Prototype car

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The MIT Media Lab, which turns 25 in 2010, has long been known as a hotbed of innovation. It has 23 research groups ranging from Camera Culture to Speech Mobility to Smart Cities to Affective Computing and more. Each group is led by a faculty member and has six graduate students.

Founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte, the lab has produced or contributed to many famous technologies, including Guitar Hero and Lego Mindstorms.

One current project that could have a big impact is the folding car. The idea is to leverage the growing trend for easily rentable short-term cars in cities, like City Car Share or Zip Car. But instead of being about normal vehicles, this project is about an entirely new kind of car, one that is either electric or solar-charged, and can fold up into a very small amount of space.

The vehicle would be able to do that because instead of having a traditional drivetrain, it would have a distributed motor system, with the power coming from motors embedded in all four wheels.

This is a prototype of a vehicle with that powertrain, though this model doesn't fold up.

Click here to read the related story on the MIT Media Lab, and click here to check out the entire Road Trip 2010 package.