Concepts

Subaru announced today a follow-up to its R1e electric minicar, a bigger electric car built on its Stella platform. The Stella is a four-seat car sold in Japan, narrow but tall. The electric Stella concept uses a 40-kilowatt electric motor powered by lithium ion batteries. This powertrain gives it a maximum speed of 62 miles per hour and a range of 50 miles.

Subaru built the electric Stella concept to test out a car with more practical interior space than the R1e. Five of the Stella concepts will be used at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako summit in July, while one … Read more

Over the last auto show season, Mazda demonstrated its new Nagare design direction with a whole series of concept cars, named Nagare, Ryuga, Hakaze, Taiki, and Furai. Now the company is seeing how one of these low-slung cars would look at SUV height. The new concept SUV will be shown off at the Moscow Auto Salon from August 29 to September 7. Mazda chose a compact SUV concept for this show because SUVs are popular in Russia's growing car market. Mazda only released sketches of its concept. These sketches indicate a design close to the original Nagare concept, with … Read more

If you've seen the latest Knight Rider series recently, you may have noticed that K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand) embraces a type of nano technology that lets its outer shell change colors and temporarily morph into other car forms. How cool is that? If BMW has its way, that part of the reel world would be made real.

The carmaker's GINA Light Visionary Model, a two-seater concept car, wears a flexible, virtually seamless skin made of a textile fabric and stretched over a metal wire structure enforced with carbon fiber. This gives the owner the … Read more

If the line between gaming gear and professional simulators is increasingly blurred, this is why. We've already seen sims that are FAA-approved, but CXC Simulations has taken the concept to a new level on the ground.

The "Motion-Pro II Simulator" combines the latest 3D technology with 505-watt 5.1 surround sound and a huge subwoofer that can be felt as well as heard through four vibration transducers. The result, according to BornRich, is "the unique sound and physical vibrations of a high-powered race car."

And to make sure your visual senses aren't left out, … Read more

While some concept cars look as if they come from a future that never will be, others represent cars that will actually go into production. We've gathered the most realistic concept cars from the last auto show season to see how the near future will look.

Click here for photos of concept cars that could or will enter production.

Mercedes-Benz announced the official launch of its new crossover, the GLK, at the 2008 Beijing auto show. We first saw the GLK as a concept at the 2008 Detroit auto show.

Click here for photos of the production and concept Mercedes-Benz GLK.

Anyone who saw Craver Brian Cooley's video of this bizarre vehicle at last year's Geneva Auto Show will notice that something is conspicuously absent from the photo above: There are no training wheels. The reason that the "MonoTracer" needs those is that it has only two wheels--something else that may not be entirely clear at an initial glance.

Though it may look like an anorexic car, this futuristic vehicle from Germany's Peraves is an enclosed motorcycle that is supposedly far more aerodynamic than its naked counterparts. Even so, when it's taking sharp corners on … Read more

We've intimated before that the Segway isn't exactly our cup of tea, but we're frankly afraid of going down that route again for fear of reprisal. So without judgment, we herewith present another item on said machine that seeks to improve upon the design, regardless of how one feels about it.

Designer Sarah Park has drafted a concept that would outfit the famed personal transporter with dual handlebars that Gearfuse describes as a "skiing-like steering mechanism." The size of the handlebars would be similar to those of a baby stroller and navigated in a similar … Read more

It has six wheels, all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, and it's a concept of a 2020 model year car. Oh, and it's designed to drive on the moon. NASA has been working on a vehicle, the Lunar Chariot, for astronauts to use on a planned return to the moon in 2020. The design for the Lunar Chariot was influenced by the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which proved the usefulness of having multiple driven wheels over an incredibly hostile landscape. With its all-wheel-steering, it can drive in a crab-like sideways motion, further improving its mobility over difficult surfaces. The Chariot lacks … Read more