Today Ford unveiled the brand new Evos concept car in Berlin, Germany, and Cali Lewis and I were fortunate enough to be there for the unveiling of this jaw-droppingly beautiful model of modern technology.

The new Ford Evos concept is similar to the Chevy Volt in that both are electric hybrids. Each of these vehicles can drive around for up to 50 miles using nothing but electric power, and each can also motivate themselves down the road using their traditional gasoline engines.

Of course, one major difference is that you can actually go out and purchase a Chevy Volt right now, while the Evos is still just a concept. That being said, Ford is promising that we’ll begin to see elements of the Evos present in vehicles starting as early as next year.

Ford Evos Design Elements

Like other concept cars, the Evos is the embodiment of the dreams of a team of talented designers. It’s absolutely loaded with all of the latest lust-inducing technology, and it has a body that just won’t quit. If Ford could package up the Evos and roll it out the door to showrooms today, at even a moderately reasonable price, I’m sure they would sell out immediately.

Ford says the new Evos concept serves as a model for a number of design elements that we’ll see across a wide range of Ford nameplates in the years to come. After the unveiling today Cali caught up with J. Mays, Fords Head of Design, and we’ll get that video up in the next day or so. In the meantime here are a few observations:

• The most immediately striking thing about the Evos are the 4 gull-wing doors. Although they are the most beautiful part of the concept, sadly I doubt we’ll ever see anything like these in a production vehicle.
• A sporty new 4 seater profile was imagined for the Evos, which has the sort of raw sex appeal that makes you want to just get in and drive the car. Everyone I talked to who saw the Evos immediately loved it – which is an impressive feat considering that individual taste in cars varies wildly!
• Super thin slit LED lights occupy a much smaller section of the faceplate, leaving more room for wind-tunnel friendly bumper sculpting, and looking extremely high-tech.
• A single center-mounted exhaust at the rear is reminiscent of the Porsche Boxster, or several other purebred sports cars, conjuring up images of performance.
• The Evos’ non-traditional sunroof design stretches down the center of the cabin and ultimately blends into the rear window, giving back seat passengers the ability to look up as well as those in the front seat.

Which of these elements get baked into new designs is anyone’s guess, but I’d wager a bet that the new grill, thin LED headlights, the full length sunroom, and swooping wind-tunnel friendly body designs are here to stay.

Ford Evos Technology Re-Imagined

I had dinner with Paul Mascarenas, Ford’s Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering, and we discussed many of the design and technology elements present in the new Evos concept. Today, after the official unveiling I also caught up with him and we did a quick video interview, which I will also have uploaded within the next day or two. So keep an eye out for that.

Meanwhile, a few of the technology concepts Ford imagines:

• Ford imagines a day when they operate a data cloud which stores your personal information, preferences, tasks and more, and helps keep you organized.
• Not only does the cloud organize data, but it can help you with scheduling. For example, imagine Ford checking your Google calendar and seeing that you have an early meeting with a colleague. So you set your alarm clock to get up early. The Ford cloud sees that your meeting partner has cancelled during the night, so the system re-sets your clock to give you an extra hour of sleep!
• The Ford technology platform is also envisioned to provide a ton of vehicle tuning and customization to fit your driving preferences, even based on road conditions. For example, I’m a real driving enthusiast, so my car might suggest an alternate route that people in my social network have indicated is a great “drivers road”. When I start getting agressive, the car can firm up the suspension, mute my phone calls to minimize driver distraction, and even monitor my heart rate to see if I’m getting a little too excited.
• Another unique concept that Ford has thrown out would be to place large induction charging mats in garages, where the Evos (or it’s derivatives) could park on a giant charging mat and power up without needing a physical plug. Kind of like most electric toothbrushes nowadays – only much, much bigger.

Ford Evos Concept Car Photos

What good is talking about a beautiful concept car? After all, pictures are worth 1,000 words! So here are about 70,000 words worth of pics to drool over! All of these were taken at today’s unveiling. Some, just for fun. Most, of the Evos Concept Car (red one) and its model (the yellow one).

As always, click on any image to see a larger version, and keep clicking to get to the biggest one.

So, what do you think? Is this thing magnificent, or what?

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Airplane Shadow

I was sitting at the window and I noticed that our shadow was nicely tracking us and converging with the general direction we were going. (As expected obviously…) You will rarely see this because everything has to be at just the right angle. The position of the sun, the direction of the runway, the approach to the runway, and even your vantage point within the plane all have to be correct.

