Today is National Bike to Work Day, and all across America, people are ditching their cars and trucks for a cleaner, healthier journey via bicycle. Our friends at Voltaic Systems joined in the fun to support NYC’s Bike to Work Day, and it’s no surprise that they added their own solar-powered flair to the day’s festivities. Company staffers decked out a commuter bicycle and with a custom-built bike trailer carrying 60+ Watts of portable solar panels, 180 Watt hours of charging capacity, and lots of connectors to charge up smartphones, tablets and even a MacBook, in an effort to show New Yorkers how much fun can be had when human and solar power are combined.

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Post tags: bike commuting, bike to work day, bike trailer, solar charger, solar panels, Solar Power, voltaic systems

A brand new car that gets 84 MPG and costs less than $7,000 sounds too good to be true, but Elio Motors just unveiled a new three-wheeled vehicle that hits all those marks. The affordable two-seater Elio gets amazing mileage, and it’s small enough for a congested urban environment.

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Post tags: Elio, Elio car, Elio green car, Elio Motors, green car, green transportation, personal transportation, three-wheeled car

Flat-pack goods typically make more efficient use of materials and have lower shipping costs, and in recent years companies have designed everything from flat-pack beds and dressers to flat-pack lamps and even houses. Now, British philanthropist Sir Torquil Norman’s Global Vehicle Trust has developed the OX, the world’s first flat-pack truck. The inexpensive vehicle, which is intended for use in developing countries, can reportedly be assembled in just 12 hours by three people using basic tools, and it can be taken apart again in less than six hours.

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Post tags: "flat pack", Africar, flat pack vehicle, Flat-pack truck, Flatpack, flatpack truck, flatpack vehicle, Global Vehicle Trust, green transportation, green vehicles, Ox, Sir Torquil Norman, trucks

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Post tags: alternative transportation, chevy volt, electric car, electric vehicle, ev, ford, ford EV, ford fusion, ford fusion energi, ford fusion energi plug in hybrid, ford fusion energi test drive, ford fusion hybrid, ford hybrid car, fusion energi, fusion energi test drive, fusion hybrid, green cars, green transportation, hybird electric vehicle, hybrid car, Inhabitat test drive, plug-in hybrid, plugin electric vehicle, plugin EV, plugin prius

A team from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have broken their own record after flying their hydrogen fuel cell powered-Ion Tiger UAV for an astonishing 48 hours and 1 minute last month. The UAV, which used liquid hydrogen fuel in its  new, NRL-developed, cryogenic fuel storage tank and delivery system, broke its previous record of 26 hours and 2 minutes which it set in 2009.

Read the rest of Naval Research Laboratory Flies Their Hydrogen-Powered Ion Tiger UAV for Over 48 Hours

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Post tags: fuel cell, hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen power, Ion Tiger UAV, liquid hydrogen, Naval Research Laboratory, NRL, UAV

After three decades of hard work, Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor and Pennsylvania get to retire. They will be replaced by 70 high-efficiency electric Amtrak Cities Sprinters (ACS-64) built by Siemens in Sacramento, California. The ACS-64 units are based on the company’s EuroSprinter, and the trains will take over for the Electro-Motive diesel locomotives made back in 1978 and 1988.

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Post tags: acs-64, amtrak, amtrak cities sprinter, boston, California, electric, electro-motive diesel, eurosprinter, harrisburg, joseph boardman, keystone corridor, northeast corridor, pennsylvania, philadelphia, rail, Sacramento, washington d.c.

Freeman Thomas won his first drawing competition in the first grade—it was a fire truck. Today, Thomas is credited with delivering some of the hottest designs in the automotive industry. A pioneer in his field, he has designed everything from the New Beetle to the Audi TT, and he’s been steering Ford’s Strategic Design department as Director since 2005. In anticipation of our ‘Design with a Conscience’ webcast—a thought-provoking event, which brought together visionary California architects and automotive designers eager to talk about the intersection of car and building design—we asked Mr. Thomas to answer few questions for us about the future of car design, as well as some of the things that inspire his work. Read on to hear what he had to say, and then find out what was discussed in the webcast here.

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Post tags: aia conferences, aia discussions, aia panels, AIA san francisco, American Institute for Architects (AIA) San Francisco, architecture conference, architecture panel, architecture webcast, automotive panel, design conference, design panel, design webcast, design with a conscience, eco design, ford, ford motor company, Ford Strategic Concept Group, Freeman Thomas, Green Design Events, live webcast, strategic design ford, strategic design ford motors, sustainable design, webcast

Read the rest of TEST DRIVE: Drag Race Saturday, Church on Sunday with the Lexus GS450h Hybrid

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Post tags: green car, green transportation, GS450h, hybrid car, Laura K. Cowan, lexus, Lexus GS450h, test drive

To say that it’s been a good week for Tesla would be quite an understatement. First, the Tesla Model S earned Consumer Reports’ highest-ever rating with a score of 99 out of 100. Then, after 10 years in business, the electric car maker announced its first quarterly profit in Q1 of 2013 with a net income of $11.2 million. In the wake of the news, Tesla stock prices surged 24 percent, and shares of the company’s stock reached $69.40 when markets closed in New York on Thursday.

Read the rest of Tesla Posts First Quarterly Profits in Company’s 10-Year History

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Post tags: electric car, electric cars, elon musk, emission-free car, EVs, green cars, model s, plug-in car, tesla, Tesla electric car, tesla model-s, Tesla Motors, Tesla profit, Tesla quarterly earnings

Consumer Reports recently tried out the Tesla Model S electric car, and after all the testing was done, the magazine found that the Model S outscored every other car in their ratings. “It does so even though it’s an electric car. In fact it does so because it is electric,” Consumer Reports stated. Consumer Reports gave the Model S high marks for its impressive power, overall balance and comfortable ride.

