A lot of Iceland uses municipal hot water/heating, so this means that they may not be able to heat their houses properly. (although I don't think its that bad currently)
For now, if richish people want to pay for it in their flat, go for it. (It would be interesting to see the carbon cost of the extra materials though!) They can pay for the building and maintenance, and everyone else gets a cool building to look at.
The hopefully the kinks get worked out and it can be done cheaper on other buildings.
I don't love manual, I just hate automatics (at least in small cars). Automatics in my experience shift gears when you least want it, giving you unexpected changes in acceleration.
As electric cars are not geared, they should just give you an expected output continuously.
and not for making you suspicious about any crab reference in any of his books? ๐คฃ