If you love getting some air between you and the ground while doing tricks on your bicycle, then you will love the Paravelo. Designed by two British men who have a passion for both cycling and aviation, this extraordinary folding bicycle comes with a trailer powered by a giant fan and a fabric wing that doubles as a tent. The flying bike’s inventors don’t necessarily promote their product for the daily commute, but they do envision a future of combining flying the Paravelo and camping – “flamping.”

Read the rest of XploreAir Paravelo: World’s First Flying Bicycle Lifts Off the Ground

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Post tags: aviation, Crowdfunding, cycling, flying bicycle in England XploreAir, green transportation, kickstarter campaign, News, Paravelo, The Wright Brothers, world's first flying bicycle

Bosch Automotive Service Solutions and the Evatran Group are developing a wireless electric vehicle charging system that could become the first commercially available system of its kind in the US. Unlike other EV charging systems, the Plugless Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging System offers hands-free, automatic EV charging. All EV drivers have to do is park their vehicles on the system’s floor-mounted Parking Pad and their vehicle begins charging.

Read the rest of Bosch And Evatran Team Up to Launch Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging System

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Post tags: bosch, electric vehicles, ev, ev wireless charging, Evatran Group, infrastructure, Plugless Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging System, wireless charging

Read the rest of TEST DRIVE: A Quick Drive Around Manhattan in the 2013 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid

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Post tags: car review, electric car, electric motor, ford, ford hybrid, green car, hybrid, lincoln, Lincoln electric car, lincoln hybrid, Lincoln MKZ, New York.

Tesla could revolutionize the electric car industry by solving one of the main reasons why buyers don’t make the switch from gasoline – range anxiety. Tesla already announced plans to expand its Supercharger network across the US, and now the automaker is working on another fix to keep Tesla Model S owners on the road. Tomorrow Tesla will demonstrate a new way for owners to swap out their drained batteries for fully charged units – and it’s faster than the time it takes to fill up a tank of gas in a traditional car.

Read the rest of Tesla to Unveil Quick-Swap Batteries for the Model S Electric Car This Week

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Post tags: electric car, elon musk, green car, green transportation, lithium ion battery, tesla, tesla model-s, Tesla roadster

Inhabitat is getting our sea legs this morning aboard the world’s largest solar-powered boat, which docked today at the North Cove Marina in downtown Manhattan. NYC is the MS Tûranor PlanetSolar‘s second stop along its expedition across the Atlantic Ocean to study the effects of climate change along the Gulf Stream. Stay tuned here as we post more photos and info from the boat!

READ MORE >

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Post tags: "solar energy", biobox, Climate Change, eco-vessel, gulf stream, PlanetSolar, planetsolar deepwater, PlanetSolar’s Tûranor, solar boat, Solar Power, solar powered boat, solar powered vessel, TÛRANOR PlanetSolar, TÛRANOR PlanetSolar circumnavigation, TÛRANOR PlanetSolar solar, TÛRANOR PlanetSolar world, TURANOR, university of geneva, world's largest solar powered boat

We recently told you about Moto Electra‘s bold attempt to drive an electric motorcycle across the United States in just 3 days – and on June 6th the team accomplished this world record-breaking feat! Battling temperatures over 100 degrees, punishing rain and bike repairs, the racing team hit their goal while showing the world the potential of electric motors.

Read the rest of Moto Electra Sets World Record by Crossing the US on an Electric Motorcycle in 3 Days

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Post tags: battery technology, coast-to-coast drive, coast-to-coast motorcycle drive, coast-to-coast motorcycle record, cross country drive, electric bike, electric motorcycle, electric motorcycle coast-to-coast, electric transportation, electric vehicle, Moto Electra, Moto Electra Racing, Thad Wolff, world record drive

Volvo just unveiled a new line of silent electric buses that will hit the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2015. The buses are part of a new service initiative called ElectriCity, which is being launched in cooperation with the City of Gothenburg, Göteborg Energi, Västtrafik, Lindholmen Science Park, and Johanneberg Science Park.

Read the rest of Volvo Unveils New Noiseless Electric Buses for Gothenburg, Sweden

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Post tags: bus, electric public transportation, Electricity, green bus, green transportation, public transportation, volvo, Volvo bus, Volvo electric bus

Bike helmets save lives, but they have two strikes against them: They can be cumbersome and difficult to carry when you aren’t wearing them, and let’s face it, they often look pretty dorky. Closca, a Valencia, Spain-based helmet maker, seeks to solve both of those problems with a new helmet that looks cool and can fold up for easy storage between rides.

