Generally, parking in the sun just means coming back to a boiling hot car. But industrial designer Neville Mars has an idea for harnessing sunlight so it powers your car instead. He suggests installing tree-shaped sculptures in parking lots with giant, photovoltaic leaves to capture solar energy. You can simply park, plug your electrical vehicle into the tree, and return to a cool and fully charged car. It's ultimately more economical and more eco-friendly than building chargers into existing electrical grids, and could even make your parking space more attractive.

Solar Forest [via Inhabitat]

Six months prior to its introduction to the press in 1967, Ford president Arjay Miller said that electric cars like the Comuta “could be available in five to 10 years.” According to the New York Times in 1967,

The major advantage of any proposed electric car is that it gives off no smog-producing fumes. But Detroit automakers claim improvements in their standard engines will eliminate the fume problem over the next few years.

Got right on that problem, they did. The Times also noted that another “possibility being considered by Ford is a car that carries an ordinary motor for highway driving and electric motor for city movement”—which of course only took another 37 years for Ford to produce.