YikeBike

Designed and constructed in Christchurch, New Zealand, the YikeBike electric folding bicycle weighs less than 10kg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X813eTuZJkc

Electric cars: put a battery in your roof

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gY_9zthQIXN8etDM3tZF4b0O6uSQ

A nanoscale material developed in Britain could one day yield wafer-thin cellphones and light-weight, long-range electric cars powered by the roof, boot and doors, researchers have reported.
For now, the new technology -- a patented mix of carbon fibre and polymer resin that can charge and release electricity just like a regular battery -- has not gone beyond a successful laboratory experiment.
But if scaled-up, it could hold several advantages over existing energy sources for hybrid and electric cars, according to the scientists at Imperial College London who developed it.
[...]
The new material -- while expensive to make -- is entirely synthetic, which means production would not be limited by availability of natural resources.
The carbon-polymer composite does not depend on chemistry, which not only means a longer life but a quicker charge as well.
[...]
As hard a steel, it could in theory double as the body of the vehicle, cutting the weight by up to a third.

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Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed

Privacy row brewing over surveillance on the road.
Box could reduce accidents, pollution and congestion. (???!!!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/31/surveillance-transport-communication-box

The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.

However, privacy campaigners warned last night that a European-wide car tracking system would create a system of almost total road surveillance

Details of the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project, a £36m EU initiative backed by car manufacturers and the telecoms industry, will be unveiled this year.

But the Guardian has been given unpublished documents detailing the proposed uses for the system. They confirm that it could have profound implications for privacy, enabling cars to be tracked to within a metre - more accurate than current satellite navigation technologies.
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