It's a pretty big deal that Ford is mass producing carbon fiber wheels for its Shelby GT350R Mustang. How so? For one, never before has a major automobile manufacturer offered carbon fiber wheels as standard equipment -- you'd have to enter the supercar scene, where only Koenigsegg has offered optional carbon fiber...Read more...
Expanding a recall dating back to 2008, Japanese automobile airbag manufacturer Takata Corp is doubling the number of recalls for its potentially lethal product in the U.S. from 16.6 million to approximately 34 million vehicles (about one in seven of the over 250 million vehicles on American roads), which makes it the...Read more...
If you already suffer from motion sickness from reading while being driven, you can expect things to get worse when you read in autonomous car. Researchers from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute are cautioning that people who are prone to motion sickness will want to avoid reading or...Read more...
BMW is hard at work trying to end parking lot mishaps. The answer, of course, lies in sensors that will be able to detect when you're about to make a terrible mistake; like trying to squeeze in between another car and a concrete beam or backing up just a little to far as you ram into a wall. Incidents like that will...Read more...
As we dive deeper into the era of the so-called "Internet of Things" (IoT), some exciting things are happening. One of them is a joint collaboration between Ford and Intel to make automobiles more connected, which would include the ability to remotely view what's happening inside your vehicle using a smartphone app...Read more...
Wireless power isn't really a reality even in the consumer world, but already we're seeing wireless options crop up for the precious few who own electric vehicles. Bosch is amongst the first, announcing the first commercially available wireless electric vehicle charging system in U.S. The company has teamed with...Read more...
It’s about time. Apple is planning to put iOS into devices in cars from many major vehicle manufacturers, starting as early as 2014. Brands lining up for the project include Acura, Chevy, Ferrari, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, and Volvo. Microsoft and Ford teamed up for For Sync. Now...Read more...
The Chevrolet Volt is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there's also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you...Read more...
The Chevy Volt is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there's also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you want to drive using only electricity,...Read more...
Comedians often make cracks at banks for including Braille on drive-through ATMs (there are number of valid reasons why they do this), but given the progress made by researchers at The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech, don't assume that the driver in front of you isn't actually visually impaired. While it may seem an unlikely...Read more...
We may not have cars that drive themselves yet, but BMW is working on a navigation system that can learn your driving habits and improve the efficiency of the car. The BMW system is called ILENA, which stands for Intelligent Learning Navigation. The system records data during your typical daily commute to learn your route, road gradients,...Read more...
Microtune's New Tuner Chip Brings High-Speed Digital TV to Automotive Entertainment Microtune Technology Permits Automakers to Adopt Advanced RF Silicon Electronics for High-Quality, Real-Time Broadcast TV World-Standard, Automotive-Grade Tuner Engineered to Deliver Superior TV Broadcast Reception in Vehicles Traveling up to 200 km/hour (125...Read more...
Everything gets automated eventually. At first, businesses strive for efficiency in workers, and then when the work becomes too boring and repetitive, they go all the way to having a machine of some sort do it. But that could never happen to writing software code, could it? Charles Simonyi thinks it could, and his company Intentional Software...Read more...
Thankfully the collaboration between Ford Motor Company and Microsoft is only for the entertainment system- "Initially to be made available in twelve 2008 models across the Ford family and across the entire 2009 lineup from FoMoCo, the service will be a fully-integrated, flash memory-based system that enables drivers...Read more...