Carbon Fiber

Lava Music's Me 2 pushes the acoustic guitar into uncharted waters, with a strong, lightweight carbon fiber body, and a built-in body-shaking speaker with reverb, chorus and delay effects. It's an ultra-portable travel axe with tricks up its sleeve.

A team from Cornell University has put forward a compelling example of what cheap, environmentally friendly energy storage can look like, fashioning a 3D electrode out of low-cost aluminum for a battery with a very long cycle life.

Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology have been exploring alternative energy storage solutions and are now demonstrating a type of "massless" battery that could work as a power source and structural component of a vehicle at the same time.

The Ryuger Eidolon, out of Western Australia, is a super-aerodynamic carbon monocoque ebike that looks like a street racer but is actually a full-suspension commuter with some light off-road ambitions. And it's an absolute eye-popper.

Klos Guitars has been making acoustics and ukes fashioned from carbon fiber for a number of years now, and while there have been instruments you can plug into an amp, the company hasn't ventured into all electric guitar or bass territory, until now.

Sony's Vaio range of computers and laptops were always eye pleasers, but also pricey. The Vaio brand was sold off in 2014, and now a new Vaio Z laptop has surfaced that's wrapped in contoured carbon fiber and commands a starting price of US$3,579.

What snowboarder wouldn't like a board that's lighter and more responsive? German scientists have created one that is claimed to deliver on both counts, plus its production process is reportedly less wasteful.

Last September, we heard how the LeMond bicycle brand was being reborn as a manufacturer of ebikes. The company has now released photos of its Prolog flat-bar electric road bike, that reportedly tips the scales at just 26 lb (11.8 kg).

TruckHouse turns the Toyota Tacoma into a compact all-terrain expedition vehicle, finding a middle ground between huge trucks and 4x4 camper vans. Its carbon fiber off-road camper rig explores and camps the most distant stretches of Earthly land.

No boat catches the eye quite as quickly as a natural-wood boat. Or so we thought. The Castagnola Heritage 9.9 marries its natural wood aesthetic with a glossy black carbon fiber hull shell ... and it catches the eye just as quickly as wood alone.

Because they're quickly outgrown and have to take a lot of abuse, toddlers' bicycles often seem kind of cheap and clunky compared to "real" bikes. For parents who just don't want to go that route, Specialized is now offering the Hotwalk Carbon balance bike.

France's Nawa Technologies is setting up operations in the United States, and bringing its fast, affordable vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) manufacturing process into a new application: making carbon fiber composites much stronger.