Anyway, I pulled out my Samsung Galaxy Tab and started videoing, and I think what I caught here is actually pretty cool. Hope you enjoy.

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Brammo Enertia Instrument Cluster

Brammo is one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of fully electric bikes, which is not to say that they are old or large. Compared to Honda, Harley, Yamaha and the rest of the old school gang Brammo is in its infancy. But unlike all of the big boys, Brammo is currently producing and shipping fully electric motorcycles. And I’m not talking about little toy electric scooters! I’m talking full-on production quality motorcycles.

Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle

Recently Brammo announced the new Empulse model, which is purported to have a top speed of 100 MPH along with a 100 mile range. And I perked up! Since I was heading out to San Francisco on business, and since Brammo has some dealers in the area, I reached out to Craig Bramscher to see if I could arrange some time with it. Unfortunately, the Empulse isn’t quite available yet, but Craig and the team suggested I could at least take the Enertia out for a spin.

The Video Review

And take it I did. Here is my video review of the experience. If you have any questions that I didn’t cover here just drop me a comment below and I’ll tell you all about it.

The Photos

I also took a little time to stage a few photos of the Enertia, so have fun with the photo gallery.

Alternatives

More pricy, but higher performance competitors to the Enertia include:

• Brammo Empulse
• Roehr eBike
• Mavizen TTX02
• Mission One
• MotoCzysz E1

As soon as I get my hands on any of them I’ll bring you guys more electric motorcycle reviews!

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Does anyone else Read Road & Track magazine? Are you as sick as me of turning through the pages at the back of the magazine and finding the Penis Enlargement ads?

What the hell is up these guys? Are they THAT broke? I mean, as I read through the magazine and see Ferraris, Bugattis, and other $100,000+ vehicles it makes me wonder why I’d see these spammy fake pill ads in the exact same magazine.

I think the problem with these magazines is that they have absolutely no shame about hiding these ads in the back of the mags, so maybe what they need is a little public attention to let them know that we are all sick of it, and it’s not worth whatever tiny ad revenue they are getting from it. If you agree, how about helping to spread the word by tweeting, blogging, Facebooking, or otherwise bookmarking this article?

And if you’ve got other examples of magazines running the same sort of fake pill crap please scan an image and link to it in the comments. We’ll get it added to the list…

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Ok, I’m going to get this out of the way before I tell you all about my trip to the Indianapolis 500, “The greatest spectacle in racing.” Wait. Did I just say that? Well, not really… that is what THEY say, and its the same thing they have all the drivers say, it’s on all their commercials, the announcers say it – it’s generally everywhere when you are near the Indy 500.

Don’t get me wrong, Indy probably is the greatest spectacle in racing! But for God’s sake, who uses the word spectacle? I mean, unless you are trying to describe Grandma’s glasses. I think spectacle is basically the same as monocle. And frankly the word needs to be retired!

So I’ve got some other suggestions for the folks behind the Indy 500:

• The largest sporting event on the planet!
• The most amazing race on Earth!
• The most fun you can have watching cars!

Ok, now that I’ve had my say, let me tell you all about the Indy 500!

Behind the Scenes at the Indy Motor Speedway

As some of you will recall, I had full credentials to attend the Indy 500 this year. So I drove up from Dallas so that I could carry all my camera gear and anything else I felt like taking to be comfortable. It turns out that I learned the best way to attend Indy is really to travel light!

I believe I could have gone to the event with nothing but shorts, a T-shirt and a small camera and had a great time, so if you are planning on heading out don’t bother taking a bunch of stuff with you. For example, every where you look people were wheeling in ice chests. This means they had to drag them into the Speedway from literally a mile or two away. It’s not worth it folks! Beer is $5 not $15!

Anyway, one thing you need to know is that if you are coming to Indy, you need to go there at 5am. Yes, I know the race starts at 1:30pm or whatever, but if you don’t go at 5am you are going to be waiting in lines literally miles long, and its going to take you hours and hours to park. Plus, you’re going to end up parking miles away in someone’s front yard.

The good news is that if you get there early you can set up for a party until the race starts! Everyone is doing it, so you can make some new friends, get loaded, and play games.

Now, if we flash forward a bit, I’ll tell you that when the good folks at the IMS give you access to the event, they are NOT kidding around. I was able to go into the garage area for the entire two full weeks of planning for the event as well as just about anywhere on the grounds of the facility.

