Urban Transport
Overade foldable bicycle helmet design saves space as well as your skull
While bike helmets have become lighter and more comfortable to wear in the last couple of decades, their shape has remained largely unchanged. Not surprising when you consider the shape of people's heads hasn't really changed that much recently. As a result helmets are as awkward to carry around and take up just as much space in a bag as they ever did. Unfortunately, this leads many to risk their safety by just leaving the things at home rather than deal with the hassle. Not content with this state of affairs, designer Patrick Jouffret and engineer Philippe Arrouart came up with a bike helmet design that folds down to a much more convenient size when not on your noggin. Read More
BOXX electric scooter looks sort of like a rideable suitcase
Oregon-based BOXX's first production electric scooter is just about a meter (39 inches) long and looks like an odd sort of cross between a piece of retro luggage and a giant-sized camera. It promises to move you up to 80 miles on a single charge at a top speed of 35 mph (56 km/h) and comes with a price tag starting just under US$4,000. Read More
The Voltitude fold-up electric scooter has an ingenious EasyFold system. Once folded, a special button on the handlebar enables you to "walk" it alongside you indoors, so you never raise a sweat in reaching a power outlet, which will fully replenish the battery inside four hours. The 25 kph (15.5 mph) electric assist Voltitude begins volume production in July with an on-line price expected in the vicinity of EUR4000. Read More
Leaving the car at home and biking to work certainly has its benefits - to the air we breathe, to the fitness of the rider and to the bank balance. For white collar workers though, this presents an attire problem - unsightly creases, mud splashes and a soaking from the elements don't do much for your business suit. The Cambridge Design Partnership has just announced a possible alternative to stowing away a spare suit at the office or trying to flatten out the creases with a portable iron - the Suitpack. Just out of prototyping, the design is designed to keep clothing crumple-free while commuting to work, and has various compartments for storing accessories and shoes. Read More
Two things are certain in this crazy world - unicycles are cool and unicycles are seriously hard to ride. Well no longer. Now anybody can clown about on a unicycle and what's more, you don't even have to pedal. Thanks to Focus Designs and several years of development the learning curve required to master the unicycle has been reduced from several weeks to an average of 20 minutes, making it a viable and incredibly cheap-to-run personal transport. Read More
Personal Rover - personal EV for under US$1000
It is no secret that personal transportation form factors are beginning to diverge and a new one caught our attention this week that is almost certain to carve itself a niche in this intensely interesting and competitive space. It's not as sexy as a Yikebike, Honda U3-X or Toyota Winglet, but it is easy to use, has a range of 12 miles (20 km), a top speed of 15 mph and a price under US$1000. At 90 pounds, the Personal Rover is not exactly small, but it folds up so it can be rolled on castor wheels inside a building, and will easily fit inside a car boot to fulfill secondary transport duties. Read More
When Microsoft asked gamers to get off the couch and get moving with the release of the Kinect motion controller in 2010, it’s doubtful that zooming around the streets at speeds of up to 32 mph (51 km/h) was the kind of movement they had in mind. But as we’ve seen ever since unofficial open source drivers hit the Internet in 2010 and Microsoft came to the party with its official Kinect for Windows SDK last year, the Kinect has proven to be a remarkably flexible device. That flexibility now extends to a motion control interface for a motorized electric skateboard modestly dubbed by its creators, the “Board of Awesomeness.” Read More
If you think that you've spotted a strangely old-looking motorized bicycle cruising around the streets of Los Angeles, don't worry, you're not hallucinating. What you're likely seeing is one of two hand-built Juicer e-bike models - both of which harken back to the very early days of motorcycle development, when engines and motors were fixed to bicycle frames. The Juicer 36 is fashioned like a stretch cruiser and the 48 is an homage to the board-track era. Retro styling aside, the stand-out feature for us has got to be the gorgeous battery/motor configuration, that's been arranged like cylinders of a V-twin engine. Read More
China's state press agency, Xinhua, reports that the country's largest rail vehicle maker has debuted a six-car train more than twice as powerful and 200 km/h (124 mph) faster than the high-speed models currently in service between Beijing and Shanghai. The new electric test train can draw a maximum of 22,800 kilowatts and is reportedly capable of reaching speeds as high as 500 km/h (311 mph), making it one of the fastest trains ever designed for commercial passenger use. Read More
T3 Motion to launch "Power Sport" consumer three-wheeled EV
Since its initial launch five years ago, the T3 Motion's stand-up electric three-wheeler has been snapped up by law enforcement, security and military concerns in nearly 30 countries. Shoppers who have looked on with envy as Mall security whizzes past in pursuit of a shoplifter can now rest easy. T3 Motion is responding to what it describes as pent up customer demand and will launch a consumer version called the T3 Power Sport. It won't come with the frightening fire power of the T3 Non-Lethal Response Vehicle, but it will have a top speed of 12 mph, a range of up to 40 miles and will be available in a range of colors and custom paint job or logo options. Read More
