He turns a key in the ignition: there is a click, and a barely audible hum; the car is entirely electric. 'Virtually silent,' he says. 'There aren't a lot in the world. A lot of people have hybrids, but a hybrid is nowhere near as interesting as a pure electric.'
As we gather speed down the highway towards Westwind, the whine of the electric motors rising to compete with the light classics wafting from the radio, Kamen explains the real secret of his new car.
Beneath the false floor in the boot he and the Deka engineers have mounted a Stirling engine. Conceived in Scotland almost 200 years ago, the Stirling is a marvel of thermodynamics that could help to replace the internal combustion engine - in theory it can turn any source of heat into electricity, in silence and with 100 per cent efficiency.
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