Years ago, I built a shell around a small motorcycle, trying to achieve high MPG. The first time I took it on the road, I almost wrecked it as it tended to "fish tail" as speed increased. The aerodynamics were such that it was unstable, that is, it tended to deviate away from motion in a straight line as speeds increase. My solution was to add a vertical tail, which made the thing hard to handle in cross winds or when passing or being passed by trucks. Dump trucks were especially difficult to deal with.

I think it's important to point out that the VentureOne machine is likely to be a very dangerous machine to operate. This is the result of having the center of mass located toward the rear, while having a rather large area exposed to aerodynamic forces ahead of the center or mass. The result would likely be loss of control at high speeds due to cross winds, just as I experienced with my machine. The graphic sure looks cool, though.

The Myers NmG might be a little better, if the batteries are located ahead of the front wheels. They claim a speed of 75 oh for the Myers, so I assume that they have already tested these to find out whether they are stable or not.

E. Swanson

And then there are those efforts to create two wheel enclosed motorcycles with retractable landing gear, from the Monotrace Cabriolet of 1925

to the "ecomobile"...

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/30/autos-73731.htm

... with a number of variants in between.

I always liked the idea of a retractable wheel motorcycle, although frankly I'd be terrified to drive one.

I have not been to India for seven years but I don't things have changed all that much. I had the sense that the most obnoxious pollution was coming from two stroke vehicles, two and three wheeled motorcycles, particularly in extremely congested cities like Mumbia and Pune. When I was told I should leave my hotel in Mumbia a good six to eight hours before my flight from the Mumbia airport I thought it was a joke, but it wasn't. I was glad I did. I could have walked the ten to fifteen miles faster. The traffic is completely insane. Anyway, to replace two-stroke vehicles with four-stoke vehicles would be a big improvement in terms of air quality and its difficult to calculate effect on gas milage. Replacing a 80 mpg two stroke motorcycle with a 50 mpg four stroke car is not necessarily a 37.5% reduction in energy efficiency and a 60% increase in fuel consumption. Once vehicles are stuck in traffic, efficiency goes way down, especially for overlaiden motorcycles. Also pollution goes way up, especially for slow moving motorcycles. Furthermore if a car carrying four people replaces two motorcyles carrying two people each then the car may have better gas milage and reduce pollution over the two motorcyles. If you are out in the country driving on the highway as an individual okay the milage is better but the pollution factor still is not. And driving solo without carrying a bunch of stuff is not the Indian way.

Check out this report, in particular the table on page 33.
www.theicct.org/documents/Meszler_2&3Wheelers_2007.pdf

This issue is very complex and I just not convenced that the Nano is all bad if it is replacing a swarm of old, poorly maintained, cheap oil filled, two stroke smoke pots.