Local Motors, creator of 3D-printed cars like the Strati, teamed up with Mouser Electronics to sponsor the Essence of Autonomy Challenge. Competitors were to use the Strati as a starting point to create an autonomous vehicle, with engineer Grant Imahara as judge. The winning entry was Fly-Mode, an autonomous vehicle with a quad-rotor drone that can land on the vehicle's rear deck. But the drone doesn't merely fly around scouting the landscape--or Los Angeles traffic, which Imahara fantasizes about in the video--as you drive. Its sensors transmit the drone's position in the air to a computer on board the vehicle.

That's the idea behind Local Motors' latest vehicle, which features a 3D-printed body, a windshield video screen and no steering wheel. Meanwhile, OX launched the world's first all-terrain flat-pack truck, which can be quickly shipped anywhere in the world. Cannae Corporation announced plans to test an "impossible" zero-exhaust microwave thruster that could revolutionize space travel. And Electra Meccanica launched SOLO, an affordable three-wheeled electric vehicle for one. In energy news, this week Sonos Motors announced plans to debut a solar-powered car within two years, and Soel Yachts unveiled a sun-powered motorboat that glides through the water without making a sound.