concept

We've rounded up eight of the hottest cars seen at this year's Geneva auto show for your viewing pleasure:

1. Lamborghini Veneno

Lamborghini celebrates 50 years by unveiling the Lamborghini Veneno, a production car that the Italian automaker sells for $4 million dollars and is already sold out of the four models built. Exclusivity comes with a hefty price tag.

In the future, you'll be able to unlock your Hyundai car, start its engine, and more with little more than your NFC-enabled smartphone. Using the new Hyundai i30 (known here in the States as the Elantra GT) as its Connectivity Concept test platform, Hyundai showed off a variety of wireless technologies that it hopes to implement as early as 2015.

According to Hyundai, "the Connectivity Concept allows the user to lock and unlock the car by placing their smartphone over an NFC-tag (near-field communication), negating the need for a traditional key fob." Upon entering the vehicle, placing … Read more

Today Honda sent out a sketch of a new concept vehicle the company intends to unveil at the North American International Auto Show in January. Honda calls the concept an Urban SUV, and it looks like the predecessor to a new, small SUV in the lineup.

The sketch shows the profile of a car with lines similar to the latest CR-V model. However, Honda updated the CR-V for 2012, so the concept is not likely to be a new version of that car.

More likely would be a smaller SUV, similar to the Subaru XV Crosstrek and BMW X1, a … Read more

BMW used to own the mantle for German performance cars, until Audi redesigned its model lineup over the last decade. In the face of this competition, BMW today released photos of the Concept 4 Series Coupe, which looks ready to go up against the Audi A5 and S5.

The BMW product design department has come up with some odd ideas in recent years. Witness the X6 and 5 Series GT. However, this new Concept 4 Series looks like a more natural fit between the 3 Series and 5 Series, and borrows styling from the recently updated and stylish 6 Series. … Read more

To generate interest around the New York-based fashion brand Nooka, best known for its unconventionally designed wristwatches, designer Mike Lubrano wants to make NYC taxi cabs out of DeLorean DMC-12s, specifically the DeLorean time machine made famous by the "Back to the Future" films.

The normally bare stainless-steel finish of the DeLorean gets a coat of taxi-yellow paint and the concept, which only exists as a digital photo manipulation, receives NYC taxi livery and rooftop signage. The gull-winged DeLorean certainly looks cool, but with seating for only two passengers including the driver, the DMC-12 is definitely a less-than-ideal … Read more

Take a look around the 2012 LA Auto Show and you'll see quite a few compact, fully-electric vehicles. Having spent much time creeping along at 20 mph on Los Angeles' gridlocked highways and stopping-and-going on its crowded streets this week, I can think of no better city to get excited about EVs.

We've rounded up the biggest players in this year's small EV class, many of which are currently available to consumers or will be sometime in 2013.

Chevrolet Spark EV

Chevrolet follows up its Volt with the smaller, simpler Spark EV. Based on the smallest model … Read more

As automakers contemplate diminishing energy supplies, downsizing their vehicles appropriately, Mercedes-Benz prepares for a different possible future, one where flesh-eating zombies roam the earth, and small bands of humans survive anyway they can. Mercedes-Benz released renderings of what its go-anywhere G-class truck might look like if it has reason to continue building the model in 2025.

The Ener-G-Force, sporting a name that sounds like a futuristic zombie fighting organization, smoothes out the boxy angles of the current G-wagon, lowers the center of gravity, and replaces its internal combustion engine with an electric power train. That latter feature comes in handy … Read more

Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde thinks we drive on dumb roads. So he teamed with mega European construction company Heijmans Infrastructure to create a vision of a "smart highway" for the Netherlands -- and possibly the rest of the world.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of these future roads is the fact that two concepts of the bunch -- glow-in-the-dark roads and dynamic paint -- should arrive by mid-2013. The group plans to introduce the rest of the concepts before 2015, giving the world a glimpse at how technology could revolutionize the way we drive by making it a safer and more sustainable experience. … Read more

Over the last few decades, refrigerators haven't changed all that much in one key area -- shape. Sure, the hulking mass of steel keeps our perishables fresh while boasting improved efficiency and other bells and whistles, but it's still just a big block that takes up a considerable amount of space in the kitchen.

Concept products such as the Impress refrigerator by Massey University industrial design student Ben de la Roche of New Zealand could influence the way future iceboxes keep food and drinks cool. … Read more