Motor Authority - blog Tag: Carbon

As an expensive and hard to manufacture material, carbon-fiber is usually found in high-end applications such as supercars and airplanes but now an Italian company is offering up some carbon-fiber briefcases that should prevent any limp-wristed execs from straining themselves too much.

The new carbon-fiber briefcase comes from Italian company Schedoni, which has been in business for well over a century and is often called upon to craft the luggage sets offered by Ferrari to its customers. The Modena-based company also carries out similar duties for Lamborghini and Maserati, giving the company a fair amount of credibility when it comes to... As an expensive and hard to manufacture material, carbon-fiber is usually found in high-end applications such as supercars and airplanes but now an Italian company is offering up some carbon-fiber briefcases that should prevent any limp-wristed execs from straining themselves too much. The new carbon-fiber briefcase comes from Italian company Schedoni, which has been in business for well over a century and is often called upon to craft the luggage sets offered by Ferrari to its customers. The Modena-based company also carries out similar duties for Lamborghini and Maserati, giving the company a fair amount of credibility when it comes to the quality of its goods. Schedoni’s latest briefcase is made up of some impressive materials, including a carbon-fiber outer shell and a suede lining on the inside. According to designers, working with carbon-fiber is incredibly difficult and often the tiniest imperfection will mean starting over from scratch. At the moment, the company can only produce a few briefcases per week, owing to the fact that each piece must sit for 12 hours in an air-tight kiln while hardening. Because of the relative rarity of the briefcases, the materials used, and the brand name behind the products, a carbon-fiber briefcase from Schedoni will set customers back around $4,400. While it may seem a little expensive for a briefcase, Schedoni points out that the briefcase can also be used to carry a backgammon set that they make - which retails at just under $6,000. Read More

Watches and cars have shared a long history together. Something about the kindred spirit of precision, style and function of both endeavors finds an overlapping fanbase. Few watches exhibit that cross-pollination better than the Meccaniche Veloci Quattro Valvole CCM - a carbon-ceramic watch built in collaboration with famed brake maker Brembo.

Featuring four independent Swiss movements set into a high-tech carbon ceramic face, the CCM combines form with function in a nod to the four-valve arrangement of modern racing engines. The crown is hand-polished titanium and each face can be had in red, yellow, black or silver color. Straps can be... Watches and cars have shared a long history together. Something about the kindred spirit of precision, style and function of both endeavors finds an overlapping fanbase. Few watches exhibit that cross-pollination better than the Meccaniche Veloci Quattro Valvole CCM - a carbon-ceramic watch built in collaboration with famed brake maker Brembo. Featuring four independent Swiss movements set into a high-tech carbon ceramic face, the CCM combines form with function in a nod to the four-valve arrangement of modern racing engines. The crown is hand-polished titanium and each face can be had in red, yellow, black or silver color. Straps can be had in a high-tech polymer or black alligator skin. Built entirely in Italy of limited-edition pieces - the carbon ceramic face, for instance, is custom cut with a 5,000 bar waterjet - the watch is priced to match its exclusive nature, starting at $15,500. Despite its complex and high-tech construction, the watch's operation is stunningly simple. Winding is accomplished by a simple wrist motion, and a single knob controls the adjustment for each ETA 2671 Swiss mechanical movement. Via: Gizmag Read More

A consortium of industry agencies and the United Nations wants the world to cut its vehicular emissions by 50% by 2050. The cutely-named '50 by 50' plan calls on governments around the world to cut back voluntarily, since there is no real enforcement mechanism.

"We're not saying that nobody can have a car," said Jack Short, secretary general of the International Transport Forum, a constituent of the consortium. "This is a building-block towards making the transport sector part of the solution towards a low-carbon economy."

In addition to helping the planet by cutting back emissions, the group points out that reducing emissions by 50% would... A consortium of industry agencies and the United Nations wants the world to cut its vehicular emissions by 50% by 2050. The cutely-named '50 by 50' plan calls on governments around the world to cut back voluntarily, since there is no real enforcement mechanism. "We're not saying that nobody can have a car," said Jack Short, secretary general of the International Transport Forum, a constituent of the consortium. "This is a building-block towards making the transport sector part of the solution towards a low-carbon economy." In addition to helping the planet by cutting back emissions, the group points out that reducing emissions by 50% would save up to 6 billion barrels of oil annually, equating to a global savings of $300 billion annually by 2025 and twice that by 2050. Oil isn't the only target of the group, however, with coal-fired electricity making even electric vehicles a poor solution to vehicular emissions. "We have first to de-carbonize the power sector and then use new technologies that make a genuine difference," Achim Steiner, executive directory of the UN Environment Program, told The Guardian. "We need a de-coupling of the growth of traffic from emissions." Like many UN and consortium initiatives, however, the '50 by 50' plan is heavy on goals and short on means to get there. Even the remarkably efficient hybrid cars of today, like the 2010 Toyota Prius (pictured) are chastised by the consortium's members as needlessly expensive and too reliant on combustion engine technology, rather than moving directly to electric-only technology. With both hybrids and electrics out as solutions to the problem, however, it's not clear what is supposed to be done, or how the world is supposed to do it. Read More