Hasta La Gadget!

London would do well to dispense with the Concept label right now and just turn these into its next fleet of people carriers. Volkswagen has unveiled the latest in a series of World Taxis it’s doing, prettying up London’s admittedly iconic black cabs with a sheen of new paint, an all-electric drive, and an infusion of tablet-based infotainment. Based on the Up! city car, the London Taxi Concept has an estimated range of 186 miles and takes an hour to go from zero to an 80 percent charge. It also has a grayscale version of the Union Jack emblazoned on its roof, guess that’s just how VW rolls. Sadly, we doubt anyone will be in a hurry to heed our sage advice and start using this concept any time soon, particularly since it doesn’t pass London’s taxi regulations at present, but it’s a harbinger of a future we’d like to see become real.

Continue reading Volkswagen’s London Taxi Concept: smaller, prettier, more electric than the real thing

Volkswagen’s London Taxi Concept: smaller, prettier, more electric than the real thing originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hertz is getting serious about its about-to-launch, by-the-hour plug in car rental service Connect by Hertz. Set to launch on December 15th in New York City, the company has plans to extend the service into San Francisco, Washington D.C, Texas and London by the end of 2011. The list of cars in the fleet which will be available to rent now includes the previously announced Nissan Leaf, the Volt, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Tesla Roadster, the Smart ED, and the Coda Sedan. The program will start extremely small, with only 20 total vehicles available to rent to begin with, but with a plan for between 500 and 1,000 by the end of 2011. The Hertz EV rental program has a fee to join up, and the cars will be rented on a first come, first served basis, but you can sign up now if you’re ready to get behind the wheel of one of the aforementioned silent bad boys.

Hertz plug-in rental program to boast 1,000 vehicles, including the Tesla Roadster originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sir Clive Sinclair, the English egghead that invented the revolutionary ZX Spectrum computer, and then went on the make the widely ridiculed C5 electric trike, is back with another, erm, electric bike.

Maybe Sir Clive was just way ahead of his time when he launched the C5 back in 1985, as this pod-like electric vehicle actually looks pretty smart today. The egg-shaped bubble is called the X-1, and works a lot like a recumbent, with a comfy seat, forward-mounted pedals and a nice, high, chopper-style handlebar. Then things get interesting.

The X-1 packs a 24v lithium-polymer battery which drives a slightly underpowered 190-Watt motor via a fixed-gear drivetrain. Disk-brakes front and back provide stopping power and built-in lights let the cars see you sat down in the road.

The whole vehicle weighs 30Kg, which is rather heavy for a bike, and I wonder if it could make it up a steep hill with that 190 Watt motor – especially as recumbents aren’t so great at climbing as it is. It could be heavier, though: the lower shell is made from carbon fiber to reduces weight (the chassis is steel and the screen is acrylic).

Most astonishing is the price, something that Sinclair managed to get right almost every time. The X-1 cost just £595, or $962, making it as cheap or much cheaper than many more normally-styled electric bikes.

In London, bike use has rocketed in recent years thanks to better infrastructure and rising transport costs. Could Sinclair’s X-1, which is uniquely suited to England’s rainy climate, actually take off? Maybe, but don’t expect this to be a welcome site in the capital’s bike-lanes, which the product blurb assures us the X-1 is allowed to use.

Available 2011.

Sinclair X-1 [Sinclair ZX]

See Also:

• Electric Bike Runs (Almost) on Water
• Gocycle Black, The Non-Electric Electric Bike
• Review: A2B Electric Bike Puts Some Buzz Into Backpedaling …
• E-Solex: French Electric Bike with Italian Style
• 3X3 Recumbent Trike for Scary Bearded Children
• Recumbent Trike is Less Portland, More Tron

116 miles in an electric vehicle? No problem. But you’ll quite literally be pushing your new Nissan Leaf another 250 miles to achieve what’s being hailed as a world record in Germany. Little Lekker Mobil, a four-seat Audi A2 refitted with an experimental electric powerplant as part of a government sponsored project with Germany’s lekker Energie and DBM Energy, just completed a 372-mile (600-km) stretch of road between Munich and Berlin on a single charge, a journey that lasted around seven hours. Even with the heater running, the modified A2 with fully usable trunk arrived with spare electricity in the “tank.” The battery uses DBM Energy’s KOLIBRI AlphaPolymer Technology said to be 97 percent efficient and chargeable from virtually any socket — plug it into a high voltage DC source and it can be fully charged in just six minutes according to the car’s driver and battery inventor, Mirko Hannemann. While Hannemann wouldn’t be pinned down on pricing for the battery, the 27 year old did say that it would be more powerful and cheaper than conventional lithium ion batteries. He even went so far as to suggest that his company was ready to begin mass production of the batteries now — presumably aided by the large sacks of money he’ll be handed after pulling off the record breaking stunt.

DBM Energy’s electric Audi A2 completes record setting 372 mile drive on a single charge originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Focus Designs Self Balancing Unicycle (SBU) has hit version 2.0. Seeing as we never covered the previous versions here on Gadget Lab, we’ll only mention one improvement before getting straight to the specs (And, of course, the snark). The new SBU ditches the dirty old chain and external motor for an internal hub motor, making the whole thing much cleaner, both visually and literally.

The electric motor of this one-wheeled Segway puts out 1,000 watts (against 350 watts in the original), and three gyroscopes make for easier and smoother turning. This, along with lowered foot pegs, makes it easier both to learn and to ride.

Finally, the battery has been bumped to 5 amp-hours for an average 12-mile range, and a maximum speed of 10 mph. Regenerative braking helps conserve juice by charging the battery as you slow down.

You can buy the new SBU starting in November, and it’ll cost you $1,500.

And the snark? Well, the machine actually looks pretty cool, and a lot of fun to ride. Take a look at this video, though, and you’ll see just how to make people hate you when you ride it: Talk on your cellphone and mug for the camera while doing some lame hip-hop music-video hand gestures. Cool!

SBU v2 [Focus Designs]

See Also:

• Nimbus Ultimate Wheel: A Minimalist Unicycle
• Flawed Bike Concept for Danger-Loving Hipsters
• The Sideways Bike: Like Surfing the Streets
• Unibot, the 3D-Stablized, One-Wheeled Robot
• 50 MPH HyperBike Rolls Into Action