I was able to get inside the gates and go all the way up to the area where the pro photographers stand as the cars whiz by. I had full access to the media building, where they fed us every day and gave us snacks, water and drinks!

The media building itself, and yes, there is an entire 4 story building JUST for the media, was a monstrous structure with tons of space to accommodate vast numbers of reporters. There was plenty of room to spread out, and everyone had a place for a laptop, network connection, and tons of televisions from which to keep an eye on the event. Not to mention the fact that you could simply walk outside and look over the balcony at what was going on.

Race Highlights

Anyway, enough of the behind the scenes stuff, this year’s race was very exciting and there were a number of firsts and/or notable performances:

• Dario Franchitti led 155 of the 200 laps around Indy’s 2.5 mile track and eventually won the race! This is the second most dominant lead in the 100 year history of the race, behind only Juan Pablo Montoya’s winning run.
• There were 4 women in the field this year (the most ever at an Indy race) – Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher of the U.S., along with Simona de Silvestro of Switzerland and Ana Beatriz of Brazil. Danica went on to place 6th, and Simona De Silvestro actually finished first among the rookies!
• This year’s race featured drivers from 13 different countries.
• The first, second and third place finishers were all from the UK!
• Tony Kanaan who started in the 33rd position (last place), managed to work his way all the way up to 2nd place, and nearly managed to win the whole race! You can read his own account of the race on the USA Today site!
• Marco Andretti was originally slotted in 6th place after the race, but immediately claimed he was passed by 3 drivers during a yellow flag. Turns out he was right, and so was later bumped into a 3rd place finish.
• Finally, Mike Conway, who was having an amazing day, also had one of the most amazing wrecks in the sport’s history! On the 199th lap (out of 200) Mike came up on Hunter-Reay’s car and had a wreck which launched him into the air and up against the catch fence at 200 miles per hour! Can you imagine being a spectator on the other side of that fence?

Here’s what the car looked like during the accident:

And here is an HDR photo that I took of Mike’s other car just two day’s before. This was his backup car, as I understand it, and had they not chosen to take his primary car out he’d have been in this one and would have started in 32nd place rather than 33rd.

Luckily Mike only had relatively minor injuries to his leg and back. He’ll be out for 3 months, but he’s not dead!

Indy 500 Photos and Videos

Now that we’re finished with all of the race overview details, I want to share a whole bunch of photos I took with you guys. First is a compilation video I created using Animoto. I think it turned out pretty good. It’s about 2.5 minutes long but didn’t seem boring to me to watch, so hopefully you’ll enjoy it too.

I’ve also uploaded all of these photos and video clips to my Indy 500 set on Flickr if you prefer to peruse them in high resolution. Here is a slideshow embed of those clips.

Don’t forget, I also put up posts from my trip to the Indy 500, and also the IPL500 Parade.

Finally, here’s a selection of a few of my favorite photos just for grins:

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As you guys know, I went to the Indy 500 last week. It’s taking me a little too long to upload my photos, but I’m getting around to it! First of all, on Saturday before the big race day Indianapolis holds a huge parade in downtown, where literally all of the drivers and big shots involved in the race came down the street.

I camped out amidst a crowd of people and fired away as the celebs rode by. All of these photos were shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and I used two different lenses. Primarily the 70-200mm Canon 2.8 IS, but also my Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 for a few of them.

If you look close you’ll see Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle), Florence Henderson (Mrs. Brady), Danica Patrick (the GoDaddy Girl / F1 driver), a bunch of Andrettis, Jeff Foster (from the Indiana Pacers), Krista White (from America’s Next Top Model), the entire George family (owners of the Indy Motor Speedway), and a slew of others!

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Thanks to Mitch over at Planet5D for finding this little gem…

Six weeks, and over 100 hours of footage shot on several Canon EOS 5D Mark IIs culminate in this remarkable, 4-minute time lapse of the second to last Space Shuttle Discovery launch.

With the help of everyone from shuttle technicians to crane operators to escorts (86-year-old NASA retiree Charlie Parker was particularly valuable in squiring Andrews’ team around) the photographers positioned multiple cameras—up to nine at any one time—inside the cavernous assembly building to click away while the orbiter, fuel tank, and twin solid rocket boosters were “stacked” for launch.

Scott Andrews figures the finished video represents tens of thousands of individual frames and at least 100 hours of shooting, using the highest-resolution digital single-lens-reflex cameras on the market. Jirman did the color correction, which took a week alone.

