Car Tech

When it comes to building battery packs for electric cars, temperature extremes are the enemy of battery range. To deliver optimum results, electric car batteries need to be kept within a fairly narrow band of ideal operating temperatures. To get around this, thermal conditioning is used to...

It appears that Cadillac will offer its hands-off adaptive cruise control on one or more vehicles for the 2014 model year--at least if one high-ranking executive is to be believed. Appearing at the Driverless Car Summit in Detroit yesterday, Gary Smyth, executive director of GM's North American...

With the launch of a single app (and a new mobile device operation system), Apple has apparently managed to make portable and in-car navigation systems all but obsolete. Announced at this week’s Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference, Apple Maps promises to deliver unprecedented levels...

About a month ago we found a patent by Apple for an in-car remote control system. At the time, we weren't completely sure what that patent was for, assuming it had to do with music. It still might, but today Apple announced that it is integrating its voice-command service called Siri with the...

Porsche has shown that with a little innovation, the manual transmission can remain relevant in a world where regular automatics and newer dual-clutch units offer faster shifts and better economy. Porsche’s solution was to create a seven-speed manual by modifying the design of its seven-speed...

When it comes to console driving simulator games, the Gran Turismo series for Playstation and the Forza Motorsport series for Xbox have always favored action over plot. Those wanting a bit more plot with their racing had to settle for games like the Need For Speed series, which (generally) told a...

Being a teenage gearhead geek in the 1980s was bittersweet. Since the Trapper Keeper’s calendar was never full of dates with cheerleaders (or honestly, many girls of any clique), it left more than a few evenings open for television shows like Knight Rider. While the 300 mph top speed was a...

While in the U.S. firms such as Google are attempting to revolutionize mobility by doing away with the driver completely, over in Europe researchers are taking smaller steps towards making autonomous driving a reality. For the past couple of years we’ve been bringing you details about the...

Airbags inside of automobiles are nothing new, and have saved thousands of lives worldwide since being put into widespread use. Volvo, always at the forefront of vehicle safety, believes that airbags can be used to protect pedestrians, too. According to Volvo’s research, 25-percent of traffic...

Google’s fleet of self-driving cars may soon be heading to California, with the state’s Senate passing a bill this week that would allow the autonomous cars to be tested and operated on its roads. The bill, which establishes guidelines for the use of autonomous cars on public roads...

Volvo has selected electronics giant Mitsubishi Electric, a subsidiary of the same group that owns the automaker Mitsubishi, to help develop next-generation infotainment systems for use in its future cars. Mitsubishi Electric will develop the central module and be the main supplier for the overall...

When it comes to hands-free infotainment solutions, automakers aren’t the only ones looking to make both the government and consumers happy. Now Apple has joined the fray, with a novel approach to adding steering-wheel-mounted controls. As the diagram shows, Apple’s solution is a...

Once the preserve of control panels on the Starship Enterprise, touch technology is now central to some of the most popular gadgets, including smartphones and satellite-navigation systems. It'll soon take over much of our car interiors too, says electronics firm Magna. The company has been working...

Ford's engineers went to great lengths to make sure the new Focus ST sounds as fast as it goes.

Lightweight cars aren't just good for better gas mileage: they're also faster. Audi's race technology has been well-known to flow toward its production cars, but the level of devotion to lightweight construction shown with the latest R18 e-tron quattro Le Mans racer isn't likely to make the...

Volkswagen--the People's Car--is aiming to become the car of the People's Republic of China. This look at the future of VW car tech comes courtesy of the People's Car Project at Auto China 2012. The ideas themselves come from 119,000 ideas submitted from the 33 million visits to the project's site...

After first announcing its self-driving, autonomous car project in 2010, Google is now about to embark on the next major advancement of the technology and that is to team up with a major automaker. The technology giant has already tested its fleet of autonomous cars over hundreds of thousands of...

When it comes to innovations in safety and driver aids, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volvo, and a few other brands have long led the way, particularly in the realm of the use of technology to those ends. But the latest and greatest innovations in the field are often limited to a handful of the upper-tier...

The only certainty of electric car technology is that nobody is really certain of our future path. Dozens of different battery technologies are under development all around the world to fix the common battery limitations--limited energy density, heavy weight, long recharging times--and one such...

During any given auto race, what transpires on the track is just one of several contests taking place--especially in Formula 1. There are pit crews, of course, but behind the scenes are teams of technicians in high gear at keyboards and screens. Their real-time monitoring and adjustments come from...