Made from the corpse of a 1997 BMW 528i salvaged from a junkyard and other recycled parts, this DIY electric car beats the Tesla Model S P100D’s mile range at a tiny fraction of the cost. The Tesla boasts a range of 335 miles per charge, while the ‘Phoenix’ by Eric Lundgren gets 380 miles. Lundgren and his team built the Phoenix in 35 days for just $13,000, and hopes the attention his trash car is getting will encourage carmakers with more cash to do more material recycling.

Founder and CEO of information technology organization ITAP, Lundgren bought the 20-year-old E39 generation BMW 528i and removed most of the interior – including the rear seats, dashboard, center console and trim – in order to save weight (yes, that’s the catch.) He added a 130kWh battery pack that uses cells from EV and laptop batteries to power the car, which takes up most of the space where the backseat would normally be.

To test his creation, Lundgren pitted it against three popular electric vehicles: the Tesla, a Chevy Bolt and a Nissan Leaf. All four competed in a trip across Southern California to see which one would last the longest. The Leaf ran out of juice first after 81 miles, followed by the Model S at 238 miles. The Bolt managed to squeak out 271. The BMW never ran out of range at all – instead, it blew a fuse after 340 miles with 32 percent of its charge left on its battery pack. In a second test, the Phoenix ran directly against the Tesla, getting 382 miles to the 100D’s 315.

Clearly, the fact that so much of its weight has been removed while the Tesla is loaded down with luxury options makes a difference in the result, but so should the fact that Tesla is working with top-quality, brand-new parts. For Lundgren, that’s not really the point.

“Re-use is the purest form of recycling. It creates zero carbon footprint. Re-using parts/components within broken/obsolete electroncis is called ‘hybrid recycling.’ This is a much-needed and often missing part of the recycling ecosystem.”

Elon Musk is attacking the question of energy storage and consumption at home, first with electric cars, then with home batteries and now the final piece of the puzzle: solar panels people will actually want to show off.

Developed in collaboration with 3M, their semi-translucent Solar Roof tiles cost less than ordinary roofs, insulate better and best of all they generate energy to charge your electric batteries (Powerwall) and automobiles (Model X). This is effectively the final piece of the ‘smart house’ puzzle, completing the circuit to facilitate the future of sustainable-energy homes.

The three-layered design features a normal solar panel at the bottom with a film on top that renders it invisible from below but operational under the sun’s rays coming from above. At the top is a tempered glass that is shatter-resistant, making it more durable than conventional clay (with a lifespan well beyond the typical 20-year roof).

Aside from these benefits, perhaps the single biggest selling point is the array of material styles: Textured Glass, Slate Glass, Tuscan Glass and Smooth Glass. It may sound superficial but looks matter — neighbors complain and residents shy away from too-overt solar tech attached to their house.

And people trust Tesla to do more than make better technology: they expect a high level of visual design as part of the package. Also, since they are all coming from the same collection of companies, one can expect superior installation and integration options tying Tesla cars, Powerwalls and Solar Tiles together. Between the tech and its brand backing, this development promises to boost solar adoption to new heights.

Danish firm BIG Architects has a feasible strategy for converting four iconic smokestacks in the center of London into a series of gigantic pedestrian-powered Tesla coils. These would be the tallest of their kind and their visual effect would be nothing short of stunning, generating arcs of energy to bridge between the 300-foot-high towers at predetermined times.

Bjarke Ingels Group was commissioned to create a sizable public plaza space adjacent to the disused building as part of a larger redevelopment plan, but announced during a lecture that they had much larger design ambitions in mind. Going public with this plan may have come as something of a shock to their client, who had not yet be apprised of the scheme. In defense of the architects: they wished to make sure what they were proposing was actually possible before any announcement. “We’re working with experts in Tesla coils, looking into how to incorporate it into the chimneys so essentially we might celebrate the transformation from carbon footprint to human footprint.”

Currently, the world’s largest Tesla coils are in the 100-foot-high range, so depending on how much of each tower was turned toward this function, these could conceivably become the tallest coils ever constructed (in addition to being the highest-reaching).

Piezoelectric pavement would slowly generate energy from those passing through the square (estimated at 50,000 people per day), which would be collected and deployed in periodic bursts. “We imagine it like Big Ben, when the clock strikes the hour, we can have this celebration of human energy and human life.”

The two pairs of towers are extremely tall relative to their surroundings and arguably an iconic part of the neighboring urban landscape, jutting up out of a power plant complex that is nearly a century old. The Battersea Power Station will be rebuilding the chimneys regardless, so it is just a matter of whether they will adopt this enhancement in the process. Already populated with colorful enhancements and unusual architecture, bolts of electricity arcing across the sky would still certainly stand out in London’s bright nighttime cityscape (tesla coil image by Clarence Risher).

Tiny bolts of lightning are captured on camera as they shoot off an antique electrotherapy medical device, turning the discharge of electricity into a form of art. Germany-based photographer Marc Simon Frei purchased the 1920 violet ray, invented by Nikola Tesla, on eBay and began to experiment with visual effects.

The device is basically a portable tesla coil, an electrical resonant transformer circuit used to produce alternating-current electricity. Frei used various methods to create sparks and caught them at just the right split-second with his Nikon Df, 50mm f/1.8 lens and a macro extension tube.

He has also played around with wiring, and creating miniature storms within tufts of wool stuffing taken from a teddy bear. Frei notes that if you want to try it yourself, you’d better be prepared for possible equipment damage from the high frequency voltage; the LCD screen on his camera flickered whenever it came too close to the coil.

Nikola Tesla would likely be disappointed that his ingenious creations are mostly relegated to exhibits and experiments these days, rather than becoming a viable wide scale source of energy, but it seems likely he’d approve of this project.