Electric vehicles are often limited by recharge options, a design problem this Dethleffs camper tackles with solar panels and German engineering.

Their E.Home concept vehicle has a maximum range of over 170 miles but can potentially run indefinitely (at least by day) thanks to over 300 square feet of thin solar film covering most the exterior. These panels to generate up to 3,000 watts of electricity, powering up a sodium-nickel-chloride battery.

Of course, the less energy needed the better the range, so the camper company has also added phase change materials to store heat by day and release it at night. Infrared heating panels in the floors, walls and furniture also provide targeted supplement heating on demand.

Thinking forward, the camper includes various other cutting-edge technologies, like driver assistance and vehicle monitoring systems. Give it a few more years and these things will presumably end up driverless, too — the ultimate in automatic, go-anywhere mobile homes (with even more room to relax without a driver’s seat!).

With batteries running low, your eye roams the room for a place to plug in, but then you remember: you brought your own power supply – all you need now is a window. Portable, easy and green, this solar socket design is a stroke of genius, able to both generate and hold a charge.

A suction cup lets you stick the converter to any flat glazed surface, putting photovoltaic panels on the outside and a customary energy outlet on the other. And if you are worried about what happens at night or in overcast conditions: the device itself can store energy for in-place or mobile use.

Kyuho Song & Boa Oh have added a few other functional quirks to the design: rotate your charger plug and you kill the power, spinning a circular cut-off switch built into the face plate. There is a second manual on/off switch on the bottom as well.