>>I've ordered one...
>>http://www.eliomotors.com/
>>
>>Price seems right and 84mpg on the highway.
>
>85mpg highway doesn't seem very impressive by European standards - there must be a dozen models here that get better *average* mileage than that.
>Sure, great price - but it doesn't seem suitable if it would be your *only* vehicle...
>
>I think I prefer the BMW i8 :-}

Can't go wrong with a Beemer ;-)

Re the ultra high mileage vehicles, I don't think it's a matter of Europe having smarter auto engineers than the U.S, (BTW, you are not part of Europe, you know; I learned that just this week ;-) ). It's more of a cultural difference. As a general rule I suspect Europeans have more interest than Americans do in things like gas mileage, emissions, and the environment in general. Here there are a lot of us mainly interested in vroom, vroom, vroom -- top speed, engine displacement, 0-60 time, that kind of thing.

Total change of subject, knowing you were in the rock life way back when. I was saddened by the death of Joe Cocker. Goodness knows he had his problems but he also had a distinctive and powerful voice. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was on my record shelf and was played regularly. I guess we should be grateful that he lived to be 70.