Category Archives: Transport
Did someone whisper rumors of an electric Rolls Royce Phantom in your ear lately? Well, we bring you good tidings. It isn’t so much of a rumor anymore! The Rolls Royce Motor Cars company has finally announced the unveiling of an electric powered Phantom 102EX at the Geneva Motor Show to take place on the 1st of March, 2011! For now just a test car, this one will help the company gather all the essential information required to make suitable changes to the model before it finally hits assembly lines and ends up in the garages of the rich and wealthy. The car will be the first electric vehicle in the ultra-luxury segment and will be the basis for future alternative-energy powered cars by Rolls Royce. The car will tour Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America as part of the testing program.
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Smart, Daimler’s minicar maker is trying all its tricks to bring the little ForTwo back. The little car has been “aaww”ed about before and has had a few takers too. However, with the dawn of the little electrics, the little ForTwo is slowly being pushed off the asphalt and it’s smart of Smart to come up with this new roofless version of the Smart ForTwo called the ForSpeED, powered by electricity that will show up at the Geneva Motor Show. The car is a pure concept, keeps out the door handles, and also boasts a toneau cover to protect you from the elements. With a 41-hp electric motor, pushing the pedal down takes this one to 37 miles per hour in 5.5 seconds, with a top speed of 75 mph. A top speed like that somewhat contradicts the car’s name though. The “ED” in the name stands for Electric Drive.
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So you probably couldn’t figure out just what would make a cooler ride around the neighborhood, a skateboard or a bicycle. Well, here’s a unique contraption that takes the front end of a BMX and the back end of a skateboard, put together to form the Sbyke! Perfect to get around at pit areas, the Sbyke was designed to cater to a specific market from the looks of it, this one sure seems to be a great way to get around, taken that it requires no energy except you own. Also, it keeps the air clean with no emissions whatsoever.
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If you love gadgets and the sets of four wheels, here’s a ride that’ll
make you drool right down to your keyboards. The Rinspeed BamBoo
concept electric car by Rinderknecht packs in just about everything
required to have you smiling at the first look. Well, maybe all those
sponser stickers might seem a mild turn-off, but then again, it’s a
concept car for now, and those stickers are sure to vanish once it
hits production lines. Anyways, the BamBoo’s dashboard packs in a VDO
display and a docking station for the new HTC Flyer Tablet. The car is
fitted with some amazing JBL GreenEdge speaker too, to keep your feet
tapping. Using a 54 kW electric motor capable of a 120km/h top speed
with a range of 105 kilometers before, the BamBoo shuns the use of
buttons for its instrument panel, instead fitted with old-school
switches s for the wipers, lights, hazards, etc.
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And yet again, the greenest car around is the Honda Civic GX. The car came out on top as the greenest car in the industry once again on a list by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a non-profit organization that released its 14th annual environmental ratings list yesterday. The car powered by natural gas is the greenest in the year 2011, followed by the all-electric Nissan Leaf, while the Chevrolet Volt made it to the bottom of the list. Standing atop the list for a good seven years now, the Civic GX runs on compressed natural gas (CNG) and keeps the air clean. The only setback is the required installation of a CNG home-filling station, or probably a local CNG station that are at time rare. The Toyota Prius took the fourth place, after the Smart Fortwo cabriolet and coupe.
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Very soon, driving around in a four-wheeler might seem plain stupid, given that you could just about travel anywhere, on a single wheel instead. The Solowheel is just what its name suggest, a solo wheel and a better way to get around town. First of all, this one’s pin-drop silent, and also, it creates no pollution. Using a 1,000-watt Lithium-ion battery, the 20 pound wheel works for a good 2 hours on a single charge before it whines for more juice. Using the principle of Gyroscopes, this one accelerates when the user leans forward and slows down on leaning backwards. Also, it takes just about 15 minutes to master the use of this one.
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Whoever needs gasoline or any of those ever-polluting fossil fuels, when you can have a vehicle that powers up with the wind! Known as the Wind Explorer, this three-wheeled contraption is on a three-week voyage from Perth to Sydney, costing the travelers Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer just A$16 (£10)! This is the world’s first self-sufficient wind-powered car and uses lithium batteries. The batteries are charged up using wind turbines during the night time. Weighing in at 200kg, the car can travel at about 88.5kmph.
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Well you aren’t the only one who takes social networking seriously. Automakers do so too, to an extent that some of them design and develop special edition cars to celebrate the number of fans on their fan-pages! Porsche, recently in the news for its not-so-mysterious Geneva Auto Show release has unveiled a special edition Facebook Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid car to celebrate the 1 million fans that’ve supported the company on Facebook. The car has the signatures of around 27,000 Facebook fans on its exterior, and the car will be shown-off at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. The car is and will always be an exhibit, so no amount of money can have this one in your garage.
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The suspense Porsche has kept the world in with regards to its hybrid vehicle release at the 2011 Geneva Auto Show might not be so much of a surprise anymore, given that most of us have been guessing this one to be the Panamera S Hybrid. The car, powered by gas and electricity, gets its insides from the Hybrid Cayanne S by Porsche, and will be released in late 2011 in the US markets. Experts predict that the car will produce a good 380hp and will be one of the few vehicles out there capable of functioning perfectly well at slow speeds, with electricity alone. Also, Porsche aren’t letting out any news of this green Panamera, and we suspect it to be more expensive than the Panamera S model, that costs $89,800 and is powered by gas.
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The cars we use today just keep chocking the life out of our environment day by day. And every time we rev our engines our leave our cars on at traffic signals and such, we blow up a load of fuel and at the same time, spout out carbon emissions. Well, before you go ahead and dump your gas-powered car in the future, here’s a device to help keep a check on your current car’s emissions. The Eco-Navigator is basically a GPS navigation device with a high-speed internet access and an Eco-Way mode. This mode plugs into your car’s diagnostic port, and keeps a check on your car’s current miles-per-gallon, throttle position (as a 0-100 percentage), and pounds of CO2 emitted per mile. The device also gives out information on the ideal stats your car should throw up, allowing you to alter the way you drive accordingly and helping increase fuel efficiency!
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