Hello SPRING season – and Hello Daylight Saving !
YES !!!! 5th October – Spring season starts officially in Australia !!!!!!
This is magnificent and beautiful !!!!!! Never seen before stuff !!!!!
This is a reminder for all of you in Australia – to turn your clocks forward ONE hour for the official start to day light saving on Sunday 5 October, 2008.
Turn Your Clocks FORWARD by ONE HOUR .
2008/2009
Starts: 2am Standard Time (Eastern Standard Time) on Sunday 5 October, 2008
Ends: 3am Standard Time (Eastern Standard Time) on Sunday 5 April, 2009 .
Daylight saving time (DST; also, summer time in British English; see Terminology) is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. Modern DST was first proposed in 1907 by the English builder William Willett. Many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally.
The practice is controversial.[1] Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,[2] but causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun.[3][4] Extra afternoon daylight reduces traffic fatalities;[5] its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity,[6] modern heating and cooling usage patterns greatly differ and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and contradictory.[7]
DST’s clock shifts can serve as fire safety reminders,[8] but they complicate timekeeping and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, and heavy equipment.[9] Many computer-based systems can adjust their clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change.[10]
Designing Cars for Low-Carbon Chic
As governments seek to cut carbon emissions through regulation and consumers react to rising fuel prices, automakers and designers are mapping out a new generation of lighter, sleeker vehicles that could give a radical new look to urban streets.
Toyota has already set a benchmark for low emissions and fuel economy. Its Prius model, introduced in 1997, pioneered new technologies, including the first fully integrated hybrid engine, able to switch between gasoline and battery power, and electronic and computerized controls replacing heavy hydraulic systems.
Toyota has been followed by another Japanese company, Honda, with a Civic hybrid, and a string of releases or planned models from European and American competitors. Carmakers are now racing to design more innovative bodies incorporating advanced aerodynamics and light, biodegradable plastic components. They are also trying to second-guess the kind of styling that the next generation of car buyers will want.
Gilles Vidal, designer of a recent “green” concept car, the C-Cactus, for the French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën, said, “To make a real environmental effort, you need to work on all of the possible factors — materials, optimization of processes, simplifying, going back to essentials.”
Students at Créapôle, a leading industry-sponsored design school in Paris, are among those working with manufacturers to develop new designs and technologies that could become auto industry standards.
Alec Moran, a final-year master’s student at the school, said that instead of selling cars based on the size of the engine, the car’s relationship with its surroundings and how it interacts with people should be increasingly important.
“We are trying to develop the aesthetic element of the shape and interior comfort while assimilating the car’s essence to the cultural needs of a particular social group,” he said.
The evolution in fuel economy is continuing. For example, Ford fitted its EcoBoost engine this year to the new Lincoln MKS and Ford Flex models. The motor combines direct injection for higher fuel efficiency with additional turbo-charged power generated by using waste exhaust gas energy.
Guy Negre, a motor engineer and founder of MDI Enterprises, a company that studies new technologies and production concepts to reduce the environmental impact of carbon dioxide, invented a compressed-air engine in 1996. The engine emits one-third the carbon dioxide of conventional motors of the same size. Cold air, compressed in tanks to 300 times atmospheric pressure, is heated and fed into the cylinders of a piston engine. No combustion takes place, meaning there is no pollution, although the energy needed to compress the air may still come from polluting oil- or coal-burning power stations.
“Obviously, we are obliged to make changes to the design in relation to the requirements and specifics of new technologies,” Mr. Negre said. “The weight, for example, is extremely important for many reasons. The heavier a vehicle is, the more energy is needed to power it and the more it pollutes.”
Mr. Negre’s engine will be offered as an option in Tata Motor’s new production model, the Nano, next year. The Nano, a minicar with an ultralow price tag, was introduced in January and is primarily aimed at the Indian market. Mr. Negre said a full tank of compressed air would cost about $3 and provide about 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, of driving. The tank could be filled by gas station compressors used for inflating tires, or a built-in compressor powered by plugging in to an electrical outlet, he said.
Designers at automakers like Chrysler, Toyota and Citroën are already adapting to changing customer needs and perceptions. The Citroën C-Cactus, a retro take on the legendary 2CV, is designed for a post-SUV urban world where small is beautiful and low environmental impact is a top priority.
