The National Federation for the Blind has announced that a blind man has driven a tech enhanced Ford Escape Hybrid around the famous Daytona International Speedway on the 1.5-mile road course section without the assistance of a sighted person. The demonstration used a Ford Escape Hybrid vehicle and was part of the festivities leading up to the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The driver of the Escape was Mark Anthony Riccobono. Riccobono navigated several turns on the track, avoided obstacles that were stationary and dynamic obstacles that were thrown into the road by a van driving in front of him. The driver was also able to pass the van without collision. The SUV that let him perform this feat was crammed full of technology.

The vehicle has a laser range finder to send into to a computer inside the car that updated a 3D map of the road in front of the vehicle. The details were sent to the driver to a set of vibrating gloves that were work to show the driver which way to turn. The seat had a vibrating strip to tell the driver when to speed up, slow down, or stop. The event was known as the NFB’s Leadership in Blind Driver Challenge.

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This concept from Econut takes the cake as being the most green gadget accessory.  The concept case is made from coconut fibers and allows you to slip your iPad in, prop it up and use the built in keyboard with the device.

After using the case, you can simply give the case back to nature as it seems to be biodegradable.  The design is stylish and clean and would make the Professor from Gilligan’s Island quite proud.

The video indicates the case will come in five stylish colors; white, yellow, green, red, and black.  So if the designers ever do get the case into production, expect plenty of Prius drivers to be carrying them around.

[Via Yanko Designs]

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I have the distinctive honor of presenting to you the very first post on SlashGear to feature a rickshaw. This rickshaw is both electronic and eco-friendly. This is the Meguru, a three-wheeled, three seat tiny vehicle that’s made to go what they call “maximum speed” and range of about 25 miles per hour. Of course that’s just with the out-of-the-box build, you can add batteries as you like for a longer ride.

Nobukuki Ogura, chief executive officer of Yodogawa Group, the group responsible for building the vehicle in cooperation with three other smaller western Japanese companies, had a bit to say about the vehicle. First he said that “this is a true environmentally friendly car,” then he said that “Instead of an air-conditioner, it comes with a pinwheel, and we are also thinking of adding a wind chime because it gives a refreshing sound to cool you down without the need of electricity.”

Brilliantly made, looks fantastic! A neato piece of this puzzle is that although a regular driver’s license is needed to drive, a car registration is not. This vehicle measures 8-ft 2-in long, 3-ft 11-in wide, and 5-ft 3-in tall. The body of the vehicle is coated in a beautiful red lacquer, the floor is made with recycled bamboo, and the retractable fans on the sides are made of washi paper.

The vehicle will costs around one million yen (approximately $12,044 according to the auto-converter in Google search.) The greatest fact about this whole vehicle? Ogura says it best: “We’ve used all-natural materials, so if you ever decide to get rid of the car, simply bury it in the ground.”

[Via Rueters Television Osaka]

Toyota has announced that it is developing a new alternative electric motor to be used in its hybrid vehicles. The new motor is being designed to reduce the need for rare earth Toyota uses in the construction of its vehicles. The move comes after a spat between Japan and China led to China withholding shipments of rare earth to Japan for a few months.

China produces 97% of the world’s supply of rare earths that are use in all sorts of items from electronics to hybrid vehicles and more. The move will make it easier for Toyota to operate without the material from China should there ever be an issue with supply again.

The AP reports that the US, Canada, and Australia all have rare earth deposits as well, but stopped mining the rare earth materials since it was cheaper to get the material from China. China has about 30% of the world supply of rare earth within its country.

One of the coolest EVs on the road is the Tesla Roadster. The little roadster has impressive driving range and performance while still being green and producing no emissions. The only real downside to the little EV is that the thing is expensive.

Tesla has announced that I has now delivered 1500 Roadsters globally and the vehicles in total have driven 8.5 million miles in the real world. The fleet is in owner hands across 30 different countries and have saves 415,000 gallons of fuel and 22,000 barrels of oil so car.

