Dean Kamen shows off Stirling hybrid

Dean Kamen's Stirling hybrid

Whether it was coincidence or not, inventor Dean Kamen showed off his Stirling hybrid vehicle the same day Ford and GM reported bankruptcy-like 3rd quarter numbers Friday. The Kamen hybrid can achieve 60 miles of EV power and then utilize Kamen's take on the Stirling engine to back up the battery using just about any liquid fuel, including biofuels and natural gas.

Kamen hopes to mass-produce this vehicle throughout the world and seemed to use the debut to lobby President Elect Barack Obama for a new vision claiming that today's automakers don't understand Darwin and, therefore, technological evolution.

"I think what Darwin really was saying was: It's not the fittest, not the smartest, not the strongest; it's the ones that can adapt to change. And big industries that have long histories, particularly successful long histories, and a lot of ingrained infrastructure become the least adaptable to change," said Kamen according to the UnionLeader. "And when a disruptive opportunity comes along, they are the last that are capable of dealing with it."