Ron Patrick's Street-Legal Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle (2006)
Seems like a good time to ask this question that has been bugging me forever, since all the HN jet nerds will be drawn to this thread:<p>Why hasn't anyone made a hybrid car that uses a gasoline-powered turbine generator to charge its batteries instead of a piston engine?<p>I'd imagine that hooking up such an engine directly to the drivetrain like in a Prius would be difficult, but surely a small turbine with one hell of a muffler running a generator (similar to a natural gas power plant), both running only at their peak efficiency RPMs, would yield a very efficient car that could still use the extant gasoline infrastructure.<p>I'm sure there are very interesting reasons, either due cost, noise, reliability, or durability, that this idea hasn't taken off, and I'm very interested to hear y'all's thoughts on the subject.  Or maybe there has been progress in this area, and I'd love to see some links!