Have you ever wanted to go from Beijing to Guangzhou in 8 hours? If so, your dreams just came true.

Yesterday, the longest high-speed rail line was opened in China, stretching 2,298 kilometers or 1,428 miles. As mentioned before, it will only take 8 hours to complete the trip. Before this line, the fastest rail connection would get you to Beijing or Guangzhou in 20 hours.

The feat is done with the help of trains traveling at 300 kph or 186 mph. Furthermore, over 150 pairs of high-speed trains will be on this new rail line every day.

This line marks the halfway point in China’s high-speed rail plan. By 2020, the Chinese government plans to criss-cross the country with a grid of high-speed rail lines. Also, with the completion of this line, China now has over 9,300 km or 5,800 miles of high-speed rail lines and has no plans to stop building. In fact, China hopes to double this amount by the end of 2015.

Would you like to see high-speed rail in your neighborhood? Do you already use high-speed rail to get around? Let us know in the comments below.

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Looking at the picture above, you are probably trying to decide what the heck this thing is. I’m right there with you. The Lit Motors C-1 isn’t quite a motorcycle, but nor is it really a car. This two-person transport has just a pair of wheels and has been gyroscopically stabilized so it doesn’t tip over.

In short, this thing is a crazy hybrid of sorts.

The C-1 is battery powered and has a life of 200 miles, which isn’t half bad at all. Lit Motors CEO Daniel Kim suggests you can get to work and back with the thing for less than a half-dollar a day.
Basically, this isn’t that different than a battery powered motorcycle would be but you at least have a little better protection from the elements here.

The C-1 is expected to arrive in May of 2014 for around $20,000. Before you start saving up your piggy bank earnings for this one, remember that concept cars like this come and go all the time.

I will admit this certainly looks cool, but delays happen and its hard to really say if this will ever see the light of day or not. Providing this does actually become a product in 2014, would you consider one?

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The transport technology is fundamentally based on the pneumatic tubes that once shot telegrams around buildings. I’m sure you’ve seen them on TV and in movies. You put a canister in the tube and it goes shooting off to its destination. This was a future view we had at one point for human transport and we still see in sci-fi programming today.

The real world application of this idea to transporting people around is two-fold: first, you need a vacuum tube. This eliminates all the air in the transport tube and, thus, all of the air resistance. This is easily one of the biggest forces that is preventing us from going faster, as demonstrated by our cars, trains, and planes. The second part of it would make use of existing magnetic levitation (mag-lev) technology, virtually eliminating all friction. Combined, Terraspan’s theoretical vacuum tube train could reach speeds of up to 4,000 mph. Better still, the tubes would double as a superconducting power lines, making for an transcontinent power grid that could redistribute power across the country.

With those kinds of speeds, you could theoretically make it from New York to San Diego in about 45 minutes. So, why aren’t we doing it? There are two main factors again. The first is safety. There is an obvious risk for catastrophe if a train traveling at 4,000mph goes awry for any reason. The smallest break in the vacuum tube could be catastrophic. There’s also no saying what would happen when the train leaves the vacuum and re-enters normal atmospheric pressure. What would happen to the train and its passengers?

The second concern is cost. Mag-lev train lines are already incredibly expensive; the Linimo HSST in Japan is relatively low-speed and it cost around $100 million per kilometer. Considering that a theoretical line from New York to San Diego is about 4,500 kilometers, that’s $450 billion, not including maintenance costs, land acquisition, and the prohibitively expensive cost of the vacuum tube; although we have already spent twice that on Iraq.

In the short term, the vacuum tube train isn’t going to be a reality. Then again, people had many of the same arguments about airplanes–they’re unsafe and too expensive–but here we are flying from Tokyo to London on a daily basis.

[Source]

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Instead of having the standard set of four wheels–two in the front and two in the back–like a regular skateboard, the STAIR ROVER has a total of eight wheels (earlier designs had as many as 12). The idea is that the pairs of wheels on either side can teeter-totter their way down the flight of stairs while the flexible deck keeps you reasonably balanced and in control.

The STAIR ROVER is the creation of London designer Po-Chih Lai. The current version is the eighth iteration and it seems to be the best one yet. Yes, it’s going to take some practice, but this means that you don’t have to get off your board to get down those stairs… going up a flight of stairs, however, is a different matter altogether.

[Source]

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The Hiriko is already a pretty small car, but the rear wheel portion is actually able to “fold” into the front half of the car, effectively reducing its overall length to a mere 60 inches. The two-seater commuter vehicle also comes with “robot wheels” that allow the car to spin into place, and the windshield can open up like a door in case the sides are boxed in by other Hirikos. In effect, you can fit three of these things where you would normally fit one standard car.

