The Peapod can go 40 miles on a single eight-hour charge and its speed limit is 25 miles per hour. The car needs 6 hours to fully recharge its exhausted battery. The interior includes seating and an iPod dock, and everything is made from recycled and recyclable materials.

Frankly speaking I don’t particularly understand its main function, to drive you to your neighbor or to have a 5-minute-drive to the grocery store?

The car looks like it can be run over by a huge Jeep. I simply don’t understand why manufacturers create city and green cars not only small but funky and funny? Why they should put smiles on faces of people? Why not make a traditional car?

As the Frankfurt Auto Show 2007 has finished, it is came time to open new shows and to view new cars, the next show, that I am going to pay my attention at is – Tokyo Motor Show (October 26 to November 11).

The funniest and the most unusual model of this show will be (I am almost sure) an electric-powered Pivo 2 concept car from Nissan manufacturer. Pivo looks like a space ship and has the most bold design of the year and may be the following years as well.

The new Pivo possesses a cabin that revolves 360-degrees, so you don’t have to reverse, also, a front door can be accessed from any position. This car has only 2 seats. It is rather small, so the maneuverability is extremely high.

Pivo is a very user and environmentally friendly car. Because of: Nissan’s Around View Monitor (reduces the appearance of blind spots), mounted in dash infrared commander – provides to driver an opportunity to operate the navigation and stereo systems with a single finger movement. Also, Pivo has lithium-ion battery and new Nissan Super Motor.

Nissan Pivo 2 is aimed to be an ideal car for city driving. It is easy to park and easy to drive, also, it is easy to push through crowded city roads. The length of the car is just 2,700 mm. The driver will seat in the middle and can take 2 more passengers, they will seat side-by-side. A door is also electrically powered.

By the way, have you heard a Russian word PIVO? That means beer. But, this car has no connection to it, its name came from the English word PIVOT (meaning a turning point). Also, because of its extremely sophisticated parking abilities.

Surrealistic appearance

Nissan Pivo is a unique combination of innovations, it is even hard to believe, that such number of innovations can be united in one car. Pivo offers incredible packaging characteristics, high distribution of torque to 4 wheels and possesses 2 electric motors. This concept car is based on a drive-by-wire technologies (the car weigh less and has less mechanical parts). I mean, you can do everything by wire: to stop, to steer, to park. Thus, a steering wheel is so comfortable and compact.

A dash-mounted infrared (IR) commander provide a driver with a possibility to switch radio and audio system without taking eyes from the road. Moreover, Also, Pivo can be proud of a new human-machine interface. For example, if you want to make music louder, just raise your finger. You will never feel lonely with Pivo 2, it has a Robotic Agent, that will make your life funnier and more exciting. Conversations are possible in English and Japanese.

Concept car. This word-combination is in a common use nowadays, but, as for me, I have never been thinking what it is all about. And not so far I made it clear to myself and now ready to share my knowledge with you.

A concept car can also be called a show car, it is not actually, a car – it is a prototype of car, produced in order to show a cutting-edge technique, a new way of car producing, styling and much more. As a rule, such cars are made to be shown at various motor shows and are aimed to draw public’s attention and to show main trends of the following season. Also, they can be made in order to see public’s reaction onto car design. But, pay attention, this car is not necessary will come into production.

Harley Earl – famous car designer form General Motors is a great contributor into popularization of the concept car image. To tell the truth, concept cars have to to be changed a lot before going into production, because only in such a way, they can correspond to the following demands: safety, quality and price. Concept cars designers make emphasize on one part of the car, for example on engine (too powerful, but no safety standards are thought after) or design (it can be too exotic, too unusual – with 3 wheels, gullwing doors etc.). Moreover, their development is very time-consuming and extremely expensive. That’s why, most of the models will never became more than computer drawings , I mean will never become real cars. Most of the cars are made from wax, metal, plastic (when they will for sure be only projects), and if a car will be a real car, it is made as a modification of the exiting car or, at least, at the same platform as one of the existing cars.

When the show is over, cars are destroyed, but, sometimes, manufacturers, can leave them “alive” and put in their own museum. By most people, Buick Y-Job considers to be the first concept car.

So, as you see, I even started a new category about concept cars, and it is time to pay your attention to one of the most beautiful concept cars. Ladies and gentlemen, Audi R-Zero Concept Car!

