Car Tech

If you feel your car is a small environment of potential office space you're not making the best of, then Vogel's new iPad mounting system might be of interest. We'd never condone using an iPad whilst you're actually driving, but if you're caught at a rest stop or some business partners are getting...

Changing gear is a necessary evil. Of course, for driving enthusiasts it can be a challenge and a pleasure, and in cars with automatic transmissions you can sit back and let the car do the work for you, but the downside with the shifting process is always the momentary pause in progress...

Well known for its dalliances with short-form cinema, BMW is planning a new four-part documentary about the future of transportation entitled "Wherever You Want To Go." Feature elements? Jet packs, flying cars, and, for some reason, a matte black Superbird. The preview video is entertaining in its...

The Washington Auto Show isn't known as the place for hot new concepts or production models, but it does have its share of future vehicle tech, and the latest from Ford previews its plans for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) tech aimed at improving traffic, safety, and efficiency. The first prototypes...

The first image that comes into your head when talking cars are mentioned is probably the smiling face of Lightning McQueen from the Disney Pixar film Cars, voiced by Owen Wilson. In reality though the concept of 'talking' cars is less fun-filled but a lot more useful and could save thousands of...

Even if you're not of a 'certain age', the size of some multi-level parking lots with their dozens of indistinguishable levels and rows of cookie-cut SUVs can prove testing on the old 'gray matter' when it comes to finding the car you left there a few hours previous. Reassuringly you aren't alone...

If the 20th Century was all about improvements in safety and performance for the motor car, the 21st Century see these criteria joined by efficiency. We're seeing a phoenix-like rise by the electric car, and manufacturers are finally taking steps to reduce vehicle weight, improve aerodynamics and...

Reading the paper. Holding a video conference call. Snapping photographs. Eating a McDonalds. All things that are probably best avoided whilst driving on the freeway. However, thanks to developments in technology, you might be able to do all these things and more (we'll leave the "and more" to your...

Lamborghini's venerable Murcielago is due for retirement, with a car variously named the Aventador or the Jota tapped to take its place. Part of the new car's appeal for the enthusiast will be the first production application of a pushrod suspension by Lamborghini, and the system will be on show...

Once upon a time, parents had to be pretty crafty to track their teenagers' driving habits. Sure, they could look for obvious signs of recklessness like dents and scratches, but hard braking? Aggressive driving? Almost impossible to spot without tailing them from a distance. (Which, of course, our...

It's either the CIA's next technique for keeping track of kindergarten violence or the best thing to hit die-cast cars since working steering. What are we talking about? Mattel's Video Racer cars. The latest generation of the world-famous Hot Wheels series will let kids everywhere see a previously...

Over the past few months, we've seen a number of smartphone apps designed to curb distracted driving -- namely, SafeCell, PhoneGuard, and Mashable's mobile app of the year, DriveSafe.ly. Now a nationwide carrier has joined the fray: T-Mobile, with its DriveSmart service. Of the various apps...

The mobile app Trapster, which lets users mark and share the locations of speed traps to avoid tickets, announced today that its 10 million user accounts may have been exposed by an attack by hackers. Trapster isn't sure if the accounts were compromised, but is advising users change their passwords...

It goes without saying that certain things can be pretty distracting when you're driving - talking on a cell phone, kids kicking the back of your seat... What might be less obvious are some of the in-car gadgets found in many modern cars. Satellite navigation systems, touch-screen climate control...

Over 3 million of today's smartphone users use telematics apps -- apps ranging from navigational services like Waze to streaming music players like the now-ubiquitous Pandora. That figure is expected to rise dramatically over the next five years; in fact, ABI Research estimates that by 2016, it...

Have you ever seen the experiment using custard to demonstrate increases in viscosity with force? When you run your hand through the substance it acts like a liquid, but quickly apply a force and it hardens. Fill a swimming pool with custard and you could feasibly run across without sinking in. Wet...

With Mercury now gone the way of the dodo Ford’s other upmarket brand, Lincoln, now has a lot more investment dollars to play with. This means that we’re about to see greater design and technological efforts injected into the brand, with greater differentiation between it and the more...

How many gears does your car have? Have you ever felt it had too few? Well, say hello to the Matt LeBlanc of transmissions, the ZF nine-speed automatic. Feeling inadequate? You should, according to ZF. "Similar to ZF's eight-speed automatic transmission used in rear-drive platforms, the new 9-speed...

We’ve seen and heard so much about Lamborghini’s upcoming replacement for its Murcielago supercar, the LP700-4, or Aventador as it’s expected to be known. We know all the details about its brand new 6.5-liter V-12 engine and ISR automated manual gearbox, even seen a leaked...

One of the coolest features of the Visteon C-Beyond technology demo car at this year's CES is the built-in social ridesharing service. Though that's still a hypothetical service, there's a company doing something very similar in the real world, right now: Getaround. Car sharing isn't a brand-new...