prototypes

Copper Nanorods Reduce Energy Needed by an Order of Magnitude
After super-efficient solar panels that are "hairy" on the nanoscale, here come "hairy" pots & pans, as well as computer chip heatsinks and other heat-transferring devices. Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute made the "unexpected" discovery: "by adding an invisible layer of the nanomaterials to the bottom of a metal vessel, an order of magnitude increase in efficiency is achieved in bringing water to boil. [...] The potential applications for this discovery are vast and exci...

VW's 282 MPG Super Fuel Efficient Car
The 1-Liter car has been around in prototype form since 2002 and greens everywhere have been drooling at its 282 miles per gallon fuel economy (or 1 liter of gasoline per 100 kilometers, hence the name). VW has finally decided to make more and sell them, and a limited edition (estimated in the thousands) should start selling in 2010.

1-Liter Car Technical Specs
The One-Liter car (or 1-Litre, over in Europe) weights only 660 pounds. The body is made from carbon composites and it is shaped to be extremely slippery, giving it a coefficient of drag of only 0.16 ("the average car comes in around 0....

Wave Power Technology
Most wave power devices so far, like those from Ocean Power Delivery, are made of metal and contain many hydraulic rams, hinges and articulated joints. This makes them expensive, and the more things there are to break, the higher maintenance costs will be.

Introducing the Anaconda
Francis Farley, an experimental physicist, and Rod Rainey of Atkins Oil and Gas, have invented a new device that could help bring the cost of wave power down. They call it the 'Anaconda' after the species of aquatic boas (and a cheesy movie). It's bas...

In Victorian times, houses were very narrow, multi-storied, and had a small "footprint" on the land. This left more land for private gardening, and commons, among other things. Then came the 1960s, and "ranch style" homes, with half-acre grass covered lots. By the 1970's anyone with a vegetable garden in a suburban or city back yard were "hippies," "weird," or "old fashioned."

The 1990's saw the boom of Mega-Mansions on postage stamp sized lots, weekly lawn-care crew visits, and still little vegetable gardening on a respectable scale, regardless of whether one lives in the city or the suburbs. Now we have an oil crisis overlain with a salmonella crisis: both of w...

Evisol makes "integrated solutions" for electric and hybrid vehicles (including boats). Drivetrains, batteries, that kind of stuff. How better to demonstrate their skills than by making an electric car of their own? Meet the Thorr electric roadster, a proud relative of the classic Lotus Super 7 concept.

Simplicity is the name of the game here. Low complexity, low weight. A car stripped of all the bells and whistles, except for the state of the art electric drivetrain. No ABS, power assisted braking, gearbox, power assisted steering, any form of sound absorption, not even a roof and a windshield (okay, that might be a bit overkill, but they'll probably tweak it some mo...

While the Japanese are trying to produce electricity from train station gates (!?), entrepreneur Terry Kenney is going after a bigger target: Trucks.

It took him eight years to get a working prototype, but now there's one working at the Port of Oakland which Kenney calls the "Dragon Power Station". Special plates are set on the road, and as big trucks drive over them (about 2,500 of them per day at the port), they compress a tank of hydraulic fluid under the road, which in turn creates a series of pumping actions that turns a generator to produce electricity....

Forget about Formula 1, Nascar and monster trucks... Here comes chair racing!

Okay, we admit it's a bit silly. But we're pretty sure that it provides a lot more entertainment per kilojoule than anything else (anything that you do with clothes, anyway). It shows you don't h...

I previously admired this horizontal eco dishwasher concept by Marie-Christine Lacasse & Marie Claude Savard, seen at the University of Quebec in Montreal Design Grad Show, but only had the video.

I am particularly fascinated by it because I used to try and get clients to install two dishwashers, which would act as storage as the dishes just went from one to another. This would save cupboard space, the work emptying the dishwasher and energy, as you don't run it until all of the dishes are moved from one to the other and it is full. This wall-unit design is a much more elegant solution.

Mocoloco's Eric Demay p...

The Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), a British automotive design, development and certification consultancy, has done what many TreeHugger readers have been suggesting in the comments of many posts about plug-in hybrid cars: Removable battery packs that can be swapped.

Their test vehicle is a modified Skoda Fabia which they call the H4V (Hybrid 4 wheel drive Vehicle) because the gasoline engine powers the front wheels while two 35kW electric motors power the rear wheels. The regular gasoline version of the car gets 32 mpg (7.24 L/100km) while their 'plugless' plug-in hybrid prototype returned 53 mpg (4.4 L/100km)....

Volkswagen introduced a turbo-diesel hybrid-electric Golf concept car at the Geneva Motor Show, and the specs were impressive: 70 miles per gallon (3.3 liters per 100 kilometers), a 7-speed direct shift gearbox (DSG) with a twin-clutch, minor modifications to reduce aerodynamic drag, CO2 emissions of 89 g/km (lower than a Toyota Prius hybrid), and Tier 2 Bin 5 tailpipe emissions. And of course, the ability to run...

Some people find wind turbines ugly, others say they kill birds (read more about that myth here and here), but New York based artist Andrea Polli likes them so much, she wants to see some on top of Queensboro Bridge. S...

BYD, China's biggest battery maker, isn't wasting any time carving its niche in the new world of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. It all started with the F6DM plug-in hybrid sedan, followed by the smaller and less expensive F3DM plug-in hybrid compact car.

Now BYD has introduced its E6 electric car at the Beijing International Auto Show. It takes the shape of a crossover, or MPV, and will be built on on the F6's platform (same as the