Maria Mack, a senior design specialist in Brussels for Toyota, said, “From the very first stage of design, the project leader responsible for a particular vehicle sets environmental impact reduction targets.”
The C-Cactus is an example of how manufacturers are experimenting to reduce the industry’s total carbon footprint, including production and driving emissions. Besides choosing a hybrid engine, Mr. Vidal, its designer, said, he halved the weight of the car and simplified everything that could be simplified to cut energy consumption.
Olivier Frémont, head of Créapôle’s department of transport design, said: “Four or five years ago much of our design work was focused on the Chinese and emerging markets. But in the last three years or so trends have radically changed as designers have become much more ecologically minded.”
He added, “We are regularly looking to simplify the vehicle whether it be outside or inside,” and he said that “we are coming back to basic questions of what is actually useful inside the vehicle, what we actually need.”
Mr. Moran, the Créapôle student, has designed a car that addresses two main issues: the escalation of oil prices and the need to minimize environmental impacts. His car runs on an electric motor using a lithium-ion battery, substantially lighter than traditional lead-acid batteries. It has a chassis made of bamboo, reinforced with spiders’ silk and plant resin.
Car companies like Mazda are looking to bioplastics for the fenders and dashboards of future models. Mazda says that the plastic will be made from cellulosic biomass produced from inedible vegetation like plant waste and wood shavings. Toyota’s concept car, the COMS BP, an electric vehicle, also uses bioplastics for some of its body parts, including the hood, pillars and roof.
Mr. Moran said his car was designed for people he likes to call “No-Nos” — those who reject mainstream consumerism and popular advertising.
“ ‘No-Nos’ are a growing minority of people who care a great deal about their carbon footprint,” Mr. Moran said. “Aesthetically conventional but technically advanced,” he said, his target buyers would be “activist consumers who are both thoughtful and introspective.”
Cyril Randuineau, another master’s student at the school, spent some time at Toyota’s main design center in Tokyo, where he studied cultural trends and noticed that many Japanese people had small garages and tended to travel in groups.
His response was to design a car with a miniaturized hybrid engine to maximize passenger space within a small frame, and a molded cocoonlike interior where driver and passengers could relax in comfort when stationary.
He has also designed a car for an emerging African market that he hopes will take off in the future. He says that rising oil prices will open up the market for exciting new technologies using electricity and solar power, all of which will change the shape and functions of the car.
“It’s uncertain that this type of car would actually have mass appeal,” Mr. Moran said. “The aim of this project is really to throw the idea out there.”
What Young designers dream of ?
THE design studies known as concept cars, which are staples at auto shows and often inspirations for the cars of tomorrow, are also test beds for new ideas. The newest designers in an automaker’s studio often have a hand in these — with ideas that spring from creative young minds to become dream-car matter.
Who, at the moment, are the young designers worth watching, the young people who may become the next Ralph Gilles (creator of the Chrysler 300) or Franz von Holzhausen (who designed the Pontiac Solstice before moving to Mazda)? In conversations with senior designers, auto executives and design school faculty members, a few names came up over and over.
Here is a look at some up-and-comers who played significant roles in creating concept vehicles being displayed at major auto shows this year, including some that will be featured at the New York auto show, which opens to the public on Friday, March 21:
BILL ZHENG
CHRYSLER
Even when he lived a half a world away, Bill Zheng, 30, seemed destined to become a designer for Chrysler. Mr. Zheng said he had been a fan of Jeeps since he was a child in Shanghai. Then, in the 1990s, after his family moved to Michigan, he was impressed by the “dynamite” concept cars and production models coming from Chrysler’s studios.
And Chrysler designers were involved in the industrial design program at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio, where, in addition to car design, Mr. Zheng got experience in furniture and product design. He was hired by Chrysler upon his graduation in 2000 and is now design manager for small, premium and family vehicles.
The Dodge Zeo, a design study for a sporty electric car, sprang from a studio competition. “Bill’s design hit it out of the park with the first sketch,” said Joe Dehner, vice president for small, premium and family vehicles. “It was a side view with the doors open and it blew me away proportionally. At the end of the day, big wheels and tires, a long wheelbase and short overhangs still look good.”
The end result was an electric car that defies expectations. Mr. Zheng contended that electric vehicles will yet become as common as those powered by gasoline or diesel fuel, and that they deserved to have different design personalities. “So to say that electric cars should look like electric cars is a dated thing,” he said.