Read the rest of Closca Unveils Stylish Urban Bike Helmet That Folds Up for Easy Storage

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Post tags: bicycles, bike helmet, biking, Closca, Closca helmet, foldable bike helmet, folding bike helmet, urban bike helmets, urban biking

The Atlas helicopter, designed and built by Canadian team AeroVelo, might be the first human-powered helicopter to reach a height of three meters for at least 60 seconds—two key parameters for the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize. The competition to build a human-powered helicopter was established in 1980, and it has not yet been won. Aerovelo’s helicopter hit precisely 3.3 meters and maintained flight for 65 seconds last Thursday, a result which could bring it the much coveted prize. The team submitted all the flight data and is awaiting the committee’s official review and validation.

Read the rest of AeroVelo’s Human-Powered Helicopter May Be On Track to Win the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize

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Post tags: AeroVelo helicopter, aircraft green design, American Helicopter Society, Atlas human-powered helicopter, Gamera, gamera helicopter, green transportation, helicopter design, helicopters, human-powered vehicle, Sikorsky, Sikorsky Prize, sustainable aircraft

When it comes to hubs of alternative transportation and the sharing economy, one usually thinks of progressive hotspots like San Francisco or Portland. Thanks to French car-sharing service Autolib, however, the Midwest is about to stake its claim to a piece of collaborative consumption history. With diligence from famously green Mayor Greg Ballard, Indianapolis will be the first to see if Paris’ successful electric vehicle sharing program can find a foothold here in America.

Read the rest of French EV Car-Sharing Service Autolib to Set Up Shop in Indianapolis

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Post tags: alternative transportation, Car Sharing, collaborative consumption, electric cars, electric vehicles, EV car sharing, france, indianapolis, sharing economy

If you’ve ever dreamed of levitating out of traffic when cycling to work, your dreams may soon come true. Three Czech companies have joined forces to develop a helicopter/bicycle hybrid, complete with giant propellers above the front and rear wheels. Although the bike isn’t quite ready to carry a human on board, it has already been tested by remote control and it can fly for five minutes straight.

Read the rest of Flying Helicopter Hover Bike Takes Off in Prague

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Post tags: Czech flying bike, eco design, flying bike, green design, green transportation, helicopter bike, sustainable design

When transit watchers look back on 2013, they’ll remember it as the year of the bike share. Last month, the country watched as New York rolled out Citi Bike to much fanfare (and plenty of grumbling). Then, a couple of weeks later, Chicago officials announced plans to rollout “Divvy,” the Second City’s new bike-sharing program. Now, the latest city to catch the bike-sharing bug is San Francisco, which is set to launch a bike-sharing program of its own in August. Unlike New York and Chicago, San Francisco isn’t committing to a full-scale rollout just yet. Instead, the City by the Bay will launch a one- to two-year pilot program to test the system’s efficacy.

Read the rest of San Francisco to Launch Bike-Sharing Pilot Program this Summer

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Post tags: bay area, Bay Area Bike Share, bicycles, bike sharing, bike sharing system, biking, Citi bike, green transportation, San Francisco, SF Bay Area, SF Bike Sharing, SFMTA, silicon valley

The layout of a train is a lot like an airplane or a bus in terms of packing a lot of people into a tube to move them somewhere else. So why not just load people into a train and then slap some wings on it to get it to its destination? That’s the idea behind École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne‘s Clip-Air, which proposes to revolutionize air travel with a series of modular aircraft. The system does away with wasteful round-trip flights to get planes where they need to be and eliminates the need to wait at a central airport.

Read the rest of Clip-Air: Modular Transportation Capsules Carry Passengers by Land, Sea, or Air

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Post tags: air travel, Alternative Fuel, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Clip Air modular system, Clip Air plane, Clip-Air system, Clip-Air travel, epfl, mass transit, mass travel, Modular airplane, train travel, transport systems

Inspired by a thriving demographic in Vancouver, Mobiel is a multifunctional cart designed to support the day-to-day needs of commercial urban farmers – people who grow food on a medium to large scale on urban land to sell it to markets, restaurants and other businesses. Beginning with the basic features of a wheelbarrow, this cart has the added benefit of organized tool storage, and it can be easily attached onto the back of a bicycle to carry goods from the farm to the market or from one plot to another. Mobiel carries on the narrative of city farming through its unique functionality and its distinctive character.

