Magnifying glass for solar power

For environmentally minded folks, the move from fossil fuels to electricity to power our cars is a welcome step. Except, you know, it still requires electricity.

The dream, of course, is vehicles that run on renewable energy, like sunlight. And that dream is a little closer to reality now, thanks to an invention that works like a giant magnifying glass to beam the sun's power into a car.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have teamed up with Ford Motor Company to build a concept hybrid car that would move its driver closer to being off the grid. Instead of hooking the car up to a traditional charging station, you would park the C-Max Solar Energi Concept car under a special concentrator that magnifies the sun's rays. The result? A day's worth of sunlight produces a range of up to 620 miles, Ford says.The automaker says that using the vehicle for a year would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by four metric tons when compared to a typical car.

"Electric cars and plug-in hybrid electrics are a step forward, but if you charge on Chinese, pure-coal power grids, you're still not quite getting the benefit," said Bert Bras, a professor at Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. "If we can get actually clean electricity into cars -- then you're really getting there."