PS – Sorry about the stupid auto starting video! Whoever in the hell shared this should have know better than to auto-launch videos. Especially ones that start with a freakin commercial!

Space Shuttle Discovery Timelapse Photos

Below are some screen captures from the video. A few are interesting enough that they might make a decent desktop wallpaper.

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Well, today I actually arrived in Indianapolis and consequently the Indy Motor Speedway. I met up with Jana, my friend at Indy who invited me, and she gave me the tour of the place.

The first thing you think when you arrive is, “Oh my God. I’ll be lost forever.” Seriously, the track is 2.5 miles long, and the entire complex is just massive. But after you spend a little time there you can pretty quickly figure out where everything is. Of course, I think that getting the VIP treatment helped speed up my learning curve… but the bottom line is that tomorrow when things get started I’ll be able to find my way around just fine.

So, today I wandered around a bit, got my bearings, and went over to the garage to see if any of the drivers and crews were doing anything interesting. Here are some photos from around the Garage area to give you a general sense of what was going on.

In addition to normal stuff, I happened upon the HP+McAfee team practicing their pit changes! It was awesome to be able to stand 5 feet from these guys and just take photos and watch them change the tires over and over. In fact, I was able to take some video to share with you guys! Enjoy!

By the way, this is the team behind driver Davey Hamilton. He’s an amazing story! In 2001 a crash at the Texas Motor Speedway nearly killed him. And although he spent a year in a wheel chair, had 21 surgeries, and wasn’t expected to ever drive again – he refused to go out like that! In 2007 he came back, and now he’s racing at Indy.

Here is his horrific wreck in case you want to see it:

Ok, after tomorrow hopefully I’ll have a lot more photos and video to share. I was a little down today that I couldn’t get more stuff, but I arrived too late to capture some actual cars on the track. See you tomorrow…

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Ok folks, by the time you read this, I’ll be heading out from Dallas on my way to Indianapolis via St. Louis. As you may recall, I was invited by the folks over at the Brickyard to attend the Indy 500 with full press credentials, so I’m heading up to document the entire experience and share it with all of you!

My goal is to make it to St. Louis tonight in time to catch the Gateway Arch before dusk. I’d like to try and find the perfect spot to set up and get some HDR photos of this magnificent structure. Afterwards, I’ll stay at Harrah’s Casino for the evening (where I normally stay when I’m in town). Now, on the way home from Indy I’ll take the southern route through Memphis and Little Rock, then on into Dallas.

Since I’ll be driving for days, and since I’m always up for adventure, if anyone has any “must see” spots that I should see, PLEASE let me know! I’ll be checking comments here on the blog periodically, and I’ll be looking out for Tweets and Facebook comments you send my way. I was going to try and spend some time on RoadsideAmerica.com looking for things along the route, but just never got around to it. Darn!
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Here is the route I’ll be taking in a Google Map:

View Larger Map

Of course, as I mentioned when I announced that Mishaal had won my iPad, I’m also going to pick up SOMETHING at the Indy 500 to give away to at least one person (maybe more) who helps keep me amused this week by engaging with me as I travel. So comments on the Indy 500 blog posts, or tweets or Facebook comments all count. Help me find fun things, or just amuse me so I don’t get bored and you may win! :-)

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Yes, there is a God. And he put these people on Earth specifically for our amusement!

Um, by the way, can I ask a couple of questions?

• How in the HELL, did they get that trailer in that garage?
• Did it never occur to them that the trailer was light enough to just roll out of the garage by hand and then hook it to the truck hitch?

Yeah, Ok, Thanks, Bye.

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Well, the good folks over at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway invited me once again to attend the Indy 500 (I couldn’t make it last year), and were kind enough to give me full press credentials so that I can take all the photos I want and bring you guys the inside story behind the world’s largest single-day spectator sporting event.

I plan on driving from Dallas to Indianapolis so that I can carry all my gear. Of course, I’ll have all my photo and video stuff, but I’ll also take a cooler, portable chairs, and other goodies to enjoy while parking in the infield during the big race.

My goal is to bring back a ton of photos and behind the scenes stories to let you guys all know what it’s really like to be at the Indy 500. Considering I’ll have full access to the pits, the track and just about everything else, I’m going to spend 4 days there to try and really get a good feel for it.

The Indy schedule looks pretty good for Thursday through Sunday (race day) so hopefully I’ll get a little time with some drivers, crews, and to practice some high speed photography and get my settings right for the big day.

I Could Use Some Help!