+ Mobiel

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: bicycle, bike cart, Botanical, cart, clea lautrey, farming, Gardening, green design, green garden, Mobiel, multifunctional design, sustainable design, urban farm, vancouver, wheelbarrow

Sometimes it seems like air transportation is the last to catch up with energy innovations. Busses, cars and trains regularly run on a variety of green options. But airplanes, with a few exceptions, still run on good old-fashioned – and toxic – leaded gasoline. So the FAA request on Monday for fuel producers to help find a new, unleaded option for powering airplanes is a welcome advancement, even if it does seem a few decades behind.

Read the rest of FAA Wants to Move Away from Leaded Gasoline by 2018

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Post tags: airplane fuel, airplane gasoline, aviation fuel, environmental toxins, FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, greener flight, greener transportation, leaded fuel phase out 2018, Leaded gasoline, leaded gasoline US, leaded gasoline use, unleaded gasoline, US leaded, US toxins

Tokyo’s underground bicycle storage system looks more like an elaborate mechanism from a sci-fi movie than a parking lot for cycles. Put into motion with a single push of a button, the Eco Cycle Anti-Seismic Underground Bicycle Park, built by Japanese engineering firm Giken Seisakusho Co. LTD is just seven meters wide, but it’s deep enough to store 144 bicycles. The system provides the city’s bike users with an efficient parking solution that ensures complete safety for cycles. Hit the jump to see a video of the bicycle park in action!

Read the rest of Tokyo’s Eco-Cycle Park Bicycle Elevator Stores 144 Bikes Underground

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Post tags: anti-seismic design, bicycle parking, bicycles, Eco Cycle Anti-Seismic Underground Bicycle Park, Eco Cycle Bicycle Park, Giken underground bike park, green transportation, no emission vehicle, Tokyo bicycles, underground bike park, underground building

In a warming world, every gas-powered vehicle contributes to CO2 emissions. California-based Cool Planet Energy not only believes they have a low-cost alternative to gasoline, but one that is actually carbon negative. They have developed a biofuel that is chemically identical to gasoline, but costs only $1.50 a gallon without the aid of government subsidy, and they just received $30 million out of their $100 million goal to fund the first commercial facility.

Read the rest of Cool Planet Energy’s Carbon Negative Biofuel Costs Just $1.50 Per Gallon

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Post tags: biofuel, BP, California, carbon negative, CO2, Conoco Phillips, constellation energy, cool planet energy, GE, global warming, Google, gride, low carbon fuel standard, miscanthus, mountain view

It only took a few thousand years, but someone has finally reinvented the wheel—and it actually works better than the original. Skateboarder David Patrick’s crazy SharkWheel was discovered by chance while he was creating a cube out of six soft pieces of piping. Patrick dropped the cube by accident, and to his amazement, the piece started rolling and it didn’t stop.

Read the rest of The Wheel of the Future is Here and It’s Shaped Like a Cube

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Post tags: David Patrick, eco design, green design, reinventing the wheel, SharkWheels, skateboarding wheels, Square Wheels, sustainable design

Welder Scott Parenteau has created a gigantic geodesic dome that walks about on 12 creepy crab-like legs! Parenteau’s spider-like “Walking Pod” is powered by a wind turbine and a roof-mounted solar panel, which help support the 800 watts of power needed to move the machine.

Read the rest of Giant Solar-Powered Geodesic Robot Walks Into our Nightmares on 12 Crab-Like Legs

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Post tags: "wind turbine", geodesic robot, maker faire, Maker Faire walker pod, robot, Scott Parenteau, Solar Power, spider robot, Walker Pod

In a recent study comparing grid-powered electric car emissions around the world, Shrink That Footprint found that when electric cars are charged with low-carbon power, they have just a quarter of the emissions of a typical car, or half the emissions of the most efficient hybrids. However in places with dirty power grids, these benefits can be significantly reduced. So where does your country stand? Find out more over at Shrink That Footprint.

