Fiat inked the pact with Irish solar manufacturer SolarPrint, and by doing so joined the bandwagon of companies interested in fitting solar panels to car roofs that will supply power to onboard devices.

The photovoltaic material used on the roof is low-cost but is effective to power accessories like air conditioner, electrical motors and items like cabin lights which can reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%.

Companies like Audi, Volkswagen, and Toyota already make use of this technology to keep the cabin cool when the engine is turned off.

Fiat could adopt this technology on its other vehicles including the Grande Punto, Bravo and Doblo in the future.

Source – CNET

Designer Flavio Adriani has created this concept Lamborghini supercar, which has been dubbed the Lamborghini Concept EV. As the name suggests this is an all-electric Lambo. The designer has created this concept as a tribute to Lamborghini’s founder, Ferrucio Lamborghini.

The concept looks to have borrowed a lot of styling lines from Lamborghini’s Gallardo and Diablo supercars and the car looks like an amalgamation of both the cars put together. The car is equipped with four electric motors, one in each wheel and the electric motors are powered by the V-shaped solar panels placed over the engine as an engine cover. The concept has also been equipped with a low frequency radiation protection panel to protect its occupants from the radiations emitted by mobile phones and other wireless devices.

The throwing out of the Internal combustion engine from the car resulted in the greatest challenge for the designer of the car. He had to find a way to bring back the glorious sound a Lamborghini emanates from its rear end. The solution the designer found was to use wind turbines to re-create the glorious Lamborghini exhaust note. Air enters the inlet tubes for the turbines through the front end of the car and passes onto the central turbine, thereby creating the sound of a jet engine.

Though the wind turbines endow the car with the Lamborghini exhaust note, they also create the problem of people looking into the sky to see if its an airplane passing over, when its actually the car that’s emanating the sound. The feeling one would get being within a car with so much of history and passion associated with it and one that also sounds like an airplane would be unparalleled.

Flavio Adriani’s Lamborghini Concept EV Image Gallery

Source – Tuvie