Car Tech

For Halloween, OnStar is offering subscribers a "Monster Dodger" service to route them around monster outbreaks.

It's been just under a year since Gran Turismo 5 launched to an expectant audience, and us Gran Turismo fans have had a rough ride of it. Littered with glitches and falling short of many gamers' expectations, developers Polyphony Digital have worked painstakingly over the past year to fix bugs and...

The origins of BMW's blue and white badge are the stuff of urban legend, supposedly derived from the movement of an aircraft propeller through a blue sky. BMW's modern aircraft connection is less romantic but no less impressive. BMW was the first European company to adopt head-up display technology...

Building a "World car" is trickier than you might think. With 7 billion of us now on the planet it's fair to say that a lot of different people have a lot of different requirements from a car. Ford already knows this. Its first attempt at a "World car" was in the 1990s, with the appropriately-named...

Expect more in-vehicle app options as BMW and Mini have opened a new app center in China and invited outside developers to build their own apps.

If you consider awareness of radar speed traps and checkpoints to be a vital component of your defensive driving armoury, then you may already have heard of Cobra Electronics Corporation. You'll also know that they're a market leader in radar detection systems, and the company has today announced a...

Given how well the display and layout of functions found on modern smartphones works, it's surprising that automakers haven't turned to companies like Apple and Android in an effort to improve the user experience. While they work on that, there's a short term solution, thanks to Toyota. We now...

There have been signs over the past year to suggest that head-up-display technology will be the next big thing in driver information systems. A few cars - such as the 2011 Chevrolet Corvette - already use basic systems to ensure the driver keeps his eyes on the road as much as possible, but with...

Motorsport is expensive. If you were to write "expensive" in letters the size of the Hollywood sign, you'd only be scraping the surface of how expensive it actually is. It's bad enough competing at grassroots level but at world championship level the money involved is frankly ludicrous. And though...

If the 2012 Hyundai Veloster wasn't quite funky and youthful enough for you already, then the only thing likely to convince you is cramming it full of the latest games, sounds and technology. That's exactly what RE:MIX Lab has done with three new Velosters, showing them at the opening of their...

Google is betting big on its autonomous car technology, but the company has a long road ahead of it before those cars reach the market. Google's next major goal? Seeing its self-driving cars travel 1,000,000 miles without driver intervention. Last time we heard from Google, the company was lobbying...

Not so long ago, variable valve timing systems like Honda's VTEC and Mitsubishi's MIVEC were used to extract ludicrous horsepower from relatively small capacity engines. Now, in an age of MPG rather than MPH, the carmakers are using these systems to meet a greener end, reducing fuel consumption and...

In recent years, Nissan and Apple have gone together like macaroni and cheese. The Japanese carmaker was one of the first to launch an iPhone app and the late Steve Jobs even used Nissan's Leaf to demonstrate the iAd serviced when it was launched last year. Nissan's boffins have been hard at work...

If you thought a NANOSLIDE was a driving situation fixed by a dab of nanocorrection on the steering, think again. It's actually the name of a new, award-winning technology developed by Mercedes-Benz for use in engine design. NANOSLIDE technology is a way of giving the cylinder walls in an engine a...

Returning to your car to find its windscreen (dis)graced with a parking ticket ranks among modern life's most frustrating experiences. Whether you parked illegally or not there's always a strong feeling that you didn't really deserve it and that a parking attendant's time would be far better spent...

We've reviewed a number of smartphone apps that read texts aloud to drivers -- apps like DriveSafe.ly, PhoneGuard, and SafeCell -- but we've seen very few text-to-speech applications from automakers themselves. Ford is a notable exception. Through its popular Sync infotainment system, Ford recently...

Buick is rolling out Pandora Internet radio services as a standard feature across its lineup, integrating it with the new IntelliLink infotainment system announced in April. It will be made standard initially on the 2012 Buick Verano, Regal and LaCrosse, and on the Enclave crossover in 2013...

Your car might already have an option to synchronize with your smartphone, but General Motors reckons the technology could offer so much more. Apps like Waze and Bump can be handy for avoiding traffic (or chatting if you're already stuck) but vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure systems...

As gamers around the world get their teeth stuck into Forza Motorsport 4 on the Xbox 360, racing fans on the Sony PlayStation shouldn't feel too left-out. Gran Turismo 5 creators Polyphony Digital have been hard at work behind the scenes and the "Spec II" update for GT5 was released a week ago...

Carbon fiber is the ready answer to much of the automotive industry's weight-reducing quest, but sometimes it's not the only answer. In the case of the next Audi R8, it will be part of the answer--as will aluminum. Due in 2014, the second generation of the R8 will get a hybrid aluminum and carbon...