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: "clean energy", car emissions, clean air, electric car emissions, gas emissions, green air, green transportation, hybrid car emissions, reducing emissions, vehicle emissions

With ambitious long-term energy goals, US Navy is at the forefront of alternative energy use and energy efficiency. Now, the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has partnered with Cobalt Technologies, the U.S. Navy and Show Me Energy Cooperative in order to create a sustainable, cost-competitive fuel for jet fighters using biomass feedstock such as switchgrass.

Read the rest of US Navy to Use Low-Emission Switchgrass Fuel to Power Fighter Jets

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Post tags: biomass, biostock, cobalt technologies, emissions, energy department, jet fighters, jet fuel, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, show me energy cooperative, sustainable fuel, switchgrass, us military, US Navy

Japan is working on a blazing fast 310 mph maglev “floating” train – and the latest prototype just hit the tracks for testing! This week Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Central) unveiled the top-of-the-line Lo series maglev train, which is currently slated to enter commercial operation between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027. The new train service will bypass the Tokaido Shinkansen Line, slashing travel time between the two cities from two and a half hours to one hour and seven minutes.

Read the rest of Japan’s New 310 MPH ‘Floating’ Maglev Bullet Train Hits the Tracks for Testing

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Post tags: bullet train, Central Japan Railway Co, floating train, high speed rail, lo series, Lo train, Maglev, maglev train, prototype train

Watch the ‘Big Ideas in Small Spaces: Proportion in Design’ discussion right here!

Our webcast has just ended, but you can still hear everything that was discussed by clicking on the video above. ‘Big Ideas in Small Spaces: Proportion in Design’ was an incredible design panel discussion hosted by Ford Motor Company and The Chicago Architecture Foundation. Following up on the successful ‘Design with a Conscience‘ webcast in April, this latest design discussion is focused in on how designers can maximize aesthetics and functionality in small spaces to produce innovative designs that are comfortable, efficient, and beautiful. The Big Ideas in Small Spaces panelists included: Diane Atwood of the Atwood Foundation, John Gately of Jahn, Gensler‘s Carlos Martinez, and legendary car designer and Ford’s group vice president of design and chief creative officer J Mays. All leaders in their respective industries, these four designers are brought to light how similarities in their creative processes have led to some of country’s most famous buildings, and the design of cutting-edge, eco-friendly Ford vehicles like the Fiesta and the elegant Fusion Energi.

Read the rest of Watch Inhabitat’s ‘Big Ideas in Small Spaces’ Webcast and Hear from Leading Auto Designers and Architects!

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Post tags: architecture and automotive, architecture panels, architecture webcast, atwood foundation, automotive design, big ideas in small spaces, big ideas in small spaces: proportion in design, Car Design, carlos martinex, chicago architecture events, Chicago Architecture Foundation, design events, design panels, diane atwood, ford, ford fiesta, ford fusion, ford live, ford motor company, ford motors, ford webcast, genselr, J Mays, jahn, jonathan gately

Bicycles are one of the world’s most efficient modes of transportation – but ride one in the rain and you’ll wind up with a soggy seat as the rear while kicks up a steady stream of water. Enter the Musguard – a clever rolling fender that can be carried wrapped around your bike’s frame or stored in a pack. When cloudy skies threaten to ruin your ride, simply unfurl the lightweight Musguard and hit the road.

+ Musguard

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Post tags: bicycle, bicycle fender, bike, bike fender, green design, green transportation, mudguard, musguard, sustainable design, sustainable transportation

Technology has brought bike accessories way past the classic bell-and-handlebar-streamer setup. Monkey Light Pro enables you download and display your own LED animations. The kit consists of four pieces for each wheel that can be bolted to the spokes. The waterproof, full-color display is already loaded with artwork and is able to be customized with personal playlists via Bluetooth. Good for eight hours of run time, the built-in lithium-ion battery is able to be recharged via USB cable. The lights are stabilized for speeds ranging from 10-40mph and are double-sided so that everyone has the chance to see you ride in style.

Read the rest of Monkey Light Pro Lets You Download and Animate Your Own Bike Wheel Display

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Post tags: animation, bicycle, bluetooth, California, cycloscreen, fukushima wheel project, interbike, kickstarter, LED, maker faire, monkey light pro, monkeylectric, old bond, rohs compliant, siggraph, sxsw, university of brisbane