Loremo develops a "1.5 liter per 100km" car

What a quandry - Where do I post this? Munich news as the car was developed there? Northrhein-Westfalia (NRW) as the car will be produced there? Happy compromise, post in German News.

A group of Bavarian engineers has developed a revolutionary car called "Loremo" with the incredible mileage of 1.5 liters per 100 km. This car is the conservative industry's nightmare. It is compact, fast and economical all at once with no compromises regarding safety or comfort. The rollcage and its steel-enforced construction generally integrated in the chassis are replaced by reinforced headrests, thus doing away with excess weight. The passenger cell consists of a steel tub-shaped construction weighing only 95 kg, it is rendered extraordinarily stable due to the lack of door openings - the front and back seats are accessable via the front or back ends. Similar to an old fashioned Goggomobil, the Loremo's front end lifts up, permitting you to climb into the front seats like into a bathtub. The rear seats face backwards, which may take some getting used to, or can be folded down to provide ample trunk space.

Thanks to its lightweight body the Loremo weighs only 450 kg. This body also provides the essential "crumple-zone" for front, back and side-on crashes surrounding the steel passenger cell. The doors, being behind this zone and attached to the passenger cell, can still be opened, passengers can leave the car or be helped out with little effort.

So why does Bavaria, with its philosophy of Laptop und Lederhosen, not jump at the opportunity to produce this car and become the avant-garde of environmentally aware speed-freaks? The evaluation group in the Ministry of Economics immediately denied any intents of protecting the established companies and instead listed insufficient economical success, financeability, factual application of the business plan and a lack of positive effect on the (un)employment situation as reasons preventing them from supporting the Loremo's production.

NRW, on the other hand, provides subsidies, part of which come from the EU. NRW also provides the work-force and market required by the innovative vehicle's production and distribution, 15 million inhabitants in a 50 km radius. Among them many so-called "carers" who do not only talk the talk regarding environmental protection but - well, are willing to drive the drive.

At the moment, the Loremo is available in a 5-gear manual version only, radio, airbags, and particle filter are standard; A/C, navigation system, dashboard computer and MP3 player are available as extras. Even with the extras, the price is not to exceed €11.000. See the technical stats (top speed, 0-100km, Cw etc.) here. The GT version is slightly heavier, less efficient and more expensive (up to €15.000). Production is planned to commence in 2009.

Sources: Süddeutsche Zeitung subscription service 22.Feb.2007, and the Loremo website

Is it April 1st already?
You wonder why Bavaria, home of 2 of the most successful car companies in the world doesn't invest in a car that you have to be a gymnast to be able to enter. You appear to be making the same mistake that many people make about car companies, that they are in the business of making cars, they're not, they are in the business of making money, making cars is the way they do this, making something that nobody will buy will ensure that they go out of business very quickly.

Looks like many a concept car rolled out at the shows, never to see the light of day on the road.

Shoot the messenger, will you! This is news, not an editorial opinion.

I'd buy it - but then again, I thought the Twingo was adorable when it first came out.

It's the Wii of the car world, gayer than a paddock full of pink tents

woof.

I happen rather to like it. Isn't it.

Gaydom, the car, or the Wii?

The paddock full of pink tents.

or Dafyyd ?

Class..

Sorry but it reads like it's your opinion, if you're just quoting something shouldn't you say so?

BadDoggie, a lot of people don't seem to realise that car companies are supposed to make money, if you read the motoring press there are often letters or articles asking why companies don't make some particular model or why they charge extra for certain things.

Compact, yep
Economical, wow, yeah!
But fast...


I have driven some slow cars in my time but never anything that took that long to get to 60. That is *hideously* slow. My Mini 850 got there much quicker than that!

The GT version is... 'acceptable' (9 Secs)

Don't get me wrong, the idea of such a small light car with such good economy is great. I just don't like that it's stated as being fast when it clearly is piss poor slow.

Because it looks awful and no one will buy it and they don't want to deal with the consequences of this?

I see a slight problem when opening the front in the rain. You're car is going to get soaked.

Like Tom17 I stopped caring at that point. 9 seconds for the GT is more like it, but still... The new Smart ForTwo on the other hand is actually finally looking like a product that might interest me if I lived in the smoke.

Matter of fact, that question is treated in their FAQ. They say, IIRC, a. other car interiors get wet when it rains and the door is open, b. it hardly ever rains hard enough to greatly harm the interior. They do not, however, expressly recommend checking the weather report before opening the doors.

I want one.

I see a slight problem with front end collisions. Even a small accident will probably break the opening mechanism and require the jaws of life to open the car up and get the driver out...

Ok so I've gotta be missing something here.. if the front or back open as doors...

If you go in the back, you have to climb in between the seats...

If you go in the front, you have to step in over the front wheels, climb over the dash, around the steering wheel (and airbags) and then turn around and sit in the seat.

Um... Anyone else see an issue here, or am I the only one thinking that this car only works if you never wear nice clothes, are really flexible, and enjoy controting yourself into weird shapes (and potentially smacking the others in the car) as you get in/out?

Note, I did go through all the pictures, but none seem to illustrate to me how the dash/etc move out of the way so you can get OUT and step over the sides...So, am I missing something or is it them?

~Rose

The back seats face backwards apparently.

As for the front, well the dash and steering wheel are attached to the part which lifts up.

About head on collisions, I think there's a more worrying factor. Let's think high school physics for a second. You're the lightest thing on the road, and hit another car, with twice your mass, head on. Doesn't this mean that the average decceleration you experience is twice as high as the other car? And this probably being proportional to the peak acceleration (this might need a little thinking-though), wouldn't that make the risk of injuries higher?

