automobiles

Attendees of the 2012 London Olympic Games may be in for a 'green' ride.

A seven-seat electric taxi was awarded Most Economic & Environment Friendly Multi-Purpose Electric Vehicle at the Royal Automobile Club's (RAC) Future Car Challenge.

The Mercedes Electric Vito (eVito) Taxi, which was a collaboration between Mercedes Benz, Zytek Automotive, and Valence, is powered by Valence batteries.

The challenge was to produce a concept of a pollution-free fleet vehicle that could be used as taxis during the Olympic games.

The eVito beat out 59 other vehicles by finishing the 57-mile run with about 30 percent of its … Read more

Anyone who has ever been on a road trip knows how hard long hours on the road can be on a car, especially the interior. Road trips for me generally include one dropped/knocked-over/exploded beverage, fast food droppings, wrappers, and complimentary toys and and other bits of consumables ground into the car's interior.

A new publication "In Your Car: Road Trip through the American Automobile," chronicles market researcher Kelley Styring's 30-day, 5,800-mile cross-country research study of American drivers and their messes.

Styring, who wrote "In Your Purse: Archaeology of the American Handbag," … Read more

Changan Motors, Ford Motor Company and Mazda Motor Company (CFMA) signed contracts with local government officials to build a new engine plant in Chongqing, China.

Construction on the $500 million plant will begin in 2011, and the facility will be in operation by 2013. The new plant will more than double CFMA's existing engine capacity from 350,000 units, to 750,000 engines annually, Ford said in a press release.

"This new engine plant will help power our ambitious expansion plans here in the world's largest automotive market," said Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president, Asia Pacific … Read more

Terrafugia, a developer of "roadable aircraft"--otherwise known as flying cars--released a scale model and computer-generated mockups of its redesigned "Transition" vehicle on Monday that the company says bring it a step closer, engineering-wise, to a deliverable product late next year.

The design tweaks, Terrafugia explained, were based on the results of a successful test flight last year at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York. Some of the improvements include a touch-screen cockpit interface and better-optimized wings with a new folding mechanism that helps them retract for road driving. It'll still run on gas station … Read more

In the near future, you may be more worried about a hacker attack on your car than on your PC.

A group of researchers from two universities tested their hacking skills on two cars and found that they could remotely lock the brakes, the engine, and windows on a car; turn on the radio, heat, and windshield wipers; honk the horn; and change the speedometer display.

They were able to do all of that in tests on two cars of unnamed make and model by connecting a laptop to the electronic control system and controlling that computer wirelessly using a … Read more

Monday's video blog featured Venezuelan-born race car driver Milka Duno making her first attempt at stock car testing for the Automobile Racing Club of America at Daytona International Speedway a little over a week ago, a foray that turned out to be pretty successful. But it seems it's hard to write about or discuss Duno without IndyCar superstar Danica Patrick being referenced or mentioned in some form or another. Well, sure enough the TV commercial sexpot and would-be NASCAR-bound Patrick was also getting in on the stock car fun at the ARCA's Daytona event December 18 through … Read more

Hello dear Car Tech readers! I hope y'all drank a boatload of eggnog and had a great Xmas holiday (or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever it is you celebrate). But we weren't alone in celebrating all the good things (yeah, all three of them) about 2009, but Venezuelan-born racecar driver Milka Duno had a couple more things to celebrate in late December. About a week ago, Duno made history--again--by becoming the first woman of Hispanic descent to do stock car testing for the Automobile Racing Club of America.

It all went down on December 19, 2009, at world famous … Read more

Personal computers have become much more reliable over the last 10 years or so, mostly due to the introduction of advanced operating systems with memory protection and hardware abstraction. The hardware itself has gotten better too; uncorrectable random errors are rare in PCs and extraordinarily rare in server-class systems.

These and other improvements have largely eliminated machine crashes. Blue-screen errors on Windows and kernel panics in Linux and Mac OS X still occur, but much more rarely.

Error-reporting services have become common, helping software developers figure out what went wrong. Most large developers now issue regular patches to fix newly … Read more

Summer road trips are in full swing. But before you set out for your vacation, you'll need to remember to keep your car in good shape. If you're mechanically inclined, you might be able to do that yourself. If not, check out some of these services that can help you out.

2CarPros 2CarPros might look like a simple question-and-answer site at first glance, but with some digging, you'll find it to be one of the most informative sites in this roundup.

Once you get to 2CarPros, you can immediately start sifting through the site's huge database of car repair information. Everything from an oil change to refurbishing an engine is included in its database. If you want to ask the Pros questions, you'll need to sign up for the site. But if you want to the most value, 2CarPros has a videos section, providing several clips on how to repair your vehicle. It's a really informative site.

DriverSide If you're looking to find out when you should be performing routine repairs on your car, DriverSide is the place to go.

Once you get to the site, you'll need to input the kind of car you own. From there, the service will estimate its value, tell you when you'll need to get its oil changed, and list all the other service you need to have done at certain times throughout the car's lifespan. If you can't do the work yourself, DriverSide even tells you where to find a mechanic near you. It's a neat site.

FuelClinic FuelClinic determines how well your car is managing its fuel consumption. After you sign up for the site, you need only to input your car's information, tell the service how much you spent the last couple times you filled up, and the site will return calculations on your miles per gallon and how much you will be spending on gas going forward. It's not the most advanced fuel-monitoring service in this roundup, but it's simple, which might make it attractive to some.… Read more