I rode to work in a corn-powered supercar and it blew my mind
The McLaren pulled up in front of my Brooklyn apartment at around 8:30 a.m. It attracted a lot of stares from my neighbors walking toward the subway.
The driver asked if he could open the door for me, or if I wanted to open it myself. Obviously I had to give the awesome "butterfly" doors a try.
As I settled into the passenger seat, I heard someone call out "sweet car!" I knew this was going to be an awesome ride.
We soon escaped my neighborhood's staring and rolled onto the highway. New York City traffic, however, wasn't cooperating with our plans to test the car's 2.3-second 0-to-60-mph acceleration.
But the car handled beautifully. I'd never experienced such smooth and quick acceleration, even if we did hit patches of traffic.
The hum of the twin-turbo V8 engine was definitely my favorite part of the ride. Crank up the volume on the video clip below if you want to hear the rumble:
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My driver pointed out a temporary iPad display in front of me. This is where I learned all about the car's environmentally-friendly tech.
The engine runs exactly like a standard gasoline system, so it can still reach incredible speed and acceleration.
But instead of fossil fuels, it's powered by ethanol made from corn, crop residue, and wood.
According to the in-car display, corn-based ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 52%.
The display kept track of time, distance, CO2 emissions in ounces (red number) and emissions saved by driving with ethanol (green number).
The display also had a selfie feature — so I snapped one of me and the driver. You can see just how insanely excited I was to be in this car.
Then I sat back and enjoyed the ride for awhile.
Finally! We hit an open stretch over the Brooklyn Bridge and I got to see and feel the 12C Spider's crazy speed.
The model I rode in came with a retractable roof.
So once we got off the highway, I asked to put the top down — it was an unusually warm October day.
I couldn't resist another (overly-excited) selfie with the top down. My driver is one of the top 10 at Uber — that's how he got to drive a McLaren around all day.
Our drive to the Flatiron district, where Tech Insider's main office is located, was about 7 miles. The car's display said we'd saved over 20 ounces of CO2 along the way.
This McLaren is certainly an environmentally-conscious car, but it costs nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
If I were a millionaire, I'd totally buy one. I could justify the insane price tag with the carbon emissions savings right?
The BREAKTHOUGH series premieres Sunday, Nov. 1, at 9 p.m. ET on the National Geographic Channel.
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