You may think the Toyota Prius is green but the company is already looking to build uber-green cars from seaweed. That’s right, you too could be driving around in your very own Kelp Machine as Toyota pushes ahead to become the greenest of the green. The only snag is that you may have to wait 15 years. The seaweed motor will be built upon the exsiting 1/X plug-in hybrid concept [above] which uses carbon-fibre and already weighs in at a featherweight 926lbs. The new car would swap out that carbon-fibre for bioplastics based on seaweed. Talking about the 1/X [pronounced 'one-xth' because of its weight and tiny carbon footprint compared to rivals], project manager Tetsuya Kaida said: “We used lightweight carbon-fiber reinforced plastic throughout the body and frame for its superior collision safety. But that material is made from oil. In the future, I′m sure we will have access to new and better materials, such as those made from plants, something natural, maybe something like paper. In fact, I want to create such a vehicle from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea.” Bioplastics [used in some mobile phone cases] are already tipped to be huge in manufacturing, with the market expected to be worth $50bn within the next 5 years. Kyoto University recently built a prototype car from bamboo. Toyota will be unveiling its current and future green car offerings at the Melbourne Motor Show soon, wheeling out the next-gen Prius, a Camry concept designed in Australia and the 1/X. “The 1/X concept is a vehicle that completely redefines what it means to be environmentally considerate. commented David Buttner, senior executive director of sales and marketing “The name says it all: a car that weighs a fraction of the others in its class today and uses a fraction of the fuel.” Still, 15-years is a long time to wait and we had so hoped we’d all be using flying cars by then.-Martin Lynch [Wired] car motoring green

If you’re a fan of the iTrip and also happen to have an iPod nano 4G, you might want to pick up this new addition to the range from Griffin, which is specifically designed for the player due to the fact that it fits perfectly beneath its already slim and stylish body. The new iTrip nano will admittedly work with any of Apple’s players, it just won′t look quite as good on the others, and though it offers a similar FM transmitter service to previous models there are a couple of new additions.Much like the range of transmitters offered by GeaѸ last year this version offers a ‘Smartscan′ feature to automatically look for the three clearest FM channels in your region and assigns them to presets for you to browse through. There’s also ‘SmartSound’ technology built-in, which claims to improve audio clarity under real-world conditions with user-selectable LX/DX modes. Despite the abundance of FM transmitters on the market we’re yet to see one that works perfectly, though due to the nature of the beast it’s unlikely this will ever arrive. Provided these new features are capable enough though it should certainly make things more convenient. - Paul Lester [Griffin Technology] FM transmitter iTrip iPod

We’re all for green products and utilising renewable energy sources to power our gadgets, but we think Solio may have gone a little too far with this one. The purveyor of all things solar powered added another gadget to its collection at the MWC in the form of the Solio Communicator. This rather large looking accessory is a hands-free phone kit for a car that attaches to your windscreen with a sucker-mount and drags its energy from the sun, connecting wirelessly via Bluetooth to compatible phones. What’s wrong with it? Well it’s unnecessarily cumbersome in our view, though to an extent this is necessary to allow enough space for a decent sized solar panel. It also claims that you’ll ‘never need to think about a battery again′ yet provides you with a cigarette lighter port charger for when there’s not enough sunlight. Oh, and it’s also about £70, which is a lot to pay considering the drawbacks. Far better we think are alternatives like Parrot’s car-kit range and though these can be quite pricey, make for a much tidier and more adaptable solution. If you are interested in seeing how many devices you can stick to your windscreen without crashing, the Solio Communicator will be available towards the middle of this year. - Paul Lester [TechDigest] Solio solar power car kit

Swedish branches of McDonald’s are attempting to support the push towards green energy by installing charging stations for electric vehicles into its car parks, so you can juice up your ride while you’re chowing down on a big greasy burger. According to Elforsk, an electricity research and development operation co-owned by the Swedish national grid, the fast-food chain will be stumping up the cash for the charging posts though it isn’t clear yet whether using them will be free (doubtful) or if not how much it will cost you.A 230V post will test the water at a McDonald’s in Stockholm before they are rolled out and each will have both single and three-phase ports. Almost £800,000 has been put aside to support the project but we must admit to being a little surprised to see old Ronald jumping on board, rather than a chain of garages or supermarkets, which would seem to make more sense. I mean, what’s more important, the environment or your arteries? - Paul Lester [RegHardware] electric vehicles McDonalds environment

Navteq has announced yet another improvement to in-car GPS with the news that its Enhanced Traffic Patterns for Europe technology will now include coverage for the UK. Version 2.0 of the platform includes typical traffic speeds for around 75,000 miles of primary and secondary roads in this country and was created through years of observations from GPS sensor data. The system is designed to offer ‘real speeds’ based on historic road use to allow you to avoid heavily congested areas or plot your a way round the speediest roads and has additional application in areas like the emergency services as well as being a convenience for your regular road-user. 90% of the most travelled roads in Germany have also been included and 24-hour speed values are included in 15-minutes intervals, which is apparently the best way to present the most relevant historic traffic information at various times of the day. - Paul Lester [Geoconnexion] YouTube Half Life 2 Steam

