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It's all been done before, light cars. Car engineering is nothing new at all and everything has been tried. How about 50-60's European sports cars. Very light with the safety of a moped.
What will change the world of modern cars is composite materials and the way they are manufactured to reduce costs.
Composites will reduce the weight that is needed to get great mileage and performance while retaining the strength for safety that is so important these days.
Until the day that cars are affordable with what we think today, are exotic materials, we are destined to have Sonic sized cars made of steel and iron and aluminum that are light and safe.
The point is that with metals, a CAT front end loader has to weigh what it does to lift a load of logs for physics and engineering strength.
A car has to weigh what it does at a certain size for the same reason with safety in mind.
I personally think we are a few years off yet from composite cars being affordable.
So a light cheap steel/iron/aluminum affordable car will have to be smaller than we might like for the next decade or so until advancements are made, which will happen I'm sure..
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