First of all, have any of you been to the Indy 500, or for that matter any of the other NASCARIRL (Indy Racing League) races? If so, I could use all the advice you can give! I’ve never been to one of these events, which is crazy considering what a car guy I am.

• I’m scared of competing with 250,000 people for parking on race day! I do have a special parking pass but just the sheer madness of getting in could be frustrating. Any tips?
• How close can you get if you park in the infield?
• What should I bring with me to the event?
• Anything in particular you’d like me to try and do / see / photo / interview while I’m there?

The Trip

The route I’m taking up from Dallas will be through St. Louis, where I plan to visit some friends and also try and get some good shots of the Arch.

I haven’t decided if I’m coming back the same way or if I’ll head down through Tennessee yet. So if anyone has suggestions on things I should definitely see between Dallas and Indy please share those with me so I can try and figure out if I need to change the route to accomodate.

Looking forward to your advice and feedback!

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Ok, the guys in these videos were either amazingly talented riders, or amazingly lucky! Either way, it’s very cool to watch!

What we have here is a series of clips in which motorcycle riders almost lose it but manage to hang on. Some nearly flip their bike over backwards, others nearly fly off the handlebars, and still others barely avoid certain death. But one thing they all have in common is – you probably won’t ever witness anything like this in person in your lifetime!

This next one is what is called “high siding”. It’s when the rider basically comes up over the handlebars! This is one of the most famous motorcycle recoveries of all time I think.

Here’s a broken neck waiting to happen! This is a a “tank slapper”, which is when the front wheel and back wheel start going in different directions. Trust me, when you get the wheels doing this, you’re going down (like this gruesome wreck)!

The announcers in this next motorcycle near miss video pretty much say it all!

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Why don’t American’s come up with unbelievably cool crap like this? I mean you know all those record snow storms we were whining about? They wouldn’t matter if your car had its own set of tank tread snowshoes!

Essentially you just drive your Volkswagen bug, or Ford F150 up onto these tank treads and then remove the tires and bolt it in place. The steering, braking and acceleration function like normal – except that you can drive over your neighbors (literally) and anything else in sight.

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I’m a big fan of Rain X, the automotive window glass treatment. It is designed to essentially fill in the tiny pores on the glass on your windshield and make it super slick to rain, snow or ice.

Since most people have never used a glass treatment before I figured I would show you a video of it in action so you can see why it’s so valuable. As you will see, Rain-X causes the rain to sheet right off the window – even at over 80 miles per hour. In fact, the faster you are going, the more effective it becomes, especially when compared to windshield wipers which can have a very hard time sweeping the rain off at higher speeds.

This video was taken when my NSX got caught in a heavy downpour (I would never otherwise take it out in the rain!), and it’s best if you make the video full screen by clicking on the little icon in the bottom right of the video window that looks like 4 outwardly expanding arrows.

If you’d like to see another demonstration, they’ve got one over on the Rain-X Website. Enjoy.

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Today it’s snowing in Dallas. Rare, but it happens. Even more often we get terrible ice storms. And there is nothing worse than trying to scrape ice off the windows of a car for like half an hour when its freezing outside. So guess what… You don’t have to do that!

If you have a vehicle that you can’t park in a garage, like my big ass Nissan Titan pickup truck, you can get a Windshield Cover and just put it over your window before the storm comes. Then, no matter how much ice comes down, when you are ready to go you just pull the cover off the window and there goes the mess with no scraping!

If you’d rather not spring for a $10 cover (or these $6 disposable ones – Frosty Fender Disposable Windshield Cover) you can just take a large garbage bag and split it down the sides – leaving it attached on the bottom – then when you spread it out lengthwise it should be wide enough to cover the whole window. Same thing with a little painters dropcloth from Lowes or Home Depot. Just find some plastic sheeting and cover the window and you’ll be all set.

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Ahhh! Day 2 of the Stuck in Customs A World in HDR book giveaway contest, made possible by PeachPit of course! Of course, today is my favorite because the theme of the day is vehicles! And I do love vehicles!

So, this first one we’ve got here is a photo I took this weekend in Tucumcari, New Mexico of an old abandoned truck. Hope you like it. It’s just here to set the mood. Now let’s take a look at some of my favorite submissions so far and then I’ll announce today’s winner at the very end.

Honorable Mentions

Pedro P. Porto sent in this photo of a Ford Fiesta apparently up on blocks in the garage. Visually very interesting photo!

Vicky Tsavdaridou linked to this photo by Scotty Graham of a boat in Indonesia.

