He suggests an idea of "virtual towing" where an idle car could pick up on another vehicle and follow it back to a stack, using inter-car tracking software.

CNN: Reinventing the wheel

"Right now, your car is idle, just sitting, parked about 96 percent of the time, " explains Amory Lovins.

CNN: Fuelling our future

And as with all other hybrids the engine de-powers automatically when the car is at idle to further preserve fuel.

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Virtually all of the car company's plants and many of its supplier factories stand idle.

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