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Post tags: Consumer Reports, electric car, electric motor, electric vehicle, green car, green transportation, tesla, Tesla electric car, tesla model-s

Tesla Motors has long worked towards producing the car of the future, and the Model S may well be the perfect electric vehicle for the middle class. If getting 265 miles per charge wasn’t enough to certify the sedan as an example of cutting edge technology, CEO Elon Musk recently told Bloomberg that he was in talks with Google to develop an autonomous driving system. Musk could take advantage of Google’s 500,000+ road miles to develop the technology, which he refers to as “autopilot” instead of “self-driving” to assuage fears of malfunction.

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Post tags: autonomous, bloomberg, ceo, electric car, elon musk, Google, lexus, LIDAR, light detection and ranging system, Mercedes-Benz, model s, NISSAN, sedan, self-driving, Tesla Motors, Toyota, volvo

Two Lisbon-based entrepreneurs have devised a way to build a new bike from discarded car parts – and they’re planning to ride it the same number of miles that the original vehicle drove to compensate for its air-polluting past. The initiative is called the Carma Project, and it was organized by Leo Burnett Lisbon and B-Bicycle Culture Magazine to raise awareness and provoke constructive debate about urban mobility and alternative modes of transportation.

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Post tags: B-Bicycle Culture Magazine, bicycle design, bicycle sharing, bike out of car parts, CARMA bicycle, green bicycle design, green design, green transportation, Leo Burnett Lisbon, Rcicla Bicletas, recycled car parts, Recycled Materials, recycling, shared bicycles lisbon, urban cycling

Charging time and cost are two of the biggest obstacles facing electric vehicle battery technology today. Fortunately, researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden just developed an integrated motor drive and battery charger that can shorten charging time from eight hours to two while reducing overall cost by $2,000.

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Post tags: chalmers university of technology, cost, electric vehicle, ev, fossil fuel, integrated charger, saeid haghbin, Sweden, time, volvo ab

There are few cyclists who don’t have at least a small addiction to speed – whether it’s cruising down a steep hill or whizzing past traffic. If you really have the itch to fly down the road, you may want to check out the Specialized Turbo, an electric-assisted bike that can cruise at speeds of up to 27 mph. This is the first plug-in from the California-based company — the bike has already been rolling around Europe for a year, but US federal laws have deemed the bike too fast to be sold without calling it a motorcycle until now. The solution? A top-speed limiting gear that won’t let you break 27mph.

Read the rest of The Specialized Turbo is an Electric Bike that Can Hit a Blistering 27 MPH

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Post tags: California, charger, electric bicycle, lithium ion battery, motor, plug-in, specialized turbo, SRAM, traffic

Read the rest of Foster and Partners Unveil Updated Bike-Friendly Plan for Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters

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Post tags: Apple Cupertino Headquarters proposal, apple headquarters, Apple Headquarters pedestrian friendly, Bike Paths, eco design, Foster and Partners, green design, sustainable design

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Post tags: "sustainable energy", alternative energy, Andre Borschberg, bertrand piccard, California, fuel-free airplane, green transportation, HB-SIA, moffett air filed, mountain view, NASA Ames Research Center, photovoltaic panels, renewable energy, solar impulse, solar impulse across america, Solar Power, solar powered airplane, sun-powered plane, world's first solar plane

Designed by architect Michael Strain and his team, Levitation is a concept bike designed to power your smart phone that also acts as a mobile hot-spot with unlimited Wi-Fi access. It has an on-board generator, high-capacity batteries which can store energy produced while cycling, and a “drain plug” system that allows the user to plug that energy back into the grid.

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Post tags: bicycle design, bicycle phone charger, bicycle power, cycling, digital fabrication, eco-friendly Hi-Macs, energy generating bike, green materials, green transportation, Hi-Macs material, high tech bike, Levitation Bike, magnetic levitation bike, Rapid Prototyping, zero carbon transportation

A UK company called Jelly Products just unveiled the Loopwheel – a safe, beautiful bike wheel with a built-in suspension system that could revolutionize the compact bicycle industry. The Loopwheel is compatible with just about any small-frame bicycle and has already busted through its Kickstarter goal – so it may be headed to a bike shop near you very soon.

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Post tags: alternative transportation, bike commuting, bike design, bikes, compact bikes, folding bikes, Loopwheels, tires, UK, wheels

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic – the world’s first commercial spaceline – just announced that its SpaceShipTwo (SS2) successfully conducted its first rocket-powered flight. The test, which saw the rocket-powered spacecraft break the sound barrier, marks Virgin Galactic’s entrance into the final phase of vehicle testing prior to launching its commercial service from New Mexico.

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Post tags: commercial spaceline, New Mexico, Sir Richard Branson, space flight, space tourism, spacecraft, spaceflight, spaceport, SpaceShipTwo, virgin galactic, virgin space

If you prefer to keep your phone on silent but end up with a bunch of missed calls and unread messages, you will love this bendable smartphone! Designed by researchers at Queen’s University Human Media Lab in Canada, the MorePhone is a paper-thin smartphone that flexes when it receives a text or call. It is based on thin-film, flexible display technologies and organic user interfaces that allow computers to take any shape or form.

Read the rest of MorePhone: Paper-Thin, Flexible Smartphone Curls When it Receives a Call

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Post tags: flexible display technologies, flexible displays, flexible smartphone, green gadgets, human-computer interaction, MorePhone, organic user interfaces, Queen’s University Human Media Lab, smartphone technology, ultra thin smartphone