Car Tech

  • 2014 BMW i3, 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show

    Carbon fiber is nothing new to the upper end of the high-performance car world, whether from OEMs or from the aftermarket. It's old hat in racing. But in mass-market vehicles, extensive use of carbon fiber just hasn't taken off yet. BMW hopes to change that with the i3. Entering production today, the BMW i3 leverages carbon fiber produced in the U.S. at the Washington state Moses Lake facility, which is then processed in the Wackersdorf plant in Germany, before being processed into the finished i3 product in Landshut and Leipzig. It's a serious, concerted effort. Perhaps more importantly, the...

  • 2013 Tesla Model S
    Tesla To Make Fully Autonomous Cars By 2016?

    Tesla's effort to build an autonomous car could reach fruition by 2016 according to a new Reuters report today. The question isn't so much whether the technology is feasible, but whether the legal and economic market is ready. Tesla's competition with Google on autonomous car technology has...

  • BMW's scary bank-robbing clowns love ConnectedDrive
    BMW Uses Scary Bank-Robbing Clowns To Promote In-Car Web Browsing

    Even if you thought the new trend of allowing in-car web browsing could lead to some dangerous situations, you probably weren't thinking as far ahead as BMW is. Here, we see a trio of frighteningly clown-masked bank robbers getting some help from their getaway driver, confirming they are, in fact...

  • Mercedes-Benz S500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE prototype
    Mercedes Demonstrates Fully Autonomous S-Class, Promises Production Version By 2020: Video

    Mercedes-Benz’s new S-Class is the first car in history capable of driving itself, though the car’s current autonomous mode is only suited for traffic jams and highway driving. However, Mercedes is committed to being the first to offer a car that works autonomously at all times and...

  • Ferrari 458 Speciale, 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show
    Ferrari 458 Speciale’s Technology Explained Through Video

    One of the most popular cars at this week’s Frankfurt Auto Show, the Ferrari 458 Speciale, also happens to be one of the most technologically advanced. There are so many intricate systems present that it’s hard to get a grasp on how the technologies all help make this hardcore 458...

  • Jaguar C-X17 concept, 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show
    Jaguar Land Rover Announces New Connectivity Technology

    Jaguar Land Rover is looking to raise the level of technology currently offered by its growing lineup. A new telematics and infotainment system, which has been co-developed by Bosch, will begin to roll out progressively on 2014 model year vehicles. The main idea behind the new system is to add a...

  • Nissan NISMO Smart Watch

    Cars and watches have gone together for decades. The wearable works of art blend with wonderfully with the driveable works of passion. In the future it seems that these two worlds can collide in even more amazing ways, which is what Nissan aims to prove with its NISMO Watch concept. A driver will be able to achieve even more connectedness with his or her car, and they can do so in a rather stylish manner. The watch will be able to read a variety of biometric data points. Items such as the wearer's heart rate could be used to help the watch warn the driver to relax a bit. The watch will also...

  • Hankook i-Flex airless tire concept
    Hankook Is Latest To Roll Out Airless Tire Concept

    Hankook has revealed a new airless tire design called i-Flex which makes its debut this week in concept form at the 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show. The i-Flex tire constitutes both the tire and wheel and is similar to previous concepts from Bridgestone as well as America’s own Polaris. Apart from...

  • Controlled Rotation System gearless gearbox technology
    New Gearless Gearbox Technology Previewed: Video

    A group of Dutch inventors has developed a gearbox they say could revolutionize the automotive and bike industries. Developed by Parts Services Holland and called the Controlled Rotation System (CRS), it does away with one of the main components of a gearbox--the gears themselves. However, the team...

  • McLaren P1 supercar
    Europe Wants To Stop Speeding With Big Brother Tactics?

    Autonomous, or self-driving, cars are on the horizon. If you're uneasy about that, you'll be up in arms over the European Union's planned speed-limiting technology mandate. The purpose: to prevent your car from ever exceeding the speed limit, whatever that might be. To accomplish this goal, the EU...

  • Mazda 6 (Atenza) i-ACTIVSENSE technology vehicle
    Mazda Starts Trials Of New Car 2 Car Communications System

    Mazda is the latest automaker to showcase a new vehicle to vehicle communications system as its new Mazda 6-based test car begins trials in Japan. The Mazda Atenza ASV-5--Atenza being the Japanese-market name for the 6 sedan--begins trials this month, utilizing an Intelligent Transport Systems...

  • ZF's GenShock energy-recovering suspension technology
    ZF Reveals GenShock Active Energy Recovering Suspension Tech

    Doing more with what you have is one of the cornerstones of increasing efficiency, and a new suspension technology from ZF will take that mantra to the next level. Cars are inherently pretty energy-inefficient. Engines do better job of turning the energy in fossil fuels into noise and heat than...

