Peter K, then did you do "the thing to do?" Or did you bravely advocate the stupidest military adventure in US history? And what say you today? Are you glad we did it? If so, how do you propose we pay for it?

Amen, Harvey. What happened to this company? 3-4 years ago they had a great lead in advanced PbC batteries, and the possible applications were many. Now what?

Bernard, I apologize to you for personalizing my concern about the arms war in vehicle weight and the damage done to others by SUV drivers - who don't really need an SUV. You were defending SUVs and I thought you drive one. My apologies for making an incorrect assumption, and for personalizing the discussion.

Kit, I'm sorry if skiing in blue jeans at the local hill is something that is too expensive for you, and that you resent other people who do. As for the $15,000 for the military, that's just the average cost per family in the US not my personal tax bill. And yes, the military is insanely bloated and oversized. We are spending more than twice per year on the military than we did 10 years ago, and it is stupid. S-T-U-P-I-D. Now, I don't resent any person who has served. The military personnel below colonel do not cause our nation's foolishness. It's mainly defense contractors, generals and politicians. So I'll just assume you were having a bad day, and leave it at that. Except to say, one more time, that there is no point to 4600lb, five passenger vehicles. The new Jeep is an impressive engineering achievement that by its very design is wasteful and inefficient.

Bernard, I have owned small SUVs and I own a Passat Wagon. The Passat Wagon gets 40-50% better mileage than a comparable SUV. It weighs 3700 lbs. not 4600lb. We take it on Forest Service roads in the summer and into the mountains to ski in the winter. There is no justification for that extra 900 lbs of steel. And I hate to pay my family's $15,000 per year bill for the oversized military that the US supports just to maintain access to oil. And most of all, I hate fearing when people like you drive on my streets with your oversized vehicles, posing a safety threat to the good citizens who drive small, responsible cars.

Help me. 500% improvement in energy density and 96% improvement in cost? Aren't we over in the "converts tap water to gasoline" territory?

Weird - if efficiency was your goal, why not hybridize?

The real problem for safety is the size of the other vehicles. Passenger vehicles above 4000 lbs should simply be prohibited. That way people driving sensible, 2500-3000lb vehicles would be safe.

Wow, and people thought Solyndra was a scam.

Molten salt solar eliminates all these issues, by providing load balancing from solar to balance wind. It's incredibly logical for the US west and south. No nukes needed, no storage needed.

@Healthy, agree with your analysis. But imagine the billions of gallons of fuel we would save every year in the US if FedEx, UPS, USPS, every city bus and school bus, and every garbage truck were equipped with this. It would be incredible. And it could be done in 5 years if we really cared to do it.

gideon, the problems are scale and materials. If it were a steel car sold in volumes of 100,000 units plus, it could be a $30,000 diesel hybrid. But it's carbon fiber, so even at scale it would be ~$40,000, and below 100,000 units/year it will be more like ~$60,000. Personally, I'd love to see scale volume at whatever they could achieve. How about a 3 cylinder TDI, steel/aluminum version that gets 150MPGe for $35,000? They would sell hundreds of thousands WW.

And double the price of natural gas, Harvey, thereby causing a switch back to coal for electrical generation. Until that door is closed, the best path to a low carbon US is to keep natural gas for electrical generation and heating, and to use gasoline/electric for cars.

Agreed, Kelly. No explanation for that. A tank that fills in 10 seconds or less, but provides 80% of the energy for urband driving. Wow.

This is great - a perfect choice for a utility truck.

The Zafira is a vehicle that should be offered in the US. VW has an equivalent, as does Ford. The free market system is a failure if the world's second largest car market does not offer a 7 passenger vehicle that gets 35+ MPG

It's a turbo. Still awesome. My 07 VW TFSI is 200HP, and six years later we're at 300HP

I own a VW 1.8T and a VW 2.0T, and love them. But they appear to be very susceptible to individual driver habits. If I drive like an old lady, I get 15% better mileage than if I drive like a red-blooded American leadfoot. I suspect that the big 2.5L fours in Japanese mid size sedans are less variable, and that is what CR is observing. OTOH, I looooooove spooling up the turbo.... so to hell with Consumer Reports.

These are two great new powertrains. Really want to see them in the Mazda 5!

This is such a no brainer. But I would love to see the spreadsheet of initial capital costs versus fuel and maintenance savings over an X year useful life. If it pencils out, then no garbage truck in the US should ever be sold without a hybrid system. Next: yellow school buses!

Message to Ford Management: F.U. Really. You promise the Ford Grand C-Max 7 passenger microvan (35MPG, 180HP 1.6T engine) to us, it's wildly popular in Europe, and now you offer this mini-airport van as a substitute? Really? Bring us your best cars to us in North America or expect us to ignore you. Your choice.

Of course we need to be skeptical. And "carbon-negative" is just BS - energy for the process and transportation, anyone? But do we think it's categorically impossible to create biofuel from waste for some sort of reasonable price? What do we think is the current cost at volume at state of the art? We're sure $1.50 is off, but $2.50? $3.00?

Hunh. All good points about the diminishing returns. Don't you think that points to simple themocouple devices as the best way to recover some heat energy without too much cost?

Asking smarter minds than mine: why aren't more commercial vechicles, especially school buses, garbage haulers and delivery vehicles (i.e. UPS trucks) hybridized? They seem to be the optimal case for hybrids - many starts and stops make best use of brake regeneration and electric motor assist, heavy daily usage maximizes the fuel consumption benefit, etc. I would think that lifetime ownership cost savings of 20-30% on fuel would easily overcome the higher initial expense. So why isn't the UPS fleet 60-80% hybridized?

Oh, yes. I expect a copy of that apology in the mail tomorrow. Along with the University of California's apology for granting tenure to John Yoo.