Tesla announced back at CES that it would be working with NVIDIA to get GPUs and other tech to support the infotainment system in its new Model S. “The Roadster has earned global appeal. Our latest delivery milestone proves the Tesla is raising the bar for EVs,” said Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk. “The Roadster’s advanced electric powertrain is the foundation of Tesla’s success.”

The amount of power that our gear uses when it’s not even turned on will surprise many folks. Often when you turn off your computer, printer, or TV the thing is still drawing quite a bit of power that is doing nothing but running up your electric bill.

ThinkEco has a new outlet that promises to cut your electric bill by cutting the vampire power draw of these devices. The modlet is a wirelessly communicating outlet that costs $50 for a dual plug modlet outlet and a USB receiver. You don’t have to remove your normal outlet to use the modlet, it plugs in like a surge protector.

ThinkEco claims that the $50 you spend on the outlet will be returned in savings in electricity in six to nine months. The outlet automatically schedules the power shut off and then turns the gadgets on based on historic usage patterns. That sounds really cool and the modlet will be on display at CES this week.

If you are anything like me, you probably have boxes of old gadgets sitting around that you don’t use and don’t want. Some of that gear may be worth money, but I loathe eBay and don’t want to mess with trying to sell it. Rather than just throw the stuff out Newegg has a new option for you.

Newegg has a new recycling program that can land you a Newegg gift card. The program lets you get a price quote on your gear online, you can ship it to the company for free, and then they will send you the gift card back. The program is powered by Gazelle and will take products in 20 different categories.

Items that are worth no money can still be sent in for recycling. The gadgets that are worth money have to be inspected before the money is sent to you to be sure they work. Any personal data is removed from the devices before they are recycled or resold.

The Chevrolet Volt is a green car that is just now starting to head to consumer driveways around the country. The car is cool and has already won numerous awards in the automotive journalism world. The Volt is more than green just for saving on gas, the car also uses recycled materials in its construction.

GM has announced that it is recycling the oil booms that were used to aid in the clean up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The booms will be used along with a densification material, post consumer plastic, and recycled tires to make new components used in the construction of the Volt.

GM will be recycling about 100 miles worth of used boom material. The 100 miles of recycled boom will be used to make up 25% of the plastic parts that deflect the air around the cars radiator and another 25% will be recycled tires that come from the GM Milford Proving Ground facility. Recycling the oil booms will keep 100,000 pounds of plastic from landfills.

Via Gizmag

Electric, hybrid, and green vehicles of all sorts tend to bring economy to mind for most of us. I always think of fuel sipping and low performance vehicles like the Prius or the Volt when electric vehicles come to mind. Electric vehicles do have some performance benefits too like gobs of torque making the vehicles have impressive acceleration that can be better than traditional internal combustion counterparts.

The Tesla Roadster was one of the first EVs that was performance oriented and now a very cool new motorcycle called the Mission Motors Mission R has debuted. The motorcycle is a racing machine that looks awesome. It has a liquid cooled AC induction motor that has 115ft. lbs of torque. The MissionEVT power train has 141hp and stores 14.4 kWh of power in a package that is smaller than a 600cc sport bike.

The bike uses a single gear ratio and can hit over 160mph in that single gear. That means that the rider will not have to shift while other racers go through multiple gears to hit the same speed. The bike will compete in the TTGXP, the world’s first zero emissions, clean emissions grand prix held during the Isle of Man TT.

I like to put lights outside for Christmas, mostly I stick to a few strands in the bushes and a string or two on the house. Some folks really go all out. There is a house not far from us with lights that are synced to music that is pretty cool. Even that display has nothing on the Faucher family from Delaware.

These folks have a Christmas light show on their house that Clark Griswold would be proud to call his own. In fact, the light show looks like something Sparky would have crafted himself. I hate to think how long these people spend setting this up and tracking down whey all the strands won’t work.

The shocking part about this light show isn’t how cool it is or how long it would take to set up. The shocking part is how much power the show sucks down and how much it costs to run. HouseLogic reports that the 1 million lights used cost about $686 an hour to run and over the month of Christmas the total bill would run $82,230. You can buy a decent house for that price in my area. If they used LED lights, it would cost $89 per hour or $10,680 for the month.