  • 2013 McLaren MP4-12C Spider

    If you've driven the McLaren MP4-12C, you know just how comfortable and easy-to-use it is--an unusual characteristic for a supercar. Soon, it may get even better. According to the McLaren-heads at McLarenLife, it appears the 12C and the P1 are ready to receive an upgraded infotainment system. A McLaren owner attended an event at Pebble Beach and was able to take a look at, and test, a brand new IRIS system that looks rather nice nestled in the center stack. It's reportedly backed by an Android operating system, which means it should be rather robust in terms of what it can deliver right from...

  • Supercharged Honda CR-Z concept, 2012 SEMA show
    Honda Debuts Smartphone-Based Pedestrian And Motorcycle Detection System

    Honda is the latest automaker to explore the safety benefits of vehicle-to-vehicle anti-collision technology, demonstrating two new products that could make cars much safer to be around. The new Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) and Vehicle-to-Motorcycle (V2M) technology expand upon the concept of Car 2...

  • Bosch eClutch electronic clutch
    Never Stall Again Thanks To Bosch eClutch

    Just five percent of new vehicles in the U.S. are sold with a manual transmission these days--a small band of enthusiasts or the penny-pinching keeping the increasingly archaic but undeniably fun stick-shift alive. Technology can still play a part in the humble manual though--and those embarrassing...

  • Nissan EPORO autonomous robots
    Nissan Autonomous Tech Influenced By Animal Movement

    No, the little robots you're seeing aren't prototypes for EVE, the futuristic plant-finding robot in the Pixar movie WALL-E. They're actually all little Nissans, designed to develop technology for the firm's future autonomous vehicles, and the behavior of each has been inspired by the way creatures...

  • Google self-driving Lexus RX 450h hybrid sport-utility vehicle
    Google puts $258m into Uber; Internet Goes All "I, Robot" on news

    A group of investors including Google is investing $258 million in car sharing service Uber, a surprise move that spawned rumors that the search engine giant will use Uber as a platform for developing autonomous car technology. A slyly written story on TechCrunch dated “July 25 2023”...

  • Ford S-Max concept
    Ford Previews New Styling And Technology With S-Max Concept

    Ford is giving us a glimpse at its future styling and technology with a new MPV concept, which has been revealed today ahead of its official debut at the 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show next month. The vehicle carries the S-Max name and previews the next generation of the popular people mover of the same...

  • Nissan Leaf autonomous car prototype

    Nissan has made a bold and somewhat unprecedented promise to offer an autonomous car by the year 2020. The move is part of Nissan’s aim to reduce the rate of accidents involving its cars to almost zero, a target several other automakers including Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Volvo are also hoping to achieve through self-driving cars. Nissan doesn’t want to preclude the technology from anyone, so is planning to make it available across its model range within two vehicle generations. This suggests to us that Nissan doesn’t want to take control away from the driver completely...

  • Volkswagen Vision Zero autonomous driving technology
    VW Targets Accident-Free Driving With Autonomous Tech

    The industry is racing ahead to develop autonomous cars that not only promise to alleviate the chore of mundane driving but also, potentially, reduce crashes to zero. Whether performance fans and classic car enthusiasts will be able to manually operate their vehicles on public roads, in amongst all...

  • 2014 BMW i3
    BMW i Genius: Artificial Intelligence To Answer Your Questions

    In the new, strange and intriguing world of electric cars, customers have plenty of questions to ask--and BMW is launching a tool to help answer those questions without having to contact your dealer. Called i Genius, it's actually an artificial intelligence service, combining a database of...

  • Google logo
    Google May Build Its Own Self-Driving Car: Report

    The future is going to be automatic. Automatic social updates pushed automatically to your mobile phone, synced automatically to your computer and to your car, which then drives you automatically to work where you automatically perform the tasks for which your employer automatically drops credits...

  • The Crew
    'The Crew' Next-Gen Racing Sim Previewed At Gamescon: Video

    Games have professed to offer open-world layouts before, but short of flight simulators few games have offered the entirety of the United States to explore. That's exactly what Ubisoft's new racing title The Crew offers though, set to launch on next-generation games consoles and putting the cities...

  • Google self-driving Lexus RX 450h hybrid sport-utility vehicle
    New Self-Driving Car Tech To Come From Continental, Google, IBM Alliance?

    Self-driving cars are a divisive topic. Enthusiasts despise the idea of being cut out of the loop, and tinfoil hat conspiracists despise the idea of Big Brother looking over their shoulder; on the other hand, commuters would welcome the extra free time and even an enthusiast can appreciate being...

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