Its motto: sport, power and ecological friendliness. It is an electric car, but it doesn’t lack of bright design. Do you still remember the Protocol of Kyoto? I think, in a couple of years, most of the Earth generation will change their cars for electric and eco-friendly. It is a muscular sport car, look a little bit like Audi TT. This car can breathe, because of a special interior and exterior design – air can circulate free inside it. Audi R-Zero was designed and developed in France and it represents a car of the future, nothing tells us, that it is an electric car, driving it you can see and feel only a powerful car with incredible opportunities for a driver.

Technical specification:

• engine: four electric in-wheel motors;
• top speed: 286 mph;
• weight: 4850 Lbs;

Unfortunately, its price and year of production is still unknown. Let’s hope for better!

To 2010 will be made 60,000 Chevrolet Volt Electric Cars, according to the words of General Motors czar Bob Lutz. The perspective itself is very intriguing, but, the realization of it is a tricky question. In order to produce such cars, there must be made a new battery technology (it doesn’t exist yet) and some other important details, and namely these details will be able to determine the year and time of these cars appearance on the market.

These cars are going to hit the world and be on the top of sales! Why? There are a lot of reasons for them to be so popular. First of all, they’ll be capable of running on 4 different materials: E85, biodiesel, gasoline fuels and electricity. To fulfill this Chevrolet is going to use GM’s new E-Flex Propulsion System.

In addition to ecologically free driving (that will help to reduce the emissions of gases) and fashionable look, this car can offer a rather quick acceleration, can take cargos and 5 passengers, has air bags for driver and passengers. Chevrolet EV can run up to 40 miles (with its first charge) and the car will be recharged without any problems, while motion.

Manufacturers are optimistic about both car “birth” and its rate of popularity, but we shall see what we shall see!

For many years, people have been trying their best to make a battery electric vehicle, that will be able to utilize chemical energy, use batteries and do not pollute our environment. Each car manufacturer at least once in his life thought and dreamt about replacing an internal combustion engine with its cheaper and better analogue – electric motor. The Universe is the only one and we all live there, and it is not important how rich are you, we breath the same air, and because of greenhouse defects, air pollutants from large industrial enterprises. But, everything is not so easy, the cost of batteries for such engines is incredibly high, the distance of traveling is limited by the battery re-charging. Sometimes, these cars can do a sudden harm to a person – they present an electrical hazard. But nobody wants to loose in this games, so a lot of models will be made, but let’s turn out attention to one of the most prominent cars in this category.

2008 Lightning GT. The Lightning Car Company in 2006 made a decision to develop a brand-new electric technology for a prestigious sport car. Finally, the new car was made. It is powered by a very popular technology NanoSafe™, has an incredible acceleration speed 700 bhp and can develop a speed more than 130 mph. 2008 Lightning GT it is a some kind of hybrid, it is a car made from combination of classic car design with design of British sport cars, adding racing technology, multiplied by an implementation of electric motor. This car was designed in UK and was much spoken about.

Main characteristics of 2008 Lightning GT:

• Unbelievable economy (it is much cheaper to have this car than a petrol car)
• Luxurious interior (contains the whole possible innovations, such as i-pod interface)
• Great safety features (a new technology of battery production helped to make them thermally stable and more than safe)
• Applying of new technologies (NanoSafe™ and Hi-Pa Drive™)
• Smooth electric power
• Innovative braking system (every time you are stopping or slowing down, batteries charge economizes)
• Environmental-friendly car (it doesn’t pollute air)
• Hand-made body work

Sometimes, we use terms, notions and even don’t know their authentic or (what is even worse) right meaning! For example, let’s take such word as NanoSafe™. I suppose not everybody knows for sure what does it mean (actually I didn’t know before this). All the concepts of previous electric cars were based on the a rather unsafe technology of production, but due to the US company Altairnano Inc., in 2006 there appeared a completely new technique of ultra safe battery production. the result is Nanotechnology-made batteries. They are: longer-lasting, safer than the previous ones, they can charge easier and faster and they are much more powerful.

Hi-Pa Drive™. It is another notion, that is almost in a common use nowadays, but let’s clarify this term as well. This technology was developed by PML Flightlink Ltd and deals with motor boosting. Due to this technology we can speak about an ultra high power density. Due to this technology yin can press the wrong button and! Nothing bad will happen, because this failure won’t stop Lightning GT from operating right.

What is more – this car is a good-looking car. It will help you to make first of all your street, then your city and THEN the Earth around us cleaner and our children will breath fresh air!