DeLaSalle students build freakishly efficient electric car

Eight kids from DeLaSalle high school have brought shame to the Chevy Volt before it’s even been released. Using a crashed 2000 Lola racecar, 21 batteries, and a lightweight plastic body, the students engineered an electric vehicle rated at the equivalent to 452 miles per gallon. The Prius looks like an Abrams tank in light of their work.

Steve Rees, a former architect and car racer, mentored the students through designing, constructing and tweaking the sleek one-seater. His charges faced financial challenges as well as aesthetic ones. Namely, he says, they had to be convinced that basing the design on the 1984 Monte Carlo would be a bad idea.