Car Tech

The average person has probably never heard of Miles electric cars. The fledgling Miles Automotive Group, originally based in Malibu and now located in a renovated building at the Santa Monica airport in Southern California, currently makes small, low-speed electric vehicles used primarily by universities, government and the military.

But as it gears up to launch its first freeway-speed consumer car, Miles is hoping to raise its profile by urging college students to create and upload their own videos about how electric cars can help clean up the environment. Miles will post the videos on YouTube and will award each … Read more

Ford Motor is sponsoring two fellowships to study energy technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of a five-year initiative, both organizations have announced.

Two Ford Alliance Energy fellows will study technology to improve power-train and fuel-efficiency technology for vehicles.

Ford is the first "Sustaining Member" to become part of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), a group established in November 2006 for the purpose of studying global energy problems.

"As the first mover for the automotive technologies of the 20th century, Ford Motor Company transformed the world. This research collaboration is designed to support Ford'… Read more

CHIBA, Japan--Nissan is going to come out with more hybrid cars and completely electric vehicles in a few years.

But it's less excited about ethanol and biodiesel.

Technically speaking, designing an ethanol or biodiesel car is fairly straightforward, said Minoru Shinohara, senior vice president and general manager of the Technology Development Division at Nissan, during a meeting at the Ceatec show here this week.

The problem is the cost of the fuel. Both biodiesel and ethanol cost more than regular gas, when changes in mileage and other factors are calculated.

"The most important thing is availability of fuel,&… Read more

Micron plans to announce a new image sensor for cars Wednesday that can keep an eye on you as well as on the road.

The company's charmingly named MT9V023 sensors are geared for a long list of ways that increasingly electronic cars will use cameras in an attempt to improve safety and convenience. The company is selling samples of the 752x480-pixel, 60-frame-per-second sensor at $25 apiece and expects them to be used in cars to ship in late 2008.

Some U.S. vehicles have cameras to improve rear-view vision when backing up--the Hummer H2 uses a Micron sensor for … Read more

As with most things, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about electric vehicles. Last Friday, Ian Wright and I spent a couple of hours around my conference table discussing our philosophies on electric cars. Wright knows something about this topic, as he was formerly an executive at EV start-up Tesla Motors, and is now the founder and CEO of Wrightspeed, a Silicon Valley-based start-up whose first car is going to be a high-performance electric supercar, price tag just shy of $200,000. And as it's electric, Wright expects it should out-start, outrun, out-turn, and … Read more

We don't often list a refurbished gadget as a "Hot deal," but this one's an exception, since the price is so remarkably low.

When CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman went on his 2006 Road Trip, the Magellan RoadMate 3000T is the Global Positioning System, or GPS, device he brought along.

Terdiman is not alone in feeling that the RoadMate 3000T is accurate and, with good resolution and responsive controls, easy to use. While it's not the sleekest or smallest GPS tool, being designed primarily for in-car use, its features set it apart from the … Read more

When a new biodiesel plant opens early next year in Odessa, WA, it will employ a novel strategy: take locally grown seeds, crush them on site, and refine the resulting oil for fuel. It might sound obvious, but, according to plant manufacturers, the Odessa facility will be the first of its kind in the Western U.S. to fully integrate these steps necessary for biodiesel production.

The result? The facility, according to equipment suppliers, will be less vulnerable to fluctuating agricultural oil prices, which could help stabilize fuel prices further down the supply chain. For the community, it will give … Read more

Davis, Calif.--This is truly a creepy presentation, this one being delivered by Kamal Hassan, CEO of Skymeter.com right now at the GoingGreen conference in Davis, California.

The company has come up with $130 boxes that, when placed in cars, lets the authorities turn public roads into toll roads.

"You could price every road in the state" with enough cars, he said. The cars also have to have GPS units.

Gee, thanks.

The company doesn't have signed contracts yet, but apparently toll roads are growing in popularity. Singapore has been putting in more toll roads since … Read more

The common wisdom is that gas stations make almost no profit off the gas itself (the gas companies make a ton of profit, of course) and must have side businesses like garages and, above all, snack shops to turn a profit.

What if you were to turn that equation on its head and add a "filling station" to, say, a Starbucks? That's the intriguing possibility raised by an article on SFGate about Hyatt Hotels and Tesla Motors, the Google-founders-financed electric car start-up. (It's also been written up on CNET News.com.)

"Hyatt will install Tesla … Read more