fnc

It looks wasteful but I'd guess the bean counters have run all the numbers on either building all the infrastructure to transport/refine/redistribute the gas or use it to generate power to try and sell to a utility, then shrugged and said "Eh, cost is greater than return. Just flare it." A harsh reality but she always is.

The upside of the rising cost of oil is that demand for alternative sources of energy increase which makes all that flared gas more valuable, thus making it more likely to be utilized or stored for future use as its BTU's are more in demand.

Natural gas is one of the pillars we'll most likely have to lean on for base load if we're serious about using less coal, it would be great to see some sort of scalable solution that puts more of this currently wasted gas into the mix. Hopefully some bright engineers are already working on something that will someday get the bean counters' stamp of approval.

Determining the number of them is easy. You just count the wheels and divide by four.

Are people sure some of these aren't Versas? At least I'm pretty sure that's a black 370 hanging out with the Leafs in the picture in the article.

Are they talking about putting a car dealership in a microbrewery? Because that would be both horrible, and kind of awesome.

Well, it's worked for a few million miles so far.

Tesla should stage an independent test of the car under the exact same conditions, and then make hay out of the fact that the guys at TG were too dumb to use an electric car. I see some viral footage of a chimpanzee with a "Clarkson" name tag scratching its head in the driver's seat of a Tesla.

"there isn't that much difference in burning carbon in your car or at the electrical generation plant."

Holy oversimplification Batman. How big do the blinders have to be to hide one's view of the gasoline supply network that stretches from the fill cap on their car to a hole in the ground on the other side of the world, with numerous energy intensive hops along the way?

Lordy.

Seventy six large per car times 400 cars comes out to over 30 million (in dollars). But that doesn't sound like a lot, in terms of what a full sized auto company throws around.

I can understand, sort of, them punting on the Volt. Its numbers will depend on how far you drive it in a day, and so you have to make charts and graphs, and math can be scary to journalists.

But excluding the Leaf because there's "no cost"? Unless you've got a long extension cord and unobservant neighbors there most certainly is a cost associated with filling up its tank. And I'd be really curious to see how those numbers pan out compared to the cars that burn their fuel.

I've always heard the yardstick is that fuel expenses are "roughly half" for an EV, and would be curious to know if that holds up. *gets out calculator*

Bah. I got the 1/64th scale Matchbox version a couple of weeks back. A real bargain, at approximately one one hundred thousandth the cost of the real thing.

I, too, am wondering where all the press is on the full sized version. How can such a significant, if niche, automobile hit the road with so very little news in the press?

Can the battery not keep itself warm when plugged in overnight so that it at least leaves the garage at a more amenable operating temperature?

Haven't gas powered cars for cold climates had heaters in the block for years now? That would seem to set a precedent for using external power to keep the car ready for a drive in a winter wonderland.

I've always liked the overall shape of the S, kind of a sweet cross of Maserati and Aston high points, but the details never really ticked with me. Something was a little, staid about the whole affair.

But dear god the more aggressive front fascia and blanked out grill and black paint come together to make that baby's lines all just -work-. The current BMW 7 looks like a grandfather's car next to the S on display in the article.

My only technical question regards the placement of the motor. I'm sure it will be a serious contender from a driving dynamics standpoint, but I have to wonder if they are giving up a lot of regenerative braking via the front wheels with that layout.