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Car gets 3,000 miles to the gallon

Tuesday - 4/10/2012, 4:38am  ET

The Lamina weighs just 70 pounds and holds one person. (Courtesy of Cal Poly)


The small, bullet-shaped car isn't quite ready for a family vacation -- it can only hold one person. But it includes several innovations that its designers say could be applied to more conventional cars and trucks.

The car is called the Lamina and its designers are students at California Polytechnic University. The MSN blog "Exhaust Notes" reports the car was designed for the annual 2012 Shell Eco Marathon.

The Lamina would take quite a while to drive across the country, since its top speed is 25 mph. It includes a 50-cc engine that allows the driver to "burn and coast," so it can get such dramatic fuel efficiency.

But the students who created it tells Fox News say the Lamina includes a lot of features that could help more conventional cars and trucks get close to 100 mpg.

The Lamina utilizes super light carbon fiber and low-resistance tires. It weighs only 70 pounds.

WTOP's Del Walters and Mitchell Miller contributed to this report. Follow Mitchell and WTOP on Twitter.

(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)