Most satnavs are about as efficient as they′re going to get in terms of showing you the quickest or shortest way from A to B, but Vexia wants to give you another criteria to plot a map by - the most economically friendly. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a GPS device offer to help you save on fuel; TomTom’s Go x40 LIVE series is capable of tracking down the cheapest petrol stations, but the Vexia Econav is a little bit different. Before you set off on a journey you can enter details of your car’s make and model, fuel capacity and number of passengers and during the journey a traffic-light type icon shows how efficiently you’re driving. It’ll also plot the journey that should offer the best fuel consumption, taking traffic jams and relative road speeds into account, though in most cases we’d imagine the default route on a satnav would be the most efficient anyway. We’re a little bit dubious about how effective this might be but a fuel economy warning, if your car doesn’t already have one on a trip computer, is certainly a useful reminder that you could be driving more efficiently. Vexia spokesman Chris Hobbs reckons it’ll save you £200 in six months though, paying for the device outright: “Fuel costs and carbon emissions are huge concerns for today’s motorist,” he says. “Using the econav system, drivers can make cost savings and have a significant effect on the environment without even thinking about it - driving efficiently can become an everyday routine.” Genuinely useful feature or a bit of PR spiel? Probably a bit of both, but if you’re interested the 3.5″ UK & Ireland model will cost £159 and the 4.3″ Europe device £229 when they hit the shelves next month. - Paul Lester [PCAdvisor] Vexia GPS fuel economy

There have been a fair few electric cars popping up here and there over the last couple of years, but precious little in the form of bikes, until now. This curvy looking beauty, which looks remarkably like something Batman would ride around on, is the Mission One EV Sports Bike and is capable of reaching speeds up 150mph. You’ll also get around 150 miles from the built in battery, though we doubt you’d be able to do this distance at top speed, and best of all it’s capable of recharging in under two hours which is a far cry from the original ‘overnight’ times of the early Teslas. Rather surprisingly, this isn’t a concept design either and although the first 50 will be limited edition models costing a cool $68.995 each, a ‘more affordable’ alternative is going to be announced in the summer. The first lot are set to be delivered in 2010, though it’ll also be making its race debut at the TTXGP on June 12th. Want to know more? Then check out the link below for the full official press release and specifications. - Paul Lester [AutoBlogGreen] electric sports bike Mission One

Imagine getting picked up by a cabbie in the city who didn’t have an opinion on politics, football, the price of petrol and what you’re wearing? In fact, imagine a taxi where there’s no chatty cabbie at all and you’ll be talking about the driver-less electric podcars that are set to be rolled out in Abu-Dhabi’s eco city, Masdar. Of course, considering that the streets will have no traditional cars, you do need something to get around. Masdar is best described as a ‘post-petroleum’ city and considering how much the United Arab Emirates have earned from petroleum, they’re the only ones that can afford to build this type of environmental Eden. It is quite a project though. Heathrow airport is expected to get a podcar service up and running this year. The PRT (personal rapid transit) system features small, driver-less podcars powered by electricity. These will offer quiet and efficient transportation to the city’s residents and tourists and the first ones are expected to be rolled out this year. Podcars will support an efficient light railway system while regular cars will have to stay outside the city walls in one of 9 multi-story car parks. The PRT vehicles will take off from the stations in the town once you get off the light railway. The average wait time for a vehicle is 90 seconds and it travels at a casual speed of 7 meters per second. The longest trip is around 2.5km so the longest journey times will always be 7-10 minutes at most. At least in theory. It will also be a 24-hour service. The fares will be around the same as a typical taxi but commuters will be spared the advice, and the tip.-Martin Lynch [Treehugger] car transport electric

Shelby Super Cars (SSC) has just come clean with the performance details of its Tesla Roadster-beating electric sports cars, the stunning Aero EV. Sure, the Tesla is first out but it’s not without its problems or sneaky price hikes, and it can’t get from 0-60mph in a scorching 2.5 seconds. That’s right, the Aero EV develops a massive 1,000 horsepower and over 800lb-ft torque, making the Tesla’s 0-60mph time of 3.9 seconds look snail-like [which it's not]. The Aero EV also has a top speed of 208mph, versus the 120mph from the Tesla. The EV has a range of 150-220mph which is not thst bad for a bullet but the best bit is that the batteries can be recharged in just 10 minutes. Fro ma a 220V service. The new and improved Tesla Roadster takes around 3.5 hours, which is so much better than the previous time of over 35 hours. Zzzz. SSC says the recharge is so fast because of its “Charge on the Run” onboard charging system. The first pre-production model will be modelling itself for car fans from June with the first deliveries expected in Q4. However, while the Aero EV might be astonishingly fast and come with super-fast recharging, we expect the price to be in no way practical at all.-Martin Lynch [Engadget] cars electric motoring

Petrolheads can take one teeny weenie step closer to their hallowed Ferrari by checking out the latest Ferrari-branded GPS from Becker. Well, we did say teeny, but it should nicely with the Ferrari jocks, socks, cap and jacket. The Ferrari Traffic Assist Pro Z250 is a portable GPS designed with something called ‘Soft touch’ materials and which will “add a touch of racing luxury to your vehicle’s ‘cockpit′”. That’s the first time we’ve ever thought of the front seat of the 5-year old Seat Leon as a ‘cockpit′ but hey, we’ll go with the fantasy here. It comes clad in the original Ferrari Rosso Corso colour, has customised Ferrari software along with pre-installed Ferrari images and ’special destinations’ [local Ferrari dealerships] and a 4.3in touchscreen screen to view them on. It’s the first Becker/Ferrari GPS to come with a 4GB SD Card with pre-installed map data for Europe and the United States. The GPS uses SiRf Instant Fix II and free lifetime TMC technologies to deliver “extraordinarily fast route calculation″ and “up-to-date traffic information reception″, respectively. The Bluetooth technology allows for the device to be used as a hands-free set with your mobile phone. It will play MP3s and act as a photo viewer, with a USB slot for adding more of each. The maps contain 3-D landmarks on your route map to make things easier to follow and there’s also Points of Interest marked, from airports and hospitals to hotels, restaurants and service stations - all pretty standard features these days. At around £375 though, it is priced for Ferrari fanatics only. Find out more here.-Martin Lynch [Navigadget] GPS car ferrari