a class of kids test their 300mpg electric car. Then, it's off to Portland Oregon for a ride in a 600whp GT-R!

You may be wondering why an electric car would be measured in miles-per-gallon. Considering all the new alternative fuels, hybrid and electric options, it's important to achieve a common measurement that can be used to compare different vehicle propulsion systems in terms of efficiency. As defined by the Automotive X-Prize, an event designed to spur conservation innovations in automobiles, the MPGe rating is using the following formula: MPGe =  (miles driven) / [(total energy of all fuels consumed)/(energy of one gallon of gasoline)]). By this measurement the Tesla Roadster gets a mere 50MPGe when driven as it should be, and an Aptera was rated with a 178.2MPGe.

Welcome to the Driving Sports Extra! for the fourth week of August, 2010.

Our first story takes us to the Bridgestone proving ground in Texas, where a group of High School kids from the alternative DeLaSalle school in Missouri recently tested an electric car that, according to the press release, they built under the direction of instructor Steve Rees. The car is built on a Lola Indy Car chassis and reportedly gets the equivalent of 300 miles per gallon.

It should be noted that there were a number of experienced mentors working with the kids to see this project through. These mentors have experience that lists like a DeVry ad: advanced plastics, engineering, machining, electric vehicle design, solidworks modeling, automotive racing, aviation and fabrication…Call now.

Let’s graduate to something a little… faster… Remember this car? Yes, this is the Cobb Tuning GT-R development mule: 600 wheel horsepower that makes you do this (ryan screaming).

Recently Cobb gave free rides in this beast as part of their first ever customer appreciation track day at Portland International Raceway in Oregon. Evenmore, some lucky fans sat shotgun for hot laps in the their Time Attack Subaru STI.

If you’d like to take part in a future customer appreciation day (and we hear there’s another one coming up) keep your eye glued to this address: (blogs.cobbtuning.com) … when you’re not at THIS address. (drivingsports.com)

Thanks for watching, I’m Aaron Bartel for Driving Sports TV.