The homemade ‘Sea Lion’ is setting records for street legal vehicle top speeds and, when you’re tired of burning up the streets, you can pull into the local lake and set some speed records there as well.

The ‘Sea Lion’ inventor, Mark Witt, built his brushed aluminum and stainless steel car around a 174hp Mazda rotary engine. That means it can hit a top speed on land of 125 mph and a top speed on the sea of (a whopping!) 65 mph. Plus, Witt says the motor could easily be replaced to give the car even more power on either land or sea.

Witt is hardly the first person to attempt to build an amphibious vehicle. In fact, there are a few on the market right now, all of which have impressive top speeds on land and sea, but nothing quite as fast as the ‘Sea Lion’.

Now that Witt has finished his dream vehicle is ready to put it up for sale with an asking price of $259,500. Along with the vehicle itself, the next owner will also gets Witt’s services as a “consultant, engineer, machinist and psychiatrist for whoever decides to venture further into the amphibious record books.”

Just in case they need it.

This week marked a turning point in human evolution when Nevada became the first state in the Union to make legal for an autonomous automobile to cruise state highways, bridges and roads without a driver.

Which makes sense since it’s a driver-less car.

Google has been working on its driver-less car for more than a decade. using in-car satellite and GPS navigation system, coupled with an abundance of sensors mounted around the exterior of the car, like collision avoidance systems, motion detectors, speed and obstacle detectors; the new cars are designed to operate themselves, taking occupants wherever they want to go in the shortest, most efficient way possible. A person can still ride in the front seat and all equipment needed to operate the car is available if that person needs to manually take control of the vehicle, but otherwise, they can sit there and read a newspaper, talk, text or watch a video while the car does all the work.

Safety experts hope the new cars will bring with them a stellar safety record. they believe by removing the human element in driving, the roadways will become safer for everyone by default. Autonomous vehicles will not speed, follow too closely, disobey traffic laws or be prone to aggressive driving. Autonomous vehicles will not get frustrated in traffic, or drive carelessly when the roads are slick with rain or snow. They will also (because they are wirelessly connected to the latest traffic information) avoid highly congested roads and areas helping alleviate traffic concerns.

This has many safety experts touting these autonomous vehicles as a major step forward when it comes to driving safety. They believe the new cars will mean safer roads for everyone. They hope that eventually all cars will become autonomous vehicles freeing up the ‘drivers’ to do whatever they want behind the wheel during their daily commute. This way, they say, without humans in the equation, the number of traffic related fatalities caused by things humans do (drink and drive, text and drive, fall asleep at the wheel) will also dramatically decline.

Higher gas prices seem to be driving some new car buyers to err on the side of caution and take their chances on either a plug-in electric or hybrid electric vehicle. Initially these vehicles were hard sell, as the technology was still unproven and the models themselves left much to be desired when it came to the look and feel of driving.

Today, however, there are a mix of new electric vehicles available for buyers. Electric cars today have more power, better range and mileage and more accessories than ever before. This seems to be bringing customers calling, which makes the automobile manufacturers happy with their investment in these models.

If electric car sales stay on track as they have for the first quarter of this year they will top 40,000 units sold by January 1 of next year. Currently, it is estimated there are only about 27,000 electric vehicles of all sorts on the roads in America. But that number will likely at least double by the end of the year.

There are advantages to driving a hybrid electric vehicle, and even plug-in electric vehicles, and buyers are beginning to discover this for themselves. They are finding the cars have much more power than might have initially been led to believe, and that the cars are much more reliable than they thought. It also helps that the cars are smaller, easier to manage, quicker on the update, quieter and easier to slip into parking spaces. The addition of an assortment of new accessories, like satellite radios, navigation systems and hands-free technology, drivers might even feel a little bit more savvy just by getting behind the wheel.

This is hardly a sign of the death of the fossil fuel driver vehicle, however. The 17,000 electric vehicles sold in April of this year doesn’t even represent 10 percent of the overall vehicle sales for the same period. But signs are it’s getting better for electric vehicles all the time.

In 2009 China announced it was pursuing a future of domestic electric automobile production with a goal of having 1 million electric vehicles on the roads by 2015.

Given their surging middle class, and a huge increase in the amount of durable goods being producing and purchased domestically, China seemed to be able to accomplish its goal. However, three years since their announcement to the world and China has yet to produce an electric vehicle much beyond the capabilities of what is being done internationally, and still priced no where within reach of its new middle class population.

However, there has been a rise in the number of off-market, smaller, electric vehicles. These off-market electric vehicles are not actually road legal, but they are priced much lower (around $5,000) compared with the electric vehicles being offered by Chinese automobile manufacturers (around $50,000.)

The availability gap in the Chinese electric vehicle market, and the governments pursuit of such large numbers of new vehicles on its roadways has opened the door for international electric vehicle manufacturers. Companies such as Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Volkswagen, have all recently announced plans to start producing electric vehicles within China in the next five years. Each of these companies is working with the China government to either partner with a domestic Chinese auto manufacturer or produce their own version of an electric vehicle.

The issue of adding electric vehicles to the mix in China serves two purposes for the Chinese government. First, it will reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. China does not have near enough domestic oil production capacity to meet the needs of its current population, much less continue to meet the needs going forward. Second, the Chinese government recognizes its growing population is a sign of progress, but this progress comes at the cost of its delicate environmental balance. Already, many Chinese cities are blanketed by smog and as the population to grow the issue becomes worse.

If China is able to convert its population to electric vehicles they will at least shift the balance more strongly in favor of a positive future, than if it continued to rely on a fossil fuel based economy.