Students from Virginia Tech have created “smart” brake lights for cars that glow and flash differently depending on what the car is doing.

The system can alert drivers behind you in different ways to show them if you are slowing down, about to stop, and how hard you’re pressing the pedal. It uses a horizontal array of LED lights to create the light show behind your car.

When you begin to slow down, the lights glow orange. After a certain threshold, when you’re about to stop, the side lights glow red. If you’re slamming on the brakes and the cars behind you need to be alerted, the lights will all flash red.

The team behind the project hopes to see their system on commercial vehicles in the future, and we couldn’t agree more. It would take a lot of the guesswork away when driving behind bad drivers. [via Engadget]

The world’s first wooden supercar, called the Splinter, has been unveiled. Producing 600 bhp from its 4.6 liter V8 engine, and with a top speed of 240 mph, this car will leave just about everyone else in the dust.

Splinter is made from a combination of maple, plywood, and MDF, giving it a beautiful look while cutting from its weight. Even the wheels have wooden rims. Joe Harmon, who is heading the project, said, “Wood has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than aluminium or steel, and it possesses a versatility that makes many types of construction techniques possible. The satisfaction involved in making something from a piece of wood is awesome.”

The car also has a roll cage to protect the occupants and stiffen the chassis. We’re guessing that would come in handy seeing as there is an almost infinite number of things that can go wrong with a wooden car. Read more »

Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory have announced a project called Green Freedom, aimed at extracting CO₂ from the air and converting it into fuel to power cars and airplanes.

Green Freedom hopes to provide a method of large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water. Their goal is to create a fuel that will work with today’s existing car and airplane engines.

The footprint of the technology is fairly small. It would outfit existing nuclear power plants with carbon-capture equipment, so no new facilities would need to be built.

This project is a huge leap forward in the quest to protect our environment. Who can complain about taking harmful carbon dioxide out of the air and turning it into fuel? We’re all for this project, and hopefully they can get the technology ready soon so it can be put to work.

Italian car designer Leonardo Fioravanti (of Pininfarina fame) has developed a prototype car with a windshield that doesn’t need wipers. It can brush away water and dirt all by itself.

The car, dubbed Hidra, uses a special aerodynamic design along with four sophisticated surface treatments to the windshield to keep the driver’s view clear. The first treatment filters the sun and repels water. The second is made of nano-dust which is able to push dirt to the edges of the glass. This dust is activated by the third layer, which senses dirt and activates the second layer as necessary. Finally, it’s all topped off by the fourth layer which is a conductor of electricity to power the whole mechanism.

Fioravanti claims that this technology could go into mass production within 5 years, but it already works and has been installed on the Hidra concept car.

Details are still scant, but we wonder how well this technology would work on today’s cars. Hopefully windshield wipers disappear soon. Personally, I hate those things.

Here is a Google translation of the article.

San Francisco-based startup Solazyme has developed a way to convert biomass into fuel using algae, and best of all they promise to do it for the same price as petroleum.

Solazyme uses a new, unconventional, way of growing the algae in huge, dark stainless-steel containers. The algae are then fed sugar which the organisms convert into oil. Different strains of algae produce different kinds of oil. The extracted oil can then be processed into diesel and jet fuel as well as other products.

The company has already tested its algae-based fuel in a diesel car. It has also recently announced a development and testing agreement with Chevron.

This new technology has the potential to replace the oil wells we use to get our oil today. As a much greener alternative, it is sure to appeal to consumers, especially if the prices don’t change (although we wouldn’t mind some gasoline cheaper than $3/gallon).

With so many new alternatives to traditional fuel being developed, it looks like we might not be screwed after all. Thanks, Solazyme!

Penn State scientists have created a new type of solar cell that mimics photosynthesis to produce hydrogen gas directly from water.

Unfortunately, the prototype is inefficient, able to use only about 1% of the light energy falling on it for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen gases. The scientists believe that with some optimization they could get that efficiency up to 10%.

Although still in its infancy, this new technology could eventually make it into cars. That would mean that you would be able to simply pour some water into your H₂-powered vehicle to keep it going.

These solar cells would eliminate the need to build new hydrogen gas stations because they could completely be contained inside a car. This could ease the transition to alternative-fuel vehicles and help us get rid of our dependence on oil.

Tata Motors, India’s largest automaker, will soon start production of the world’s first commercial compressed air-powered car. It estimates that 6,000 of these cars will be made by the end of the year.

The Air Car, as it is cleverly named, was developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, CEO of Moteur Developpement International. It requires no gasoline at all, using compressed air to power its engine’s pistons.

Hold on to your hats, folks! The CityCat model will reach a top speed of 68mph! However, it will have a driving range of 125 miles on a full tank of air and such a trip is estimated to only cost about $2, making it perfect for city driving. If there isn’t a compressor station nearby, you can also plug the Air Car into an outlet and let its built-in compressor fill it up for you in about 4 hours.

Although it is pretty slow, running the Air Car is very cheap and very green. For those that have no business on the freeway, this car will be a perfect replacement for today’s gas guzzlers.

[Via Tech.co.uk]

Rinspeed has resurrected the Lotus submarine-car from the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, but this time it’s real.

Dubbed the sQuba, this transformed Lotus Elise can go straight from land to water. Of course, the car is not sealed so you have to wear a scuba mask attached to the car’s integrated compressed air tank when underwater.

As if being a submarine wasn’t enough, the sQuba is also a zero-emissions vehicle. While on land, the car is completely powered by rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries.

Looks like Rinspeed has way too much time on their hands. Really cool video here, and a gallery after the jump. Read more »