Car Tech

Remember when Tesla promised use of its Supercharger network to Model S owners for life? Psych! Gotcha. Just kidding. The Silicon Valley automaker announced today that Teslas ordered after January 1, 2017 will receive 400 kwh of free supercharging in the form of credits (FYI--that's about 1,000...

Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] has promised to deliver a self-driving car within five years. It will have Level 4 self-driving capability, meaning it can drive on its own but is limited on where it can go due to a reliance on mapping data. Level 4 self-driving cars can also be upset by severe weather...

You're caning your Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] Focus ST on your favorite local race track. This could be your best lap time yet, but you don't really have an easy way of knowing this. You could invest tons of money into track data tools, or you could just grab the new Ford Performance App...

Nissan is one of the biggest proponents of electric cars but even it concedes that not everyone is ready to make the switch. That’s why the automaker is introducing series hybrid powertrains to bridge the gap between internal combustion cars and electrics. Nissan is using the name e-Power for...

A critical component of a successful racing team is its ability to accumulate and understand many points of data. Motorsports engineers thrive on racing data, as it helps them figure out how to make the car and driver a faster symbiotic unit. In the still fairly virgin world of the Formula E...

Despite its major push into electric cars, Mercedes-Benz is spending billions on developing new, more efficient internal combustion engines. The next-generation engines will start making their way into the automaker’s lineup here in the United States from 2017, with the first recipient to be...

Tesla [NSDQ:TSLA] CEO Elon Musk on Friday unveiled two new products, one from Tesla and another from SolarCity, the solar home installation firm Tesla is hoping to acquire and headed by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive. Tesla’s new product is a second-generation Powerwall home energy storage...

Pumping fuel is something you've been doing for years now (unless you're one of those people in New Jersey), and it's something you probably don't put a lot of thought into. You pay, you pump, and then you leave. What you should be aware of, however, is the amount of safety technology on hand to...

Otto and Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch made history in October by successfully making the first delivery by a self-driving truck. Last week, one of Otto’s self-driving truck prototypes traveled 120 miles on a stretch of Colorado highway between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs to deliver...

Engineering Explained and The Humble Mechanic team are two YouTube channels with the goal of teaching us more about the cars we drive. Today, they get together to break down how Volkswagen's dual-clutch gearbox works. Volkswagen calls it the Direct-Shift Gearbox, or DSG for short. With an engineer...

Tesla [NSDQ:TSLA] on Wednesday made the announcement that its cars can be ordered with the hardware necessary for full self-driving, i.e. Level 5 autonomy, the ultimate goal where no driver involvement is required whatsoever. Tesla still hasn’t developed the software to make all the hardware...

An internal combustion engine needs a few things to work. One of those parts that makes an engine do its thing is a piece called the camshaft. This helps control the timing of the intake and exhaust valves that sit at the top of the engine. Koenigsegg is setting out to revamp anything it can...

Tesla [NSDQ:TSLA] on Wednesday announced that all its cars from now will be available with the hardware necessary for full self-driving, i.e. Level 5 autonomy, the ultimate goal where no driver involvement is required whatsoever. The catch is that Tesla doesn’t have the...

The 2017 Mazda MX-5 RF is the targa-topped Miata that some fans of the car have been hoping would come to light. Not everyone is excited about the cut-up coupe, but there are some enthusiasts that prefer a real roof over their heads and this MX-5 delivers just that. How does that folding hardtop...

A barnacle is an arthropod. It's referred to as an encruster, as it an animal that seeks to permanently adhere itself to a hard material. There's a new type of barnacle out there, and this one seeks to adhere itself to your windshield but fortunately not on a permanent basis. Say hello to the...

Though Apple [NSDQ:AAPL] has never publicly acknowledged it is working on a car, comments from numerous insiders as well as the tech giant’s recent poaching of senior auto industry staff suggest otherwise. Sadly, the project, which has been doing the rounds under the code name Project Titan...

Our friend Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained recently attended a Red Bull Global Rallycross race, and, of course, he found a way to explain things using an equation. Jason specifically honed in on the incredible acceleration of these cars. All of the cars are powered by 2.0-liter turbocharged...

In theory, new technology should make our lives easier. But as anyone with an overflowing email inbox or a dodgy wireless router can attest, tech can actually make things worse. Nowhere is this truer than in cars. (For reference, check the ongoing lawsuits against Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] over...

Airbnb is shaking up the hotel industry with its online peer-to-peer accommodation sharing model, and soon we could see a similar service offered for cars. Car sharing already exists in many of the world’s major cities, but the cars are usually owned by a company, sometimes even an automaker...

BMW’s Iconic Impulses world tour reached its final destination in Los Angeles this week, where BMW Motorrad revealed its vision for the future of two-wheeled mobility. As part of the company’s 100th anniversary, the automaker has produced four unique concept vehicles this year--one from...