Category Archives: Transport
Why float above the water and look at an endless horizon, when you could instead travel in the depths of the sea and witness some pretty amazing natural beauty, all powered by electricity! The Miami International Boat Show recently saw the EGO, an electric semi-submarine by South Korean manufacturer Raonhaje. A personal semi-sub for the lone adventurer, this vessel has an underwater cockpit that’s flanked on three sides by thick, acrylic glass while two pontoons above the water on the central hull provides the buoyancy and works as a great place to sun-bathe! To watch above the waves, an LCD monitor in the cockpit hooks on to a high-resolution camera placed above. With a six to nine hour charge that delivers a cruising range of 8 hours and 4 hours at speeds of four knots, the EGO is simple to navigate, with a steering wheel and foot pedals like a car.
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Seems like everyone’s gone nuts about the eco-friendly concept lately, nuts enough to roll out a vehicle, shaped like a nut, that’s eco-friendly! The NutMobile by Planters is a peanut shaped truck and is part of the company’s new Naturally Remarkable marketing campaign. What lies beneath the nut is a medium-duty Isuzu NPR cabover powered by a 5.2-liter turbo-diesel I-4 capable of running on peanut oil-enriched biodiesel. That’s not all. Pushing up the green, this one uses a body made from a non-toxic epoxy, while the exterior graphics are crafted from vinyl with no volatile organic compounds. Using parts like glass, doorframes, and headlamps from old vehicles, this one also boasts solar panels and a pop-up wind turbine that power up the audio systems and the LED lighting.
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Deeper waters will soon breathe a sigh of relief, as ships in future are destined to go cleaner and greener, thanks to a new development currently being worked upon by a Japan-based company Eco Marine Power. The system will use energy from the sun and wind to power up part of a ship’s energy requirements, helping reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency in the bargain. For starters, the company is busy fitting solar modules that will collect wind and solar energy on the Aquarius. For now, the technology will work best for larger ships and in future will show up on smaller ships like coastal freighters, passenger ferries and tourist boats too.
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BMW’s electric cars of the future will now belong to a sub-family of their own, the BMW i sub-brand. Now by the looks of it, the company sure is head over heels with electric car technology and has taken a serious step by creating a dedicated sub-brand for electric cars, which simply means that in future, we’ll see a lot more electrics rolling out of BMW factories! Part of BMW’s strategy to reposition its high-powered marque in a still nascent market, the BMW i will branch out particularly in areas where high-performance gasoline and diesel engines aren’t too common.
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It’s trains all over again. The last time we came across a train out to do some green was Japan’s new high speed rail corridor. Now, designer Vanja Valencak has come up with a train that’s equally fast, and is a lot greener! The EOL magnetic levitating train is as fast as a train can get, designed to shoot through distances at astounding speeds of up to 480kmph. That’s seriously fast and will help shorten distances too. And the best part, this one has a bunch of solar panels up on its roof that soak in the sun and help power up the train’s electricity requirements to some extent, making it cost effective and efficient.
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Here’s a greener way to take to the skies, an electric glider! The two-seat self-launching second generation glider Taurus Electro G2 has hit assembly lines and will soon be on the market. The Taurus Electro by Pipistrel combines performance, safety, and functionality and user friendliness and also outperforms its gasoline powered counterparts! Using the emission-free Pipistrel’s 40kW electric power-train, this one peaks at 40kW at take off and continues ascending at 30kW. Using a power inverter for controls and cockpit ESYS-MAN instruments, the Taurus requires shorter runways for take-off.
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Now green yachts have been spotted sailing before, calmly cruising around, without causing any harm to the environment whatsoever. We’ve seen the Azure and the Green Voyager yachts before that keep their acts clean. Now hybrid yachts go greener and boast higher efficiencies, like the duo unveiled by Guido de Groot Design and Intec Marin. The two concept yachts offer lower noise levels and lower carbon and nitrogen oxide emissions with efficiency scales pushed up. The yachts use the Intec Marine hybrid propulsion concept and measure 27-metres and 34-metres respectively. With the electric propulsion setup by Voith (ILJ850) and two generators, these yachts will keep emission levels as low as possible.
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A blast from the past with an added touch of green straight out of the present, we came across this Imperia car model recently. What keeps it apart from the rest of its kind that pretty much stole the show in the early half of the 20th Century is that it’s hybrid. Using a combination of a 207-horsepowr 1.6-liter turbo four and a 134-hp electric motor, this hybrid version of the beautiful retro car touches the 62mph mark in a meager 6 seconds. That’s pretty fast for a resurrected car with hybrid insides. Unveiled at the Belgian Auto Show after being hammered into place since the last three years, this production prototype has sure left a smile across our faces.
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Charging your electric car at home could be a lot easier in the near future, thanks to Toyota’s new home-based EV charging stations that will roll out on market shelves by 2012. The battery chargers for electric and hybrid cars will also be compatible with non-Toyota cars. The system will be made available in two types, one that will extend from the exterior wall of a home and the other meant to be set up in a garage. Toyota hopes to sell at least 20,000 to 30,000 of these electric car chargers in the first year following its launch. Each of these chargers costs about $2,405, with installation charges included. A system like this will sure help provide an impetus to electric car sales too, given that the major set-back of owning an electric or hybrid car is finding the right place to juice it up.
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Japan will soon have a good chunk of its population leaving their cars at home opting for rail travel instead. The Central Japan Railway recently announced plans to build the world’s fastest train that will travel between Tokyo and Nagoya. A move like this will sure make travelling a load easier, as people will opt for this high-speed train route instead of sitting behind the wheel of their gas-guzzlers waiting for the stop light to change. And leaving all those cars home will sure help clean up the air too! The train will run 178 miles on part of an existing Tokyo-to-Osaka line, with the new line costing $64 billion. The company expects this train to travel at astounding speeds of 310 miles per hour.
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