One that I thought was particularly cool was th Volvo Recharge Concept Car.

It’s a plugin hybrid which in and of itself is really nothing new. Even the estimated range of the car isn’t any better than what is expected from the GM Volt model.

However, the innovation in this car is that the lack of a conventional engine and a transmission.

Instead, it has four smaller motors that drive each wheel individually. This not only saves a lot of space (which Volvo is using to add additional safety devices of course) in the vehicle and eliminates the need to a transmission but it also helps with performance giving this vehicle acceleration similar to that of a sports car. It’s definitely not your typical Volvo.

Normally I’d tell you to be on the lookout for this car in 2010 since just about every other cool fuel efficient car is coming out that year, but alas, that isn’t to be the case here. Volvo isn’t saying when exactly it’ll be released but they’ve said it’ll likely be 2015 before a significant number of these cars could be on the road.

Here’s a cool video from Volvo about the Recharge Concept and how it works.

[youtube h5bhuI7Hduw]