YikeBike, The Urban Bike
Less than 10 kilograms weighs. Reaches 20 mph. Works with electricity, recharges in half an hour and fit under the arm. Yes, you can call YikeBike the perfect urban bike.
YikeBike first appeared in German Eurobike trade show. It is ideal to bypass city traffic without causing pollution. It can be folded, put in your bag and save it anywhere, making it easier to go everywhere, get it on buses, trains and cars, or place it in a closet. The YikeBike is the five years of research result of Grant Ryan team, an inventor and entrepreneur from New Zealand.
“Cycling is the most common form of transportation in the world, but most bicycles sold today are designed to go up the mountain, or to be stable at 50 miles per hour on the highway,” explains Ryan. “Most people live in cities, requires no pedaling through the mountains or go as fast as 50 mph to moves through a city.”
YikeBike replaced the chain, gears, pedals, brake pads, cables and levers by an electric motor and smart electronics. Mini-YikeBike has a radically different riding position (more upright position than traditional), a steering mechanism to match the body, not ahead, and the configuration of the drive wheel in front and a little behind for balance . “After years of debate and experimentation, we developed a new position and pilot wheel that is as stable as the bicycle current configuration,” says Ryan.
See this video for details:
Price? Between 3,500 to 3,900 Euros. Hmmm….
Panasonic Use Notebook Batteries to Power Electric Cars
According to Nikkei, the largest business publication in Japan, Panasonic was thinking of how to feed their electric cars using lithium-ion batteries, the same used in netbooks. It would lower some costs as we might expect.
They would be to replace the dozens of lithium batteries that are usually needed to power the electric car with thousands of cylindrical batteries originally designed for netbooks. It has positive effect on costs.
The goal of this is that Panasonic wants to lower the cost of the power system in midsize cars from $ 33,000 (22.697 euros) that cost now, to $ 11.000 (7.565 euros) which is a huge discount.
The idea is good, and indeed already been thought of by the company Tesla’s Roadster in 2008 to use batteries designed for domestic appliances.
Vía | CrunchGear
TomTom on iPhone
The TomTom navigation program is now available for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, the first generation iPhone that has no GPS receiver.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland cards come from Tele Atlas are available in the Apple App Store for 69.99 euros. Meanwhile the whole of Western Europe cards available for 99.99 Euro.
TomTom uses the features of the iPhoneas usual like over and multi-touch zoom control. From the Address Book, you can direct the destination of the route to choose.
The package also IncludeIQ Routes service: the travel time based on experience of other TomTom users This is taken into account at what times of the traffic on the roads particularly dense. Up to 35 percent faster to do with his IQ Routes.
In addition, TomTom shows the locations of speed cameras in eleven countries in Europe – but not in Germany.
The cards can be in 2D or 3D display, in high-as in the landscape. TomTom also had a car mount for the iPhone announced. When these appear, it is still unclear.
ATNMBL, The Car of Tomorrow
Industrial designers Mike & Maaike have designed ATNMBL, a concept vehicle for 2040 where driving is not the basic premise. The car is a recreation area, an environment like home, that brings us to the destination by itself.
ATNMBL is short for Autonomobile, a title that merges Autonomy with the Automobile. There is no steering wheel, brake pedal or driver’s seat. ATNMBL drives for you. The idea is to ride (not drive) an electric motor powered by solar panels on the roof. As the designers say, the car is packed with sensors that will interact with other vehicles and the road ahead. The layout of the interior resembles a living room with sofa, table and chairs.
The autonomous operation of the car based on GPS, radar, cameras and accelerometers, along with advanced voice recognition system.
All these fancy data lead us to a future of automotive world, where there are no drivers or even cars. I hope a long time for this vehicle, if it ever happens, will be realized.
Two Solar Vehicles That Would Use by James Bond
Most often we see a car based on alternative energies such as solar cars, hydrogen or hybrid … we think of designs that not look normal or even ugly.
However, it is not happened on Koenigsegg Quant. Well, besides having a strange and difficult name to pronounce, is a solar car-shaped sports capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 in 5.2 seconds. that could get to use some the upcoming film Batman or James Bond.
This is a prototype car with an electric motor that would be covered by a thin layer of a material which would function as a solar panel. This solar panel that covers the car is used to charge the internal battery of the engine, something could be done also with a normal plug in just 20 minutes.
What is interesting is that apparently the Koenigsegg Quant could enter production soon, through the Swedish company Saab … but I fear that if you do not want a cheap way out the door.
Moreover, the Code-X-Yacht, is a mini-yacht designed by the Swiss Code X AG works together with gas and solar …
Not only has a futuristic design, including solar panels on top, but it also moves through a Formula 1 engine, so you can imagine the speed you can reach.
At the moment no price idea available.
