Geely McCar : A Vehicle that Combines Car & Mototcycle

It’s certainly been too long since we’ve featured a cool vehicle. Geely McCar is cool, cute, and has an adorable name to match. Aww. In essence, Geely is an ultra compact, two-door, four-seater with a built-in, folding three wheeled electric scooter in the rear. When the scooter is docked, the car shares both its battery and electric motor to extend the all-electric range or ensure the scooter is fully charged. The vehicle is proposed as having choice of gas-electric hybrid or fully electric powerplants.

The Guangdong Museum in China

The Guangdong Museum is one of four major cultural landmark buildings for the new financial hub in Zhujiang Xincheng of Guangzhou, China. Rocco Design Architects was announced winner of an international competition in May 2004 and was subsequently appointed as the architects of the project. The five-story museum was conceived as an objet d’art at a monumental scale. The new museum is not only designed to house a great variety of fascinating objects of treasure, it is also in itself designed as a treasured object of great fascination that will likely become an identifiable cultural icon.

Better Place signs deal in China; State Grid wants 2,300 swap stations installed by 2015

Better Place has announced a strategic agreement with China Southern Power Grid Co. (CSG), the world’s eighth largest utility company. The first step of the deal calls for the establishment of a battery swapping station and joint education center in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou before year’s end. Meanwhile details of a full-blown joint-venture partnership will be formalized. Additionally, the Guangzhou city government will encourage local automakers to manufacture electric cars with switchable batteries.

CSG chairman, Zhao Jianguo, firmly believes that the “battery-switch model may become mainstream in China.” While Better Place founder and chief executive officer, Shai Aggasi, says that:

Our collaboration with China Southern and the support of the Guangzhou government open the door to new opportunities for switchable-battery electric cars made by Chinese manufacturers for the domestic and export markets.

Better Place sees a trend towards battery swapping being spearheaded by utility companies and local governments in China, says company spokesman John Proctor. Recently, at the “2011 International Forum on Electric Vehicle Pilot City an Industry Development” in Shanghai, the State Grid Corporation of China boldly announced that the nation will likely have more than 2,300 swapping stations installed by the end of 2015.

Shadow Ebike Gets Its Public Debut

Canadian company Daymak has is releasing their wireless electric bicycle called the Shadow Ebike at this year’s China Import and Export Fair, also known as the 109th Canton Fair, hosted in Guanzhou near the southeast coast of China.

The Shadow Ebike features wireless magnetic regenerative brakes, wireless throttle, and wireless pedal assist, coming equipped with either a 250 watt or 350 watt motor. With a 36 volt 10AH lithium battery, and weighing 59 pounds, the electric bike has a top speed of around 20 miles per hour, and a range of about 15 miles without pedal assistance.

image via Daymak

Germany’s 198-GW wind power potential can replace nuclear – study

Image by twicepix via Flickr

Germany’s onshore wind energy potential alone can provide sufficient electricity supply enough to replace nuclear power.

This is according to the study of the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology that was initiated by the German Wind Energy Association.

As of 2010, Germany ranks third in total global installed wind power capacity with around 27.2 gigawatts. This follows the United States with 40.2 GW and China with 44.7 GW.

According to the study, harnessing all the existing wind resource potential can yield 198 GW of installed capacity, which can provide up to 65 percent of the current electricity demand.

R.W.E. president Hermann Albers said the onshore wind energy can provide 390 terawatt-hours out of the current 600 terawatt-hours electricity consumption every year, showing the ability of wind energy to replace nuclear power.

T-box concept to capture wind energy from trains

As anyone living near railway tracks will tell you, speeding trains generate quite a bit of wind as they whoosh past. Industrial designers Qian Jiang and Alessandro Leonetti Luparini have come up with a device that’s installed between the sleepers on a track, and as the train passes overhead, the wind drives a turbine to generate electricity.

The T-box devices could be placed along railway or subway lines, and make good use of an otherwise wasted resource.

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Unlike innovations such as the Solar Roadways project and Solar Wind concept, the T-box device wouldn’t have to depend on a natural energy source, but instead one that is produced as a consequence of human activity. China‘s Jiang and Italy’s Luparini reckon that about 150 of these devices could be installed along a kilometer (0.62 miles) of track and as a train speeds along, the turbines inside the device would generate electricity.

The designers say that the turbine is based on models produced by Hetronix, although the blades are obviously designed to rotate about a central axis within the cylinder housing. Much of the T-box would be below ground level with only the vent showing, and even though the wind produced by passing trains may only come in short bursts, installing them along a busy route should result in a decent amount of energy being produced.

Of course, keeping these babies clean and safe could be a problem. In addition to the dust and debris kicked up as the train speeds along or grime and grease deposits escaping from underneath, protecting such shiny boxes from the destructive hands of vandals could prove somewhat tiresome.

However, it’s an appealing concept with huge potential for further development. The T-box design took silver in last year’s Lite-On awards and was exhibited in Xuexue Institute, Taipei during the summer.

Have a look at the Lite-On presentation video and see what you think: