When is a wheel not a wheel, well when it’s a ewheel completely eliminating the need for many aspects of a cars engine to disappear from under the hood. The Michelin man and a company named Valeo have agreed to collaborate on an “electric and rechargeable hybrid vehicle system” the system itself would include the engine, drive train, a cooling system for batteries, climate control, lighting and energy management and even tires. The first thing to come out of this partnership is known as the E-Wheel, it utilizes Michelin’s own active wheel technology that embeds two electric wheels inside the hub of the tire one for power and one for full active suspension.

I mean this isn’t the next big fad or another diet pill like Stimerex ES. This is a real break through and a groundbreaking change from how things would be done. I mean active suspension is an amazing idea and Bose had a system for it a while back but we never saw it make it into many non-superrich cars but with the ability to pretty much completely remove all road bumps it’s a great move. And moving the actual propulsion to the wheel itself it greatly improves performance and efficiency of the engines themselves. The design completely removes the need for gearboxes, drive shafts, and pretty much the entire car suspension as it’s currently known. The only thing I think they haven’t confirmed is that the tires are runflat tires I mean thta would really top the cake on these wicked wheels.

Venturi has already demonstrated these new e-wheels in their Volage concept car and proven that they are as awesome as they sound. Their only looking now for a major manufacturing auto maker to take it to the next level and design and produce a car full blown.

Personally I don’t understand what the hell is wrong with GM and the rest of the US automakers, you’ve got congress bashing you to make huge changes in your cars and to respark the industry and you have revolutionary platforms like this ready at the drop of a dime what the hell are they waiting for? Oh ya knowing the US big 3 their probably going to try to reinvent it in a “better” way that takes 30 years, we’ll probably end up seeing it in some Indian ultra-mini car before the big 3 take it on.

Source: RegHardware

The Aperta is the first of those cars to actually start coming to market, a large departure from traditional car form and a major leap forward in just about everything inside as well. This baby’s full electric and space age looking, in a bit of a surprise Road & Track Magazine has managed to talk their way into a full test drive. Besides them noticing that this car definitely turns heads (in a good way in the way i would imagine). The car isn’t a speed demon but they did mention that due to it’s go-kart style handling and large windshields it makes the pavement easy to see which makes it seem like your moving a lot faster than you really are moving.

R&T Magazine also said that the gull wing doors will take some getting used to for those that aren’t used to them which most people won’t be. While the car is surprisingly small the inside is very roomy. While this is a major move towards seeing this parked in front of your house or say… in front of some luxury hotel rooms. The fact that it’s on the streets being test driven by magazines is definitely a step towards us actually getting our hands on it and driving one home from the distributor.

Source: Road and Track

Oh how one year can change things, Electric Motorsport is back with a slightly less performance tuned version, but at a much more palpable price, as in a price that I can actually see people willing to spend. Hell I know people with insurance that’s almost more than the new GPR-S is going to be selling for… OK that’s an overstatement ;) But still it’s a lot better coming in at $8,000. Their is a slight draw back due to the price reduction namely both the top speed and range have been greatly reduced but are definitely still understandable for a short commuter at 60-70 MPH with a range of 35-60 mile range. These reductions should also hopefully allow it to fit into a better car insurance bracket especially if things like speed and the fact it’s electric are taken into account.

The bike can charge in four hours but apparently Electric Motorsport’s will also be selling an optional speed charger that will allow it to be charged in 1.5 hours. Even better is the fact that the bike has ben built to be modular so that the power system can be swapped out with as little hassle as is possible. So far only 25 of the bikes have been sold and they are up and running ready to sell them in volume shipments that is something alone that is a surprising feat to have managed.

Source: Wired

We knew for a while that the next Tesla car was on the way to follow up their already bad ass sports car we even knew it was a Sedan that was going to follow up. Well it looks like we finally have some breaking news on that front, and all I can say is a picture is worth a thousand words. The Model S is all electric just like the sportster but it also seats five passengers. The platform the car drives on just like the sportster is completely designed by Tesla.

Just like the sportster it’s possible that these early pictures will change somewhat before they go to manufacturing. Road & Track has a good track record of releases like this, so chances are at this stage the Model S does in fact look like this and it definitely looks good. On the good side though Tesla does have a good habit of keeping their early and release pictures pretty close they proved that with their awesome  sportster. I suppose the only thing I want is for Tesla to expand their small business franchise to the Caribbean so that maybe once I get enough cash  I can get one as well. And considering the 100,000$ to 200,000$ price for the sportster was a bit out of my price range, the fact that the 240 mile per charge, zero to sixty in 6 second speed that this awesome Sedan is rumored to be coming at $60,000 base price makes it A LOT more appealing to middle class Americans.

Source: Road & Track

Of course the call to 911 was not enough to stop the commuter train from slamming straight into his car within a few minutes causing over an hour delay luckily though their weren’t any injurys besides the guys car of course. Engadget suggested that it might be time for some signs, but the fact of the matter is that wouldn’t help. People would ignore the signs still and follow their GPS because people seem to have this undeniable trust that all electronic devices are 100% accurate, their the same people that open spam and believe that that email really was from microsoft that they will be millionares if they forward it on, signs isn’t what we need, we need a required gadget and technology bootcamp before any person is aloud to use a gadget!

Source: Engadget