He did, however, want a hint of an electric vehicle identity. So, the conventional grille was abandoned in favor of a version illuminated by blue L.E.D.’s.
“The Zeo is basically a muscle car, but it’s not powered by a V-8,” Mr. Zheng said. “It’s quiet, but it goes superfast. The image of a green car is kind of timid. I’m very environmentally conscious, but I love sports cars.”
JENNIFER HEWLETT
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
As part of an image overhaul for Lincoln, the brand imagined its latest concept car, the MKT, as an example of guilt-free luxury, a seeming contradiction in terms. Jennifer Hewlett, 28, a color and materials designer, was tapped to come up with an appropriate interior.
At the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Ms. Hewlett studied industrial design, fine arts and furniture building, gaining experience in working with wood, metal, fiber, ceramics and glass, and particularly in learning about how to relate such materials to one another. “It’s one of the crucial points of a vehicle, all these materials coming together and harmonizing,” she said.
Her previous work included color and materials for the 2009 MKS.
“When the new MKS was coming out we thought it would be a really good match for her because of her taste level, her sense of style, as well as her skills,” said Susan Sage, the color and materials design manager at Ford.
It was because of the success of those vehicles that Ms. Hewlett was chosen to be part of the team that designed the 2007 MKR concept car and now the MKT, Ms. Sage said.
Ms. Hewlett said that with the MKT, her design inspiration was a feather. She tried to bring the lightness, translucence and layering of a feather to the colors in the passenger cabin, while using earth-friendly materials, like a rug made with banana fibers.
The stained oak veneers come from recycled oak, already found in some other Lincolns. The MKT’s leather is made using an organic tanning method, free of harsh chromium additives.
Ms. Hewlett said she liked using these organic materials and processes because, “It’s something that makes our customers feel good about the products they are buying.”
BERNARD LEE
MAZDA
Furai is Japanese for “sound of the wind.” Streamers, kite tails and a sheet in the wind are images that Bernard Lee, 32, imagined when designing the Furai (pronounced FOO-rye) concept.
“I chose wind because a racecar is all about downforce, and aerodynamics are very key to its function,” he said. “So I wanted to see how materials can be manipulated by the wind and get the visual interpretation of that force of nature.
“If you look on the body side of the car, there are these really waving lines, and it’s supposed to mimic the way a sheet in the wind moves. At the beginning, it’s very graceful, and then as you get to the tail end of the sheet it becomes very turbulent and it flutters.”
Franz von Holzhausen, design director for Mazda North America, said Mr. Lee’s model had “a really nice balance of proportion, of sense of movement, of controlled chaos and quietness.”
After graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1997, Mr. Lee spent three years at Honda and seven years at Ford. He joined Mazda a year ago and is a senior designer.
Though he had drawn cars since he was 5, Mr. Lee might have become a doctor like his father had his parents had their way. Instead, it was a sixth-grade teacher in Los Angeles, who had caught him drawing in class, who steered him on the road to design.
“I thought I was going to be in a lot of trouble,” he said. “But she took my drawing and said, ‘That’s pretty good.’ She told me her son was a car designer and that I could do this for a living. She showed me some of his drawings, and I was so blown away that someone could be so talented and draw cars for a living.
“Because of her,” he added, “I got to live out a childhood dream.”
GARY RAGLE
MITSUBISHI
It is as if Gary Ragle never had a choice but to be somehow involved with autos: he is the third generation in his family to work in the auto industry. His grandfather worked for British Leyland; his father for Ford.
Now Mr. Ragle, 29, is a senior designer for Mitsubushi Motors Research and Design of America in Cypress, Calif.
“I was always good at art and I always loved cars from Day 1,” he said. “My dad is a big hot-rod guy and some of my earliest memories were being crammed into the small front seat of a ‘34 Chevy coupe going to the hot-rod shows.”
But it wasn’t until Mr. Ragle attended the University of Cincinnati in his hometown and decided to go into industrial design that he found out people could make a living designing cars. When he graduated in 2002 he joined Mitsubishi.
Dave O’Connell, the studio’s chief designer, said: “Gary is very creative, innovative and very hard-working, and as an artist the guy does amazing art work. You look at the renderings that he does, even the loose sketches, and they really get you excited. And I’ve been a designer for 30 years.”
The assignment that became the Concept RA (which stands for “Road Alive”) was to design a vehicle that would showcase new technology, including a 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine and all-wheel drive.
