Forget the Segway. Even with zero acrobatic balancing skillz, the Enicycle sweeps you into the awesomeness zone in just a couple of minutes. Watch it in action.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAojeqJCzvo[/youtube]

link: Enicycle

Meet Dominic Hargreaves‘s bike, which he calls “The Contortionist” because it can be “folded completely into the space of the wheel’s 26-inch circumference.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9_XEgGQBkQ[/youtube]

[and this here, an awesome video demonstration]

link: “Inventor’s Bike Folds Into Its Own Wheel“

An experimental concept car from Mercedes-Benz turns turns the entire vehicle into an airbag using novel metal panels that inflate moments before impact.

The unimaginatively named ESF 2009 Experimental Safety Vehicle features gadgetry and safety features akin to a moon shot. Chassis components inflate to maximize impact resistance. An airbag under the car slows and supports the vehicle in a crash. Seats protect passengers like eggs in a carton. The list goes on.

“Safety is a central element of the Mercedes-Benz brand,” Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Daimler chairman and Mercedes CEO, said in a statement. “In this respect we have been setting the pace in the market for almost 70 years. The ESF 2009 shows that we still have plenty of ideas and the absolute will to lead the automobile industry in this field even in the future.”

The ESF is just a concept at this point, and it could be years before any of its features appear in showrooms. But the car highlights the efforts automakers are making to build cars that protect us from each other.

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Daniel Dingel has been a “curiosity” for the past four decades or so, mainly because of his water-powered car that’s so shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories that it’s not difficult to resist the temptation to dismiss it as a hoax. But is it not? FHM Philippines chats with the man to basically ask the question: “What’s up with that?”

What will free us from fossil fuel is gathering dust in the garage of Daniel Dingel: a water-powered 1996 red mica (with some odd panels) Toyota Corolla GLi.

This is the same car that has made the rounds of news coverage where the man demonstrates how, with a liter of water and only water, he can drive for up to an hour…

Click below to enlarge and read:

A Warwick University-based team has unveiled a Formula 3 race car built using sustainable materials. Its body is made of potatoes, the steering wheel is carrots, and the fuel is derived from chocolate.

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This isn’t actually a “cool new means of transportation,” but just something you use if you’re too much a pussy to take on more manly means to die, like, say, an actual rocket-powered jet pack.

But then, of course, if you like kites, this is it.

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These monster bikes run using hubless wheels, which work by a complicated magical mechanism that involves drinking lotsa beer and fucking the nearest goat.

Alright, kidding! Hubless wheels work by “fixing the rotating parts (brake ring, bearings, hubless rim) onto the outer side of a non-rotating inner ring that attaches to the motorcycle’s swingarm or forks.”

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYlSTvAW1Po[/youtube]

Richard Carter covered a Volvo with “singing fish” he calls the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. We just call it the get-laid-quick pussy magnet car.

In the Bio Runner, the rider is positioned inside a protective cage on a motorcycle-like saddle with controls attached to the hands and feet. These controls manipulate all wheels via synthetic muscle-based suspension which offers unparalleled control and traction… this system allows the rider to lean into turns as well as shift the center of gravity by changing the position of the wheels in relation to the cab.

Just one of the retarded awesome futuristic concepts from the LA’s Design Challenge: Motorsports 2025.

Above, the Terrafugia Transition parked; below, with its wings folded up.

The world’s first “flying car” is set to be on the road by next year.

The plane, which has fold-out wings that span 27.5ft when extended, has an airborne range of 460 miles and can cruise at 115mph.

Back on terra firma, it is capable of travelling at ‘highway speeds’ in car mode.

Fuelling the 19ft long plane couldn’t be simpler – you just drive it into a petrol station and fill it up with unleaded.

It is powered by a 100 hp, Rotax 912S, four-stroke engine.

A spokeswoman for designers Terrafugia, based in Woburn, Massachusetts, USA, said: ‘You can keep your Transition in your garage.

‘Then you simply drive to your local airport, fly up to 460 miles, land, convert and drive directly to your destination.

‘You’ll always be ready to drive or fly.’

A series of simple commands made from the cockpit convert the white craft from plane to car and vice versa.

But the wings only fold out if the correct key code is entered by someone with a pilot’s licence.

In other news: an entirely new class of horrible accidents in the offing! Yay!
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Doc Ock would have been proud.

This is the Odysseus, Aurora Flight Sciences‘ strange solar-powered aircraft. Designed to stay aloft in the stratosphere for up to five years of uninterrupted flight, it features a combo of three self-sufficient “constituent aircraft” in a unique Z wing configuration that spans almost 500 feet (150 meters).

Odysseus will be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay and environmental monitoring with the potential for roles in global climate change Learning-to-Love-Global-Warming research and regional-scale telecommunications.

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This is Glenn Martin, showing off his jet pack. Prepare to die.

A motorbike engine running on petrol uses car fan-belts to drive two fan propellers that spin horizontally inside what looks like two oversized soup cans.

This ‘ducted fan’ design is more efficient than the unshielded rotor of a helicopter.

The engine, fuel tank and pilot are positioned between and below the lift-fans to lower the centre of gravity and prevent the machine turning upside down in flight and diving into the ground.

Two control levers protrude forwards beneath the pilot’s arms. The left one is a joystick controlling forward and backward movement and sideways tilt of the propellers, for left and right turns.

The right lever is the accelerator, the engine start-and-stop switch, and a button for the emergency parachute, located behind the pilot’s head.

Mr Martin recently gained backing from a group of venture capitalists and quit his regular job as a biochemist to develop his machine.

He said: ‘Within six months I’ll take it to 500ft, then the sky’s the limit.’ He believes its ideal flying height will be between 500ft and 1,000ft although it could go up to 6,000ft. He said his machine can stay up for 30 minutes, a flying time he believes will make it a best-seller.

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