Automotive Blog automotive technology, explored

Category “technology”

Electric Audis, VW L1, and a Flying Car

Tuesday, 13 May, 2008

Electric Audis
According to Reuters, the top brass at Audi thinks electric cars represent a great opportunity and within ten years their company will be offering cars with zero emissions. Ruper Stadler, an Audi executive speaking to the German publication Welt am Sonntag predicted both diesel and battery tech will be the dominating factors in automotive [...]

Tesla Opens L.A. Dealership

Friday, 2 May, 2008

In the midst of lawsuits and the like Tesla Motors has still managed to get its first dealership open in Los Angeles at the busy intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sepulveda. Currently the company has sold 600 of their two-seat roadsters on pre-order with a waiting list of 400. Here’s the rub — they’ve [...]

Microsoft Tackles Traffic Analysis

Tuesday, 15 April, 2008

Last week Microsoft introduced a web-based service backed by a new technology called Clearflow that will deliver driving directions to help users get around traffic jams. A group of researchers in the field of artificial intelligence spent five years locked away in their Microsoft research labs applying techniques of machine learning to the omnipresent problem [...]

Robot Cars to Hit the Track in Long Beach

Thursday, 3 April, 2008

Those crazy DARPA driverless cars are at it again. Yep, the veterans from the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge will hit the track this month at the Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach, California, according to CNet.
Competitors include:
- “Boss,” Carnegie Mellon’s Chevrolet Tahoe and winner fo the Urban Grand Challenge
- “Junior,” a Volkswagen Passat from Stanford [...]

IntergalacticHydrogen.com: A World of Alternative Fuel

Wednesday, 19 March, 2008

When a friend of mine told me I needed to check out IntergalacticHydrogen.com, I laughed. I figured sci fi site, right? More like sci fact, and a harbinger of alternative fuel focused production shops to come. Or, as the site copy puts it, “As a research, development and deployment company, we can engineer the [...]

Geyser Self-Cleaning Windshield

Thursday, 13 March, 2008

As always a number of interesting prototypes showed up at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show including a sleek, futuristic beauty from Italian designer Leonardo Fioravanti (of Pininfarina fame.) This five-door, four-seater, however, is being looked at not so much for what it offers as for what it doesn’t have — windshield wipers.
Thanks to an innovative [...]

Green is Blue and Geneva is Cool

Tuesday, 11 March, 2008

Since blogging didn’t happen last week due to that nasty complication called “life,” I’ve been busy catching up, starting with Wired’s interactive article, “The 10 Most Wired Cars of the Geneva Motor Show.” (You can find the information elsewhere, but this one has drool worthy photos.)
First off, get used to “blue” meaning green:
- BlueMotion from [...]

Forbes on Car Gadgetry

Thursday, 28 February, 2008

Much to drool over in the Forbes article “The Most Useful New Gadgets for Your Car.” The list includes:
Alpine eX-10 iPod and Bluetooth Adapter – $200
Let’s drivers play their iPod through the car speakers without those pesky radio transmitters or clumsy tape adapters, which means much better sound quality.
Azentek Atlas CPC-12 – $2,700
A personal computer [...]

No Test Drives, Tesla’s Next Project, Child Safety

Tuesday, 19 February, 2008

Aw, Who Needs a Test Drive, Take My 50K
Not sure how much this falls into the category of car tech, but I find it fascinating all the same. Jaguar has managed to rake up 10,000 orders for its new XF sedan with no advertising and not a single car sitting out there waiting for the [...]

Smart Cars, Congestion Fees, sQuba Revisited

Thursday, 14 February, 2008

Back in October the local news here in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex was all abuzz about the arrival of a Smart dealerhip. (Click here for a Dallas News article on the subject.) The “Why Guy,” a lovable local dufus on WFAA who does special interest pieces visited the place, a tiny hole in the wall [...]