Yes, but safety technology can overcome this. Think Formula 1 cars, very rarely are there injuries in F1 even when a 500kg car hits a concrete wall at 300+kph (eg Luciano Burti)

Hitting concrete walls is a different thing, they don't carry any inertia. This is why, if all cars were the same mass, light or heavy, it wouldn't make any difference. It's the difference that makes the problem.

I should think that a concrete wall is chock-full of inertia. Anyway, the front and back crumple to absorb the main impact, and the passenger cell is reinforced steel. I am not pushing this car for sale or anything, don't get me wrong, I just thought it a news-worthy item.

That's right, I should have said momentum. The momentum of a concrete wall is 0, so no matter what your mass is, when you collide with it, your average decceleration is simply your initial speed divided by the time until you stop. This is not the case, though, when the body you're colliding with has non-zero momentum. Just to make the picture more tangible, when a fly weighing 50mg hovering at 0m/sec gets smashed into by a car going 25m/sec, the car experiences virtually no decceleration, whereas they fly goes from 0 to -25 m/sec in about 1/25 of a second, leading to its death.

Even if you'd add 1m crumple zones to the fly, it would still experience an average decceleration of around 625 m/sec^2, roughly 60g. Princess D was killed by 70-100g peak decceleration. Poor fly. In the same sense, a car with twice the mass of the other will generate a higher decceleration on the lighter car, crumple zones or no crumple zones.

I don't feel like doing the same calculation with two cars in a head on collision, but I'm sure you could and would. For me, it just involves getting my school notebooks back from where it is I went to school. Which is, actually, what your comment was all about, wasn't it?

Great idea...and whether we like it or not this is definitely the future of cars - Economical, light and cheap. However thy`re not the only ones in the Market - Take a look at the TESLA - http://www.teslamotors.com - 0-60 in about 4 seconds! - and its Electric!!
Of course theres a downside - the Tesla costs a lot more than 11,000 Bucks - and theres a long waiting list!

I think its pretty cool actually. Performance needs to be improved but im all for some new futuristic design on the roads instead of the usual stuff that all looks the same. Price is also very impressive.
What I really would like to see is something like a modern day messchersmit with fighter cockpit style seating 2 wheels at the front and a big ass motorbike tyre and engine at the rear built buy a major corp instead of the usual man in his shed. Would be friggin awesome fun if it canters into the curves and bloody fast acceleration.

I think it's no use wondering about the collision specifications of the car, since the authorities won't allow it on the road if it is too low.
A much more interesting question is, that every time you hit the front part a little harder, you have to replace 1/3 of the car, since it looks like to be of one piece. That sounds like a very expensive maintenance to a cheap car.
20s to 100km/h is a bad joke as others have noted before. I can't recall any car with such bad acceleration.

wanted to comment... fasthenry gave me the segway

I was in Arizona. Driving past a guy in the next over lane. Then walked through a parking lot (big ones), in the hot sun. Same car. Nice day. Saw this guy and his car a couple of times. Japanese-born engineer. Working at the time for motorola. Had a car named 'Halcyon' which was a sandrail frame, with the rear being a motorcycle suspension. Mounted on the front frame, just ahead of the two front wheels, was a stock 600 watt honda generator. On the motorcycle suspension arm was the electric motor, and just ahead, two group 31 (? can't remember the specs, about truck-size) batteries. In between was the controller. Two wheels in the front, one in the back (motorcycle). Sandrail cage, proven design, protected the occupant. Cars can be almost anything in Arizona, and experimental vehicle licenses are easy to get.

1500 miles per gallon. 637 kilometers per liter. Won a number of awards in a long-distance milage competition. I had time to meet with him about it, the next time I saw it in the parking lot. Also met with some others who knew about it and told me about the award stuff. The amazing thing was the whole kit was off-the-shelf parts.


too true. Although I can think of similar low kph damage on a nissan pickup which required 4k of repairs. Half the value of the pickup!

Did it bollocks. I don't think the 850s even did 60mph. Not the way they came out of the factory anyway.

The 9s 0-100kph for the GT is respectable.

Shame no-one but contortionists will be able to get into the damn thing.

Nothing about this is technologically ground breaking. If you make a really light car with a really small engine really aerodynamic it is probably going to have the potential for really good gas mileage figures. Of course this design is horribly impractical for all the reasons pointed out above, besides the fact that the mileage or performance probably decreases substantially once you put a couple bodies in there or have to drive up a hill. A couple times a year a catch a story similar to this but the king of them, in my opinion, is still the Segway - look! it is almost as good as a bicycle and only costs $10,000!

I remember reading an article about this concept car some six months ago in Newsweek (or was it Time?) and I wondered whatever became of it. So now I'm glad to see they've moved onto the development stage for this vehicle. Despite the odd seating arrangement and overall size of the car (it's a bit cramped inside) it certainly has potential.

Here's a YouTube video of the manufacturing process if anyone's interested: Making Of The Loremo

The original 850 did 72 apparently, with quite poor acceleration (26.5secs!).

Mine was a '73 model. I don't think I was into the whole 'tuning' thing at that point so I am pretty sure it was standard. I also think they had a 1.5" carb by this time which makes a huge difference to the restrictiveness compared to the 1.25" jobbies. My top speed was limited by valve bounce at 6000rpm - this came at about 85mph (down a hill on the M25 though).

I really don't remember what the 0-60 was on mine but am very confident that it was under 20s.. Not much, but 'some'.

Feeling all nostalgic now :-(

@LIMA - I'll have a blue TESLA please! I'll have to win the Lottery and take my driving test first though Very informative website too.

Annual costs?!
LS = €2,452
GT= €3,358
OUCH.

The door arrangement is ideal for those who were born by caesarian (sp) section.