Gary Boyd posted what I can only describe as a Jeep in it’s natural state! Any photo of a Jeep that isn’t taken like this just means that the owner is a wannabe! Good job Gary!

Brett Boyer also sent in a Jeep in it’s natural environment. This time on the beach.

And while we’re on a Jeep roll, here are some of them doing duty in Iceland! (Where my buddy Hrafn is from.) Thanks to birkirb for sharing and Birkir Barkarson for the photo.

Huguette Ampudia submitted this awesome photo of the Queen Mary II by Dieter Bethke.

Travis Putman, another new Flickr user (yeah and welcome!), shared this awesome black and white of a 57 Chevy. I really love the way the black and white accentuates the chrome. The color version is also nice.

I’m a fan of the Subaru WRX STI, and Heather Lang posted a link to Gary Tonge’s Type 25 version of the vehicle. Simply magnificent.

Edta, another! new Twitter user, posted this shot called Two Engines taken by Vivek Sekar.

Johnny O shared this very nicely done photo of a custom Dodge Charger SRT. Its a good-looking car made even better by the conversion to black and white and the slight angle of the image which invokes a feeling of motion even standing still. Nicely done Johnny! (Cool Sig too!)

Gary Reimer got creative on us! When we said cars, planes or trains, he took us at our word! :-)

Steve Stanger shared this photo which he called “crushed and rusted“.

Astin sent in a photo that I bet we will all universally love! The Ice Cream man!

Here is a fantastic shot of the inside of a Blimp cockpit thanks to Kevin Foster! I can honestly say I’ve never seen one of these before.

Also shared by Kevin is this photo from Peter Talke of a Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk for which here is the entire story.

Eugene shared his photo entitled Bentley in Avignon. The Continental GT is obviously beautiful, but all of the details are fantastic too from the cobblestone street to the magnificent home in the background.

Here is an amazing shot of a Ferrari F430 taken by Marc and shared by Mike Appel. This shot involved a lot of work in Photoshop in addition to the HDR work, and it paid off nicely.

I absolutely love this photo that Jonas posted. Its got everything a guy could want. Chainsaws, sparks, trucks. We just need a hot chick! And this photo might have won if the car were really the center of the image. But I just couldn’t give it up based on that one technicality! ;-)

The Winner!

Matthias Weigel shared this very cool photo of a Fiat Cinquecento. In fact, when I first saw this photo I thought… “Wow! What a cool little car!” Then I realized it’s just a tiny little Fiat 500. And frankly, anyone who can make one of these little things impress someone who personally owns an NSX deserves to win today’s contest!

So, that’s it for today. Remember that tomorrow’s theme is Architecture! I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with, but I’m also looking forward to a break after that! You guys are wearing The Judge out with all the awesome submissions! :-) Keep up the good work.

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Well, I’ve seen some pretty bad ass driving in my life, and I don’t think I’m all that bad myself – but here’s a guy who can take like a 10 ton piece of heavy equipment and rock it onto two wheels and drive back and forth!

I don’t know what they pay this guy to operate that thing while he’s working, but clearly he’s worth every penny!

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There are quite a few things I want when it comes to motorized contraptions, but very few I want more than a fully electric motorcycle. And here is a contraption that’s right up that alley. A pedal powered electric bike from Germany called the eROCKIT allows a rider to go 50 MPH!

I think the general design of the bike is very interesting, although the pedal power part is kind of novel and I’m not sure at all useful. There is just one problem though it’s going to cost you… wait for it… $40,000.

Here is what GizMag had to say about the characteristics of the bike:

The whole thing weighs just 110 kilograms and with over 45lb/ft of torque and 13bhp, it can top 50mph.

The torque characteristics of an electric motor are very different to a roadgoing motorcycle powerplant – the aforementioned 45lb/ft of torque is available from standstill, and the linear nature of the power delivery makes it very easy to control… this would put it in commuter 250 roadbike territory for acceleration, and the 50 mph top speed is suitable for just about anywhere other than an autobahn or freeway.

Around town, it will be a rocketship and light and manoeuvrable enough to make breeze of weaving through stopped traffic – a better town motorcycle than currently exists.

You can download a PDF Brochure here for more information. Keep in mind that the bike has a range of about 35-50 miles before it needs it’s batteries charged. That’s right. It has onboard batteries.

What, you thought your pedaling alone was going to make this 200 pound “bike” go 50MPH? Not quite…

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