Big ups to New York City! The NYC Transit has recently rolled out a new electric bus, DesignLine, that uses a turbine engine to recharge its lithium-ion battery every time the driver hits the brakes. Keeping up with the eco-exterior, the interior is lit by LED panels and has room for a whopping 37 seats (rider number can double with standing room). Currently there are three buses already operating in Brooklyn and Manhattan, with 87 more are slated to arrive by the end of 2010 if these pilot buses are approved.

Most notable about the bus is the noise...the absence of it. The silence is achieved by throwing out the most basic element of automobile design: internal combustion. Instead of a noisy, piston-based engine, the DesignLine operates on a spinning turbine that recharges a lithium-ion battery, a green energy source more commonly found inside laptop computers. That means fewer moving parts, and fewer ways to create a racket.

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