Well I guess I am outlier as NYT called it grotesque and Tree Hugger says “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  Well, I love it as it appeals to both my obtuse styling sensibility and interest in clean advanced technologies.

Debuting at the LA Auto Show, this concept car is not another gas-guzzling autrocity (pun intended).  The car is a combination of the Honda racing technology and and their relatively recent interest in fuel cells.  Coming in at 135HP it will be no match for Tesla’s 300HP might.

Honda has been at the fuel cell game since 1999.  The basic concept is that a hydrogen fuel cell powering an electric engine.  The technology is certified Zero Emissions  - no green house gasses or other toxic stuff just a little water vapor coming off this machine.  Honda has a production version of their fuel cell called the FCX Clarity that is being leased in southern California which is pretty great so long as you live and work near one of the 3 (sic) hydrogen stations in LA.   Given the availability of fuel. don’t expect me to be driving one soon.

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A breakthrough by scientists from the University of Glasgow could see the storage capacity grow by 150,000 times for the same amount of surface area.  To put this into perspective, 160 Petabytes could theoretically fit on the disk that is now in an iPod.

This is a nanotechnology breakthrough where researchers tell us they:

“assemble a functional nanocluster that incorporates two electron donating groups, and position them precisely 0.32 nm apart so that they can form a totally new type of molecular switching device. This is unprecedented and provides a route to produce new a molecule-based switch that can be easily manipulated using an electric field. By taking these nano-scale clusters, just a nanometer in size, and placing them onto a gold or carbon, we can control the switching ability. Not only is this a new type of switchable molecule, but by grafting the molecule on to metal (gold) or carbon means that we can potentially bridge the gap between traditional semiconductor devices and components for nanoscale plastic electronics. The key advantage of the molecule sized switch is information / transistor density in traditional semi-conductors.  Molecule sized switches would lead to increasing data storage to say 4 Petabits per square inch.”

I could have said it better, not.  The geniuses behind this are Professor Lee Cronin and Dr Malcolm Kadodwala.

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The Nissan Mori electric scooter is a bit too Fischer Price for my taste but if this independent designer’s vision is produced I think it may be the next iMac (vintage ‘99).  The design incorporates state of the art technology by adjusting itself, while all mechanical and maintenance issues are managed by the on-board computer.  It is electric so there should be air benefits but probably no less carbon footprint. 

How much are you willing to pay for something like this?

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