His vision was selected after an internal design competition against about 30 others from Mitsubishi’s studios in Japan, Germany and California.
He said the Concept RA doesn’t look environmentally friendly, although the diesel was intended to provide good fuel economy and low emissions. “There are vehicles like the Prius out there that look environmentally friendly, but I think a sports car should look like a sports car,” he said.
MICHAEL THOMAS
GENERAL MOTORS
If someone says “automotive design,” what usually comes to mind is a vehicle’s exterior, not components like the steering wheel or radio. General Motors’ Michael Thomas, 30, admitted that he was no different.
“You don’t think of it that much, which is kind of ironic considering that’s what you interact with the most,” he said. Now, after working in component design — he is creative designer for G.M.’s Component Design Strategy Center — Mr. Thomas has a different perspective. He designed the steering wheel for the Cadillac CTS.
He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art and was initially interested in jewelry design, partly because of the influence of his parents, who were stained-glass artists.
Working at Ford, Bose and finally G.M., Mr. Thomas gained a growing understanding that parts of the interior can be a kind of jewelry that are important to a brand’s image and to an owner.
“For the CTS you really want to emphasize luxury and quality,” he said. “It becomes critical to iron out things like the fit and finish, craftsmanship and materials so that when the customer is handling it, it feels like luxury and it feels like quality.”
He likened the CTS wheel, with its leather and stitching, to a fine purse. “You say, ‘What makes the leather in a purse appear high-end, and how can we incorporate that into the design?’ ”
As a musician who plays professionally with his wife, he draws inspiration from instruments. “If you look at the details of a clarinet, something people have been using for centuries, that design has been so refined and executed so perfectly. That can be inspirational.”
MATT SPERLING
TOYOTA
The A-BAT, a four-wheel-drive hybrid pickup, is Toyota’s attempt to respond not just to compact trucks that are getting bigger and bigger, but to increasingly important environmental issues.
Matt Sperling, 28, of Toyota’s Calty design studio in Newport Beach, Calif., designed the A-BAT’s exterior. He said he could relate to those issues.
“I have a Tacoma myself and I love that thing to death, but sometimes it’s a little too big for me,” he said. “This was kind of my own personal response to that. If I could get my hands on this in real life I would use it every day.”
To make an environmental connection and link it to the Toyota hybrid family, Mr. Sperling gave the concept the trapezoidal silhouette of the Prius.
Mr. Sperling was hired in 2002 after studying at the College for Creative Studies, where his mother had enrolled him in a car-design course when he was a high school senior. Her reasoning: at school, he was always drawing cars instead of paying attention.
“It was the most brutal course I ever took,” he recalled, “but it got me introduced to the world of car design. I fell in love and that was it.”
Day V – Cad Model
Finalised the front end scoop – and started the work on the rear end …
Interview with Flexicar CEO – Monique Conheady
Interview with Ms.Monique Conheady, CEO of Melbourne based car sharing company – explaining all the details about car-sharing – a concept that has recently taken off in major metro cities, proposing car as a part of city’s public transport , in order to say NO to private car ownership………….Melbourne, Sydney,Adelaide, Perth, London,Boston,Toronto,Paris……….just almost 5 years old…..and its growing fast worldwide…….
Public Transport
Integrating Car Sharing into MYKI
Plan to make Melbourne a car free city
Competition in car sharing
Expansion of Flexicar
Branding
Maintenance of flexicars
Academic and Industrial interests
Governement support
Car parked as a street-light
Imagine an urban future where no cars are ever parked blocking the curb, but instead are ‘parked’ by being perched atop large pole where they would act as streetlamps at night. Is this a brilliant idea, or what? We’re big fans of designer Ross Lovegrove, and were blown away when we discovered his new project. It isn’t just the solar power roof or the smart design that got our attention, but rather the sheer imagination of using parked vehicles to provide illumination to the city at night.
Lovegrove’s idea calls for a four passenger vehicle, which is basically a large transparent bubble in which the four passengers sit in a circular fashion. There is no driver, as the vehicles are controlled by satellite and GPS navigation. As for fuel, the vehicles are powered by solar panels installed in the roof, and one presumes, four independent electric motors, one on each wheel. The brilliant part, or the one which definitely caught our eye (as if the sci-fi inspired bubble cars weren’t enough) was his proposal to stick each vehicle at night on top of a pole in order to both save space at the ground level, and to illuminate it!
