Press Release: Commission starts research for super-economical car

As Europe recovers from the recent protests over fuel prices, and the realisation of just how dependent we are on petrol and diesel fuel, the European Commission has launched a €5.2 million research project on lightweight materials. Half of this sum comes from the Commission, the other half from the project's partners. Lightweight materials are the key to low petrol consumption in cars and the aim of the project is to produce the materials by 2004 - for a prototype car travelling 100 km on just one litre of diesel fuel.