We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "Doctor Drivel"
saying something like:

I think hes masturbating over the Tesla.

Use one of these with supercapacitors and a battery set and they will sing.
Supercapacitors are advancing so much, they may approach a battery in size
energy density. One that occurs bye chemical batteries and hello supercaps
and bye, bye useless internal combustion engine, especially the diesel.

Why not go the whole hog and have a giant flywheel strapped to the boot
and huge solar panels on the roof, folding out accordian-fashion as
speed increases?
With all the third-world starvation, we could import refugees to simply
push our cars and pay them a tin of beans per day - dead cheap.