I agree,imagine the millions of people in sunny metro areas worldwide who commute a few miles a day from the 'burbs into downtown to work, the very worst way to use an internal combustion engine. Something like this could make their entire work week journey zero carbon, you might not even need the collector if your commute is short and you dont whack on the air con!

Long range BEV by 2020 perhaps? ;-) Here's to a new catchphrase for 2014 Harv, Happy NY !

Overpriced for what it is no doubt but the total weight of 1180 kilos they've achieved with this car is actually very impressive, especially as the battery pack is a competitive capacity. It possibly could approach 5 miles per kWhr with less than 1200 KG to haul around,depending what the drag figures are of course.

I have a 2008 Focus wagon with this Engine fitted, albeit in 110 BHP 16 valve form. It's a smooth little lump and goes well enough but I get nowhere near the official combined economy figures despite pretty gentle use, much of it on the open road. I find you can expect a real world figure 20% down on official calcs with many cars, and I use that as a basis for ownership calculations.

You can bet GM's warranty will require the owner to be tied in to yearly visits to an authorized dealership or the deal will be off. My experience of such places is not great.. shoddy, overpriced work, my local grease monkey mechanic does a far better job. Though admittedly he probably wouldnt recognise a T shaped lithium battery pack even if it fell on his head.

NVH- Noise vibration & harshness. Car designer speak. What is the actual miles per gal on range extender is what i wanna know. The c02 figures would suggest in the 60s??

I wonder how many KWhrs an efficient PV array covering the entire roof would bring to the party. Depends if youre talking Chicago or LA of course!