This is the Wind Explorer, and it is a car that can drive by kite. The Wind Explorer can take credit for breaking three world records: the first continental crossing by a wind-powered vehicle, the longest distance covered by a wind-powered vehicle, and the longest distance covered by a wind-powered vehicle in 36 hours. You can catch a video of it after the jump if you want to see it in motion. The Wind Explorer traveled 3,107 miles across Australia in about 18 days, and it uses only $15 worth of electricity. Talk about your fuel efficiency! It is electrical, and has a battery pack and wind turbine in the back, with a trunk up in front like a Volkswagen. The Wind Explorer is made of carbon fiber and sits over an aluminum frame on top of a bicycle tires. You will notice in the video that driving this vehicle involves some sort of control that looks like kiteboarding. The kite is powerful enough to have the ability to lift someone off of the ground. The kite pulls the vehicle, while s...
Imagine getting behind the wheel of your car, and no hands were required on the wheel. This is the technology of BrainDriver which is under development at Freie Universität Berlin by professor Raul Rojas. BrainDriver uses a head cap with 16 sensors that allow the driver to have control over the wheel. This is electroencephalography in action, and it is technology that is getting better every day. We have reported on computers that can do this, and all BrainDriver does is create a system for guiding the steering wheel. There’s a video after the jump so you can see how it works. You will note that they aren’t testing this on the real road with real traffic yet. You’ll also notice that the driver seems quite young. The first thing I thought was “I am surprised he has his license”. Speaking of thoughts, I’m not certain whether or not thought driving is such a good idea. I mean, when I drive, I think an action and then I do it. This Braindriver had be...
Some of you have heard about the Zonda, a huge leader in top speed and power contests for automobiles. The Zonda is made by Italian supercar manufacturer Pagani Automobili SpA. They have a new model called the Huayra, named after the ancient God of the wind Huayra Tata. It has a six-liter, 12 cylinder engine with two turbochargers built by Mercedes-Benz’s AMG performance unit. This engine “breathes through a pair of air intakes behind the occupants that the company”, and is a “tribute” to supersonic aircraft of the late 1950s and 1960s. So far, Pagani has developed five Huayra prototypes, and has road-tested for about the past four years. They traveled for more than 300,000 miles and they plan to cover about 600,000 miles before they come to the United States. The Huayra is planned to debut at the Geneva Motor Show next month, and the price is going to be about $1 million dollars. Remember in the Austin Powers movies how everyone laughed when Dr. Evil...
If there is one thing that I have noticed about Hammacher’s products, it is the use of adjectives. While some of them might sound out of this world (as our readers have pointed out in the past via comments), surely they haven’t gotten slapped with a lawsuit before for false advertising, which means their claims are legit? Here we are today with another device – known as The Most Convenient Bluetooth Headset. Why is it called that, you ask? Well, apparently it will remain charged in a car and automatically reconnect with your cell phone. The headset will juice up from a base which plugs into your 12-volt DC adapter, hence doing away with the need to charge up your headset inside every time. The moment you enter the vehicle, the headset will automatically reconnect with your paired cell phone, which isn’t different at all from the automatic reconnection of a built-in hands-free system. You will be able to enjoy crystal clear conversation since the headset boasts ...
I get in a car these days and I’m amazed that I actually get where I’m going without getting killed, or at least seriously maimed. There are simply too many people on the road. Sometimes while stuck in traffic I remember the Jetsons, you know, the cartoon about the space age family, they had cars that drove themselves, well, they could fly too, but thats besides the point. GM has introduced an amazing concept that I always dreamed would someday exist on our streets, the EN-V. By combining a Global Positioning System (GPS) with specialized vehicle-to-vehicle communications and distance-sensing technology, the EN-V concept can be driven manually or, get this… it can drive itself. Its operating systems offer the hope of reducing traffic congestion by allowing the EN-V to select the fastest route based on real-time traffic data. My husband tries to do that, but it never works out that well. The concept also utilizes wireless communications to enable a “social network” that c...
I love the feel of the wind in my hair, my leather jacket against my skin and the power of a Harley Davidson motorcycle under my butt… Just me and the open road, bugs in my teeth, listening to the growl of my American made beast, and um, my iPod… Okay, I don’t ride a damn bike, but if I did, I’d want a Dashlink Console. Marketed by Hell’s Foundry, the DashLink Console is a replacement fuel tank with a built-in dock for the iPhone or the iPod. The docking station’s design is very unobtrusive and looks great on the bike. The dock contains a self-sensing on/off circuit so when there are no devices present, the bike’s energy is conserved. The DashLink console offers the rider the abilty to listen to music or use the GPS Navigation enabled on their iDevice and some models even allow the volume controls of the iPhone or iPod to be adjusted with the stock handlebars. The original DashLink Docking console is compatible with the Harley Davidson FLHT/FLTR and the FLHR....
I always love to report on flying cars as much as I can. This one, which is called the iCar, doesn’t need any wings or magic to fly but uses specially designed wheels. Apparently round spinning surfaces can create lift, which is called the Magnus Effect. The iCar takes advantage of the Magnus Effect to turn its wheels into wings. On the ground, the iCar is a one seater sports car with four traditional wheels and giant cylindrical hubs. To get airborne, it extends its hubs outward to create a larger lifting surface, the hubcaps on the two front wheels swivel forward to turn into propellers, and the car is ready for takeoff. As it starts to move forward, the cylinder wings spin (driven by electric motors), and they generate enough lift to get the iCar airborne in about 1,500 feet. Apparently, the car has a range of about 500 miles and has a cruising speed of 200 miles per hour. As you can see, the iCar is in its concept stage, which is visible in this particular mock-up. I̵...