Car Tech

As soon as 2019, Hyundai will offer drivers an in-car personal assistant powered by Soundhound's artificial intelligence (AI) system. The Korean brand announced Thursday its "intelligent personal agent" will make its debut at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show along with a conceptual cockpit. The...

Apple may have let go of building its own self-driving car, but it's deeply invested in autonomous technologies. On Thursday, CNBC reported the technology giant has patented a navigation system for self-driving cars. The system has reportedly been in the works since 2015 and it aims to simplify...

Honda spokesperson Teruhiko Tatebe has revealed to Reuters that the automaker is investigating the use of solid-state batteries for future electric cars. Solid-state batteries are seen as a breakthrough technology for electric cars as they promise significantly improved battery density compared to...

Owners of 2017 and 2018 model year Audis will find a new feature embedded in their car's infotainment system and the Audi MMI connect smartphone app. On Tuesday, the brand announced Amazon's music services are now accessible, providing millions of songs in Audi cars for the right owners. Both...

Mini is adding a third transmission option to its lineup in the form of a 7-speed dual-clutch unit that boasts faster gear shifts and improved efficiency compared to the manual and automatic transmissions currently on offer. Though yet to be confirmed for the United States, the DCT will be made...

Toyota on Monday announced it would accelerate its vehicle electrification plans as part of an overarching strategy to reduce fleet-wide carbon emissions by as much as 90 percent from 2010 levels, by the year 2050. Under the accelerated plans, Toyota hopes to have every model in the Toyota and...

Tesla drivers in the United Kingdom have all the more reason to engage the car's AutoPilot system when in the appropriate situation. Direct Line, a British auto insurer, will now offer a 5 percent discount on premiums for drivers who use the self-driving technology. The system's use is actually in...

Boston, Massachusetts-based self-driving car startup nuTonomy made headlines in 2016 when it launched the world’s first self-driving taxi service. Albeit a trial only, the service, which covered a few streets in Singapore, provided an early look at a likely future where self-driving cars run...

Australia bid goodbye to local automobile manufacturing this past October as the final Holden Commodore rolled off the assembly line, but perhaps the country will be at the forefront of another transportation sector: flying cars. One Aussie's idea isn't an unmanned transportation pod, however...

Volvo is undertaking an ambitious project where up to 100 of its self-driving prototypes will be handed over to regular customers in Gothenburg, Sweden, the automaker’s hometown. The customers will drive the prototypes in everyday conditions, including on approximately 31 miles of selected...

A Chinese rival to ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft may be about to set up shop in North America. According to Reuters’ sources, Didi Chuxing plans to expand its app-based service to Mexico in 2018, the first time the company would be operating outside of China. Didi has said that its...

As part of its 2030 Vision strategy announced in June, Honda aims to have a car with Level 4 self-driving capability on sale by the year 2025. The target date is later than what rivals are promising (typically around 2021) but is probably more realistic, perhaps not because of the ability of the...

General Motors wants to make it easier to order your Starbucks coffee, find the nearest Shell station, or even reserve a table at the local TGI Fridays. On Tuesday, the automaker announced GM Marketplace, a commerce platform for on-demand reservations and purchases run through your infortainment...

The BMW Group is committed to launching 25 electrified cars by 2025, 12 of which will be battery-powered electrics. The automaker on Tuesday revealed the full schedule for the 25 cars along with a few tentative details. The first two cars out of the 25 have already been revealed. They are the BMW...

The Volkswagen Group doesn't simply want to electrify its portfolio of brands and cars for personal ownership, it also wants to provide sustainable transportation in other ways. Its first step? Ridesharing. This week, the automaker's newly minted MOIA mobility unit revealed its first vehicle...

Yamaha plans to pit man against machine with its latest self-riding motorcycle concept. And it has an appropriate name: Motobot. The Japanese motorcycle company announced last Tuesday that it will bring its Motobot concept to the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it will detail the...

Marketers, advertisers, and companies in general are itching to implement the next era of entertainment and connectivity. It's coming, and it will likely be broadcast in future self-driving cars. Intel sees the future today, and on Wednesday the tech giant announced a new deal with Warner Bros to...

You might know that there's a physical difference between race car brakes and street car brakes. The size of the rotors, the materials used in the pads, and the brake lines are all going to be upgraded to handle the rigors of motorsport. But that's only part of the story. Did you know that more is...

Finding the aftermarket modifications that will make your car a better performer can be an adventure. Every company under the sun claims all sorts of horsepower, torque, and efficiency gains, but do those claims actually prove out in the real world? Not always. However, some mods will help improve...

Volkswagen isn't reinventing the way your internal combustion engine works. The automaker has, however, created a new twist on the Otto cycle that's a revised version of the Atkinson cycle. Your standard Otto cycle is the one with which you're most familiar. It's made up of intake, compression...