Design

The Quant e-Sportlimousine is a 912hp electric car powered by a flow battery, which generates energy by mixing electrolytes dissolved in water. Apparently this makes refueling nearly as fast as with a gas-powered car. More here and here.

King of Sweden sells large rugs made of the leather and fabric labels from discarded jeans. The labels are stitched together over a sheet of cotton. If you have enough old jeans lying around you could try this idea yourself.

Google presented a non-functioning prototype of the Project Ara modular smartphone at This Week in Startups. The bare bones model could cost as low as $50 and will come in three sizes. Skip to around 6:00 for the demo.

Like the Wheelhaus and the ÁPH80, ESCAPE is a mobile home that is delivered fully assembled and ready to be connected to utilities. It comes with basic furniture and facilities, with an option to have additional amenities pre-installed.

Cloudwash is Berg’s vision of a 21st century washing machine. It has simple physical controls, with notifications and detailed options controlled from an app. The app is a bit over-designed – a washing machine calendar? – but promising.

A great gift for jet setters, wanderers, dreamers and malevolent world conquerors. Made by Suck UK, this 10″ globe is made of cork and comes with a set of pins to help you plan or mark your trips. Or invasions.

Nokian Tyres celebrates its 80th year of making winter tires by creating a prototype tire with retractable studs. When installed on a vehicle, the studs on all tires rise and retract at the same time at the press of a button.

Beautiful transportable cabins. Each unit has one bedroom, one bathroom and a kitchen/living room with lighting and cooking appliances included. You can also order multiple units to be connected to create a larger house.

Designed by Dennis Siegel, the RFID Bikealarm deters theft by emitting an ear-shattering 120dB alarm if it senses drastic movement. The owner uses a small RFID tag to wirelessly activate and deactivate the alarm.

Ad agency The Barbarian Group has 125 employees, and they all use the same desk. Made by Clive Wilkinson Architects, the Superdesk is an 1,100 foot-long, 4,400 sq.ft. surface that provides spaces to work and to hang out.

Benjamin Shine’s Rekindle Candle funnels the melting wax from a lit candle down to its built-in mold, where you’ll hang a wick for the unused wax to envelop, thus creating a “new” candle. Contact Benjamin for more info.

The hipster’s favorite kitchen appliance. Chris Dimino turned a 60s Coronamatic typewriter into a waffle iron with a keyboard pattern. Chris made it back in 2001, but he said he’s going to sell a few functional units soon.

Seletti’s A La Carte is a side table that looks like it’s made of oversized playing cards. If you have a fat stack, stack multiple tables to make a huge pyramid. The table is made of MDF and is available in black, red and blue.

Pernod Ricard’s Project Gutenberg concept makes cocktail mixing engaging and convenient. Spirits are shipped to customers in book-shaped containers. An iPad app lets them learn cocktail recipes as well as monitor and order liquor.

If the next Bond villain is a hipster, this should be his signature weapon. Man Ready’s decorative axe has a 3.5lb axe head plated in 24-carat gold. Its handle is made of hickory and can be customized in any color.

Van Cleef & Arpels’ Midnight Planétarium Poetic Complication has 6 stones representing Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all moving at the same pace as the actual planets. A shooting star indicates the time. Price? $245K.

The Smart Grill is a voice-activated grill that adjusts its settings based on what you’re cooking, helping you through voice prompts. But it does have a manual mode for grilling pros. Consumer Reports says it will be out in 2015 for ~$7,000.

ModCubes’ basic unit is a cube with pegs on top, similar to a LEGO brick. The idea is to align and stack multiple cubes into different shapes and sizes depending on your needs. Check out the prototypes on ModCubes’ Facebook page.

Some of Nendo and Hashikura Matsukan’s chopstick concepts. The Rassen have helical grooves so they make a single unit, while the Kamiai have magnets that hold them together. More on Nendo. Images by Akihiro Yoshida.

Razer wants to make swapping computer parts as easy as replacing batteries on devices. Project Christine’s components are modules that can be upgraded as soon as the latest hardware comes out through a subscription service.

Henry Wang and Chris Curio’s patent-pending design is an update to the ubiquitous cardboard box. The Rapid Packing Container uses 15% less cardboard, needs no tape to be packed and easily pops open. Perhaps too easily.

To prove that the car battery it sells works in extreme cold, Canadian Tire commissioned a truck with a body made of nothing but ice, and then started it with a battery frozen to -40°C. Its body weighed a husky 14,000 lb. More here.

Print All Over Me (PAOM) lets you upload an apparel design, preview it on the canvas of your choice – a t-shirt, a sweater, a cap etc. – and order it straight away. You can even make money if you share your designs.

Designed by Benjamin Vermeulen, MAGfurniture are flat-packed furniture pieces made of steel and wood. The wooden parts have strong magnets inside them, making it easy to assemble, disassemble and repair the furniture.

The most bizarre gardening tool we’ve ever seen. Designed by Studio Total, Flowershells are 12-gauge shotgun shells that are loaded with flower seeds instead of deadly metal pellets. Perfect for rounding out your arsenal. This is my bloomstick!

An easy to transport prefabricated home with a cement wood board exterior. The 290sq.ft. home has a bedroom, a living room/kitchen area and a bathroom, and comes with the necessary wiring and plumbing. Video here.

Ok, so you can’t actually climb to or from your parking spot at this garage in Utrecht, but the structure becomes much less of an eyesore with its two attached climbing walls. It also features a nice bike shelter and public transit connection.

These screw-on plastic frames are designed for mounting vinyl LP jackets. They let you display your collection while still allowing easy access to the records inside the jackets. Available in black and white. You can also order them here.

A proof of concept for a flexible coffee table that can transform into small laptop desks. Made by Carlo Ratti Assocati and Cassina, this table is part of a series of furniture built using modern technology and with modern users in mind.

The Toyota FCV Concept uses hydrogen fuel cells to drive its electric motors, emitting only water as its waste material. Its two hydrogen tanks are good for more than 300mi and can be refilled in just three minutes. Available in 2015.