Ross Lovegrove always brings an interesting and fresh outlook to his projects, and his “car on a stick” is no exception. As always, it isn’t just the brilliant design that we admire, it is the combination of imagination and sensibility that always attracts us to his projects.
Using Kites to Pull Cargo Ships Across the Seas
A few months ago we reported on future attempts to use a kite to move a cargo ship across the ocean. But just last week, the MS Beluga set sail on its maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to Venezuela where it showed, quite successfully, that wind power might just be the future of nautical transportation.
The MS Beluga is a 140 meter long cargo ship. It uses a 160 square meter sky-sail which is set to fly at a height between 100 and 300 meters above the ocean. While it is not the main mode of propulsion, the kite is able to reduce fuel consumption by about 10% to 35% depending on wind conditions. The Skysail is the creation of Stephan Wrage who believes these kites could be used on almost 60% of all cargo ships. It is attached to the ship by a single line that is controlled by a computer, and works precisely as you’d expect, like a giant version of a small kite.
The maiden voyage started just last week, and already the sail has been deployed. It will cross the Atlantic Ocean using the traditional windjammer route south of the Azores. Its full travelling time is expected to be a total of 15 days. If successful, the company expects to deploy this system on other cargo ships.
RECLAIMING DESIGN
A few weeks ago, Inhabitat put together an event about recycling and reuse in design, called Reclaiming Design. This event at HauteGREEN in New York was a big success, thanks to the thought-provoking design and insightful discussion from Dwell Editor-in-Chief Sam Grawe and designers Carlos Salgado of Scrapile, Tejo Remy of Droog fame, and Matt Gagnon.
Our conversation touched on a variety of issues surrounding the concepts and processes behind using reclaimed materials in different scales of design, and its implications for both environmental sustainability as well as more conceptual and cultural themes.
The event was organized in order to explore what it means to recycle, reduce and reuse within the context of design. Our four panelists manage to not only touch on these issues, but raise many others that provided some great green design conceptual fodder for further discussion.After each of our panelists showed their own work and weighed in Reclaiming Design, Jill and I began a moderated question and answer session that raised some interesting topics of discussion. We talked about the historical influences, how reclaiming older materials relates to DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, and the design market for such products and architecture that integrate recycled materials. Jill discussed the idea of the changing social acceptance of “recycling” and its interpretation within differing cultural connotations, while Sam Grawe weighed in on the architectural possibilities of recycling and reclaiming materials.
The question-and-answer session was chock-full of thought-provoking and sometimes contrasting ideas, but each of the panelists seemed to agree on the same things – sustainable design (and particularly the use of reclaimed materials) is an ongoing and complicated process that manifests itself in different ways. There is no “perfect green design;” in fact, as Jill remarked, designing “green” is actually a series of unique solutions to individual problems that attempt to balance health, environmental, social, and aesthetic issues as best as possible.We want to thank HauteGREEN for helping the event come together so successfully, and all of you who showed up to perch on the upside-down buckets to hear the conversation. Hope to see you again next year!
PEV – Personal Electric Vehicle
With a name like ‘No More Gas’, you can bet that this cute little personal electric vehicle is as good to the environment as it is to the user. Its size, weight and fuel make it much better for the planet, while its look and driving experience make it great fun for the driver. Looking like it’s dropped straight out of an episode of The Jetsons, this tiny car can achieve speeds of over 75mph for a cost of $0.02 per mile. All this eco-goodness earned Myers Motors’ NmG vehicle kudos at this year’s Well-Tech Awards exhibit in Milan.
Much of the NmG’s benefits stem from its size. Holding just one person, it’s much smaller than the average car. Smaller cars means more commuters can fit on the roads, getting where they need to be in a shorter time. The size also enables drastic reductions in fuel consumption, earning it the title of the most energy efficient vehicle on the road today. Its size also allows the NmG to achieve a range of 25 to 30 miles, making it suitable for the vast majority of commutes.
Plug the vehicle into a 220 volt socket to fully recharge an empty battery in 3 hours. Fuel costs are around a quarter of the price of conventional oil-powered transportation. Charged using conventional electricity, NmG’s size and power type reduces emissions by around 70% compared to a conventional fossil fuel-powered car. And, of course, emissions are eliminated completely when the car is charged using a home-based renewable energy system.
