You want to get really charged up?

One complaint about fully-electric cars is that they take forever to charge. Mitsubishi is showing an electric prototype version of its Japanese iCar; this connector, which leads to an external box that plugs into a110v outlet and can provide a 50-kilowatt charge to a LiIon battery in 30 minutes. Another connector on the other side of the car doesn't use the transformer and can charge in 7 hours. This thing is so far away from US production that the prototype has the steering wheel on the right right-hand side; it isn't slated for first testing in Japan until next year.

You thought mobile phones were distracting.

Microsoft's Sync, already available in a number of Ford's 2008 vehicles, is going to be rolled out across the manufacturer's car lines. The communication and entertainment system allows Bluetooth communication and voice control of some (non-driving) functions, such as mobile phones and digital music players. The multifunction Sync screen shown here is from Ford's Transit Connect truck, a kind of commercial minivan popular in Europe and targeted for the US next year.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's.... a car?

Milner Motors, based in Vancouver, WA, is showing a hybrid of a different sort: Its experimental (needless to say) AirCar . Fully extended, the wingspan is 28 feet; when the main wing and forward canard are folded in, the vehicle is only 7 feet wide, making the whole thing about the size of a Toyota Corolla. In the air, the AirCar is designed to cruise at 200 mph; on the ground, it's got an 85 mph top speed. The prototype, when done, will be drivable but not flyable. The company says it will find a partner to do the engineering work required to get the thing into the air. Sold as a kit plane, the AirCar is expected to sell for about US$450,000.