[Pontiac]

"Compelling automakers to achieve higher mileage forces them to compromise automobile safety. To achieve fuel economy, they are forced to make vehicles lighter and smaller. But lighter, smaller vehicles are much more dangerous in an accident. Because the car absorbs less of the crash impact, the passengers absorb it instead.

This is not necessarily true.

As evidence I give you Indy Cars as an example. These cars can hit the wall at 200 miles per hour and the driver can walk away.

The car protects the driver by absorbing energy by deforming and shedding parts.

The draw back to this is that the car can not survive even one accident. The car is more or less disposable.

This is the direction I see the car companies going in. Cars will become engineered to disintegrate on impact sacrificing themselves for the occupants.

The truth in the article is that the cars will become much more expensive as will auto insurance. Because every car will be totaled in any accident car insurance cost will sky rocket, a single at fault claim on your insurance policy will be cause for cancellation of your policy. If you have a teen on your policy you will need a second mortgage to purchase a policy.

The good news is that old cars will easily survive a crash with these new cars.

[B Knotts]

Great. Now, we not only have to watch the Car of Tomorrow in NASCAR...we have to drive the things, too.

[ChromeDome]

Yes, but an Indy Car chassis starts at something like $100,000 and it doesn’t even have a cup holder.

[naturalized]

Oh, please.

Zanardi didn’t walk away from his crash, and when F1 (and other race cars) hit the wall, they keep sliding. Take away their HANS and seats and belts and give them oncoming traffic and drunks and illegals and then let’s see how they do. People in Chevrolets walk away from crashes like Earnhardt’s every day of the week.