Season 14 of Top Gear just kicked off a few weeks ago, and Hammond, May, and Clarkson already seem bent on surpassing the previous levels of ridiculousness achieved by the “greatest motoring show on television.”

In episode two, the three Brits managed to assemble a road going hybrid electric vehicle for less than 8000 pounds, using a chassis from an old TVR Chimaera, the engine from a milk float, six lead-acid batteries, and a diesel powered generator. The concept for the power train is actually quite clever, as it borrows heavily from the propulsion systems used in large diesel electric locomotives. Predictably, however, the end product was both hilarious and shoddy, as Autocar found out when they performed a full test of the vehicle:

So while the clip above is totally tongue in cheek, the car, if you can call it that, does actually bring up an interesting point. Given the fact that three ham-handed TV presenters, with a bit of help presumably, could assemble a road going hybrid electric vehicle from scratch using second hand parts that can outstrip a professionally manufactured Gee Whiz in a few days, then why has it taken so long for vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, Honda Insight, and Tesla to make it into consumers?

Fuel for thought, certainly.