by Andrew Michler

The dream of going wireless with a laptop or iPad becomes pretty meaningless when reality hits and you’re left with a battery drained to nothing. But Voltaic‘s new solar backpack brings things back into balance, giving you the option to recharge your laptop and other gadgets even if the sun isn’t shining! Incorporating a battery with a sewn in 10 watt monocrystal solar module, the setup has two power ports and four voltage settings connected to the 60 watt battery. The new backpack gives you the ability to recharge just about any portable device whenever you need to.

by Marc Carter

London designer Omer Sagiv created this solar-powered concept car that looks like it’s straight out of the latest sci-fi movie. The concept car is referred to as the SPV (Solar Power Vehicle) and Sagiv states that it’s made of aluminum with flexible thin modules fixed to it and that the shaft in the center of the SPV functions as an in-built cooling system. The aerodynamic shape of the concept allows it to collect energy in any sunny environment. Even better, the concept can also use the extra energy that it collects from its solar panels to power its owner’s house!

Designer Omer Sagiv’s futuristic Solar Powered Vehicle (SPV) is an ideal vehicle for long rides in deserts or other open lands. The SPV is a typical solar vehicle design. The aluminum structure mounts plenty of flexible thin film modules, which can generate much energy for long rides. In form, the SPV almost resembles Nuon solar car, developed by Delft University.

Stanford researches may have solved the problem of range anxiety by wireless charging technology that could one day create an electric highway.

Wireless recharging already is used by some electric vehicle charging stations to fill up batteries without cords or plugging into an outlet. MIT helped pioneer this technology and spun it off into a wireless charging startup, WiTricity. However, Stanford researchers improved on this concept and devised a way to transmit 10 kilowatts of electric power across a 6.5-foot distance with minimal energy loss. By overcoming transmitting electricity across a significant distance, researchers will make it possible to pave a highway with wireless conduits that can provide addition power to EVs and let them operate indefinitely.

When it comes to clean transportation, London is charging ahead at maximum speed – not only is the city’s mayor a cycling enthusiast, but he helped to push the introduction of London’s first hydrogen fuel cell taxis just in time for the 2012 Olympics! This week The Big Smoke rolled out their first fleet of zero emission taxis, which are now making their way across the city’s busy streets.

Last October, the SolarWorld GT solar-powered car set out from Darwin, Australia on a drive around the world. It has since driven 3,001 kilometers (1,865 miles) across Australia, logged 1,947 km (1,210 miles) crossing New Zealand and been shipped across the Pacific Ocean. This Friday, it will embark on the U.S. leg of its journey, as it sets out across America from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

This month, A1 Co., Ltd. and BIES Ltd. opened the first set of solar-powered electric car charging stations across Sofia, Bulgaria. Built as simple structures, each station simply uses solar panels to collect solar energy and a special module for electric cars to connect to the batteries. While the number of electric cars in Bulgaria are still very few, according to experts, a boom in the purchase of electric vehicles is expected this year — particularly due special incentives that will be given by the Bulgarian government.

Algae biofuel is one of the most promising alternative fuels on the market – so far we’ve seen cars and even planes adapted to run on it. The main drawback thus far has been high production costs and energy usage – until now. Using a new “cost-effective harvesting method” featuring microbubbles, a team from the University of Sheffield believe they have found a way to make algae a more commercially viable fuel source.

Compact cars take on a new meaning when they can literally fold themselves.

Spain will begin producing an electric car next year that’s about the same size as a Smart, but can collapse itself into an even smaller footprint when parked. The Hiriko, which means “urban car” in Basque, is the brainchild of researchers at the MIT Media Lab, and is designed to meet the needs of increasingly congested and parking challenged urban centers.

The classic Toyota 2000GT has managed to carve an everlasting image in the minds of people, thanks to its style and of course James Bond. Japanese engineers have given James Bond getaway car a new lease of life by remodeling a Toyota 2000GT for a recent car show. The car will roar like an angry beast but not by a gas-guzzling engine. It has been swapped into a 100 percent electric and solar-powered coupe under the ‘Crazy Car Project,’ which definitely shows some care for the environment.

The epic voyage of the Tûranor PlanetSolar – the world’s largest solar-powered boat – will soon come to a close as the ship closes in on its final stretch. The Swiss vessel is a full-bore high-tech solar harvesting machine whose deck is covered in 537 square meters of photovoltaic panels. The array produced enough energy for the boat to navigate the entire circumference of the Earth without any other means of energy. The Tûranor PlanetSolar is currently set to depart Abu Dhabi en route to their final port in Morocco – the same place the expedition launched on September 27th, 2010. The journey has come full circle in more than one respect, as it was not too long ago the only way to navigate the earth was by harnessing renewable energy with sails.

Design student Dean Benstead has produced a bike that runs on nothing but compressed air.

He says that with further development there is a place in the future for compressed air as an economical and environmentally-friendly option.

“I wanted to explore the viability of compressed air as an alternative fuel, and my childhood experiences riding dirt bikes led me to design the motocross bike based around the Engineair engine,” says the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Industrial student.

A concept proposed by Marcus Martinez, the Kinesis electric vehicle concept is a combination of a bicycle and a car, also having some features of a motorcycle. This concept is based on kinetics which is the energy of a body gained because of its motion. A tricycle driven by electricity is an interesting concept. Meant for a single person, this vehicle would run on batteries. You may now think that it is another such vehicle that is being driven on batteries and is low on the pollution scale. But wait before you frame any perception regarding this vehicle. This utilizes the concept of transformation of mechanical energy into electrical energy, which in turn is used to drive the motor and thus propel the vehicle forward.

A Chinese inventor has come up with an incredible new design for a car that will work on tarmac, sand, ice… and even water.

The all-terrain vehicle, which has a top speed of 62mph and works like a hovercraft, can move seamlessly between different surfaces.

Designer Yuhan Zhang, 21, created the spectacular car – called the Volkswagen Aqua – for a competition sponsored by the German car manufacturer.