If you’re thinking that the Hiriko looks familiar, that’s because we already saw it as the CityCar Concept four years ago. The good news is that it apparently now ready for public consumption with an estimated price of $17,430. The electric car gets about 75 miles on a single charge. Would you want one?

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I’m all for going green. If possible, it’d be great if more people took public transit and rode their bikes. However, because of the weather, a lot of commuters don’t want to ride their bikes in the rain. The Hase Klimax 2x fixes that with an optional portable rain cover.

What you see is basically a recumbent bike (it’s really a trike, since there are three wheels), but it is power-assisted. There is an electric motor there to, “assist users climbing hills or over logner stretches.” There are pedals too, if you want to make use of your own human power. That said, it’s the detachable rain cover that’ll save you on the ride to work.

The rain cover folds up when not in use, but it can also be set up quickly, unfolding around the user without the use of any tools. Toss on a poncho, some goggles and a helmet and you’re ready to brave the elements on the way to your downtown corner office. At least that’s the idea. Test rides are being offered in Europe, but I can’t seem to spot pricing info.

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For starters, the system is electric. It’s also completely driver-less, since the pod cars operate on 2.4 miles of track. When you need to get from terminal 5 to one of the two business parking lots, you simply call up the pod, hop in, and tell it where to go. It’s an on-demand, point-to-point taxi service. It doesn’t need to run continuously on the loop; it just waits for when a passenger needs a pod.

Each of the 22 transport pods has enough room for up to four passengers, plus their luggage. As it zips along on the two-lane track, the pod cars max out at 25mph. Thus far, there are no accidents and they’ve achieved 95% technical reliability. They run 24 hours a day, but can sit idle when they’re not needed too. That’s very efficient. I’m wondering if similar systems will eventually replace mass transit in major cities…

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As much as we would like to believe otherwise, the conventional gas-powered car is going to be the primary mode of transport for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t innovate when it comes to secondary vehicles, as is the case with the E-3POD Antistatic.

Designed by Royal College of Art student Heikki Juvonen, the E3-POD Antistatic is the winning entry in a Double Challenge sponsored by Citroen. The goal was to create an ultra-compact electric vehicle and the E3-POD is exactly that.

It has two slightly angled wheels in the front and a giant wheel in the back. In this way, it’s kind of similar to something like the T-Rex, but it’s also completely different. For starters, the large back wheel is hubless and it houses the cabin where the single passenger will be seated. It’s also fully electric, using all kinds of lightweight construction to allow for a smaller battery pack and more efficient design.

Since the cabin is domed, you get more of a “personal space” that is separated from the rest of the world, quite unlike a regular bicycle. This also shields you from the elements. I imagine there could be some serious vision problems, though, as it looks like there’s a giant bar blocking the center of your windshield. That can’t be safe, can it?

[CarSession via Royal College of Art]

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One of the highlights includes “Svala,” a white dress that looks like a mix between a hospital gurney, a wheelbarrow and a Snuggie. The dress activates when you put it on and wheels you around the city. You can even charge the contraption as long as you store it vertically, exposing the solar panels. The dress will be on display in the centre of Barcelona until the end of the month.

Even better, there’s a “City Skiing” suit that lets you “ski” through the city’s pedestrian areas using nano-wheels. The ski-suit comes equipped with brake lights, turn signals and a GPS system. Because you can never look too ridiculous when strutting your stuff in Milan.

For all you Segway fans, the “Flymag” (or is it Flagway?) is worn like a cardigan and works like a Segway: the movement of your body makes it go faster or slower and left or right. The whole thing can be wrapped up and carried like a backpack.

All the wearable transporation is electric and solar-powered. I think I’ll stick with my rollerblades; they don’t require any energy at all. And I don’t have to wear a giant white dress to get them to work.

[IED via TreeHugger]

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It’s not like shredded government documents and random cardboard boxes are the only source of fuel for these cars. They both run on E85, so that takes a blend of 85 percent biofuel and 15 percent gasoline.

Whereas the ethanol biofuels of the past have made use of corn and other crops, Novozymes has developed an “enzyme cocktail” that can make advanced biofuel “from agricultural residues, municipal waste and energy crops.” The paper waste is converted into sugar and then fermented into biofuel following a sequence of pulping, pre-treatment, and wash.

“The advanced biofuels showcased here today demonstrate that the enzyme technology is ready for market. What we need now is commercialization and deployment of advanced biofuels in order to help meet our country’s most pressing energy and environment challenges,” said Adam Monroe, president, Novozymes North America.

Advanced biofuels are said to have 90 percent less CO2 emissions when compared to gasoline and are among one of the most cost-efficient ways of reducing CO2 in the transportation sector. Novozymes’ technologies in 2009 reduced CO2 emissions of approximately 27 million tons – similar to taking 7 million cars off the road.

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