very impressive if you are in the city less so if you want the Nuremburg Ring

Looks great but why the piddly gas mileage? My 1998 Peugeot 106 1500cc diesel does 70 miles per gallon (uk gallons) . This car is listed as doing 100 km/l - which is less???
I think car manufacturers need to focus on cost of distance travelled vehcile design and marketing rather than Co2 emissions. As a UK consumer where it costs £1.40 per litre of diesel this is really important!
Also I think that small engines (whether in hybrid config or not) dont always deliver best economy. As an example, my father had a motorhome based on a 2000cc ford transit, it woudlnt do more than 60 mph and gave him an appalling 12mpg at that speed. I bought a 1972 ford econoline motorhome which had a 5000cc motor, this could cruise at 70mph and do 85 mph if I wanted it to, it also delivered 17-20 mpg. It wasnt struggling.
I have a fear that this little car, llike the Smart 4-2 will be absolutely thrashed by its UK owners who all drive it on the motorways at some point and will want to travel at 80mph. This little 1 cylinder will be screaming its tits off to acheive less than this speed and will no doubt have poor economy as a result.
my two uneducated - but experienced cents... :)

I make 100km/l as about 280mpg, not bad, though you must add on the cost of the electricity if you re-charge from the grid. I'm guessing that's the fuel consumption when backing up a fully charged battery. Once the battery is run down and the little engine is trying to recharge it and power the car, I imagine it would struggle to compete with a fully-laden tuk-tuk.

70 mpg vs 100 km/l? It's a fairly easy comparison (heck, type it into Google to get it done for you!) 100 km/l is roughly 235mpg... considerably more than the 1500cc diesel's 70mpg. But, hey what's the point in researching the basic fundamental of your argument? Also while we're at it, why not compare like for like? a Ford Econoline is a completely different kettle-of-fish to a Transit. the gearing and engine characteristics of a transit are intended to pull the vehicle efficiently when fully loaded (upto over 7.5tonnes), whereas an econoline is really a recreational vehicle, where it's PRIMARY use isn't to pull heavy loads. Also aerodynamics have a huge affect on engine load (and hence, economy) and there could be serious differences between the two vehicles. As for attacking car companies over their obsession with co2? Well that's hardly fair, the obsession with co2 come from the government's own taxation and penalty systems which hugely affect new cars buyers (especial fleet and company car purchases), and believe it or not, car companies have to make car's that can be sold, so they can keep hundreds of thousands of people employed. Like me.

Jeremy a 100Km/l is a lot of range for pretty much little fuel. Lets do the conversion: 70 miles equals 112,65 km. A UK Gallon is 4,55 liters. Those 70 miles per gallon roughly translates into 25Km/l. So the first idea of of your post give the advantage to the "little car" because indeed have fuel economy. If you check the specification sheet (last image in the article) it says the maximum speed is 110 Km/h or 68 Mph. The car is designed as a city dweller not a road runner. you can use it to travel but don't do it fast. Opposite to tradition that little engine is not there to give power directly to the wheels but to the battery. That's why is called a range extender and it won't be screaming to achieve any speed. It will keep and optimum regime of work to charge the battery. The economy won' be reduced. Now if you want to go fast then the distance will be very short.

@Jeremy Davies : i don't know how you calculate your consumption or i must have mis understood it. A consumption of 1 L/100km is like 1/4 of your 70 mpg!! So it seems to be a very nice car...

@Jeremy.davies :
Do you know that everybody doesn't live in UK..... ? Do you know that everybody doesn't "overall" need to cruise at 80 mph.... ? Do you know that the average "milage" of a city car in Europe is less than 50 Km / day ?
Regards.

Brilliant! Why can't Ford and GM make cars like this?

As with any innovative and efficient small automobile, this is best as a shared vehicle (in a carshare, carclub, peer-to-peer system...). We better hope that the population of India doesn't fully "transition" from bicycles to automobiles, as the world cannot handle all this would require -- and Indian roads would fill up. China is realizing now that it has made some mistakes in this area and at least some brave mayors there are guaranteeing a future for cycling (and use of public transport).

Jeremy Davies, funny you should attack a company for making a car, why not attack other car companies or their design concepts. And you're comparing different types of vehicles shows you have no concept of mileage and vehicle types. This car has very respectable mileage for its size and category. The only problem is that it quickly moves off the concept stage and be in production.