The design sits halfway between a car and a motorbike so the manufacturers prefer to call it a ‘Personal Electric Vehicle’, or PEV. And because the US Department of Transportation classifies the NmG as a motorcycle, it’s permitted to go on highways traveling to speeds around 75mph while other electric vehicles are legally limited to speeds of 35mph or less. A speedier drive is also likely because the NmG is allowed in many carpool lanes, due to being ‘fully occupied’ by the driver alone.
The retro-futuristic vehicle is available in many bright colors for the reasonable price of $36,000. So, all in all, its an affordable, cheery, environmentally-friendly car that’s supported by existing infrastructures. We’re looking forward to spotting many more NmGs on the roads very soon.
Cardboard bike aims to put brakes on thieves
A bicycle is stolen in England every 71 seconds. So how do you solve this problem through the power of design? According to design student Phil Bridge, make a bike so cheap that there’s no incentive to steal it. And the intrepid design student did just that, by building a bike for about $30 made out of cardboard. Yes, my friends, cardboard!
The 21 year old student designed and created a cardboard bike as part of his degree course in product design at Sheffield Hallam University. The bicycle is not made out of simple ordinary corrugated cardboard, as that would not be strong enough to hold a person’s weight. Instead, Phil used hexacomb board, a more structurally stable form of cardboard which, by the way, is also waterproof. Not all of the bike is made out of cardboard. Tires, chain and brakes are still the same metal and rubber components as any other bike.
The cheap and cheerful cardboard bicycle will hold anyone, provided such person does not weigh more than 168 pounds. And while not designed for speed, the bike does work and will get you to where you want to go. Bridge is now hoping to get a sponsor for to turn his bike into an actual product. Any takers?
OILgae test drive – Algae power hits the road
Corn and soybean derived biofuels have long been the most promising options on the table for escaping the clutches of fast depleting petroleum. However, acquiring the space necessary to produce ethanol and biodiesel at the same consumption rate as fossil fuels would be impossible, so sustainable fingers are pointing to oilgae, or algae fuel. Algae produces 30 times more energy per acre than corn or soybeans and can grow in salt water, our worlds most abundant source. There are several startups bringing pond scum to fuel tanks, among them Solazyme who were caught driving around Sundance Film Festival this year with an oilgae-powered car.
US Biotech firm Solazyme unveiled an algae-fueled Mercedes C320 at the Sundance Film Festival in January marking the first real-world road test of biodiesel made from algae. Solazyme president and CTO Harrison Dillon said the Sundance test drive responds to “the need for a near-term solution that will also be cost effective and sustainable. Our technology combines all the key components: low carbon footprint, environmental sustainability, certified compatibility with existing vehicles and infrastructure, and energy security for our country,” in a press release. The company has since coupled with the Chevron Corporation and plan on producing algae-derived fuels for consumer use in the next three years.
Solazyme grows algae in fermentation tanks without sunlight, by feeding it sugar. Algae suitable for biofuels can be grown in open ponds or lakes or enclosed in heated greenhouse structures to promote year-long growth. And since the production of algae doesn’t hinder food and livestock feed production like corn and soybeans, its effect on the ecosystem and the food chain is significantly reduced.
But what’s a great idea without a catch? In open systems like natural ponds and lakes algae is susceptible to bacteria and contamination, and at the whim of the water and air temperature and access to light. In closed systems, algae grows in contained ponds or pools eliminating much of the risk of environmental variables, though requires more attention, equipment, and space. One of the commercial readiness hurdles is managing production at a feasible market price. Algae biofuels are still being researched and tested throughout the world and will someday (hopefully soon) offer us a cleaner way to get around.
For more vital information – visit http://www.oilgae.com/
One more Concept
This is another concept that i am working on right now – its again a 4 seater , with the electric motors located in the hub of each wheel. The LEDs located in the alloys glow ON and OFF to indicate which motor is providing the power to the vehicle, and which one is dormant. The rear end of this cross-over is made out of reinforced fabric, which can be opened out in a fold-out fashion for carrying large objects like a bike, or musical instruments, which otherwise wont fit inside the vehicle boot. 
The front of the vehicle contains a storage space for temporary luggage, like shopping bags etc…which also adds to its function of serving as an utility vehicle.
BMW Welt – Opening – Video
The Most Amazing Invention
Please dont sell it to any big company – specially car company !!!! They will kill this invention !!
