Carbon
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With so many different technologies vying to be the "next big thing" with electric car batteries, the law of averages dictates that at least one of those genuinely will be the next big thing. The latest "next big thing" is graphene lithium-air batteries according to Talking Points Memo, and they're currently being tested by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Princeton University. The science of graphene Graphene was probably one of the most significant inventions of 2011. It's essentially a honeycomb sheet of linked carbon atoms, that's only a single atom...
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More Carbon Fiber Parts In BMW Cars From 2013BMW is aiming to become of the first manufacturers to begin high-volume production of carbon fiber car parts. The first part-carbon cars could be seen as soon as 2013. The cost and production time of carbon fiber has been reduced considerably over the last few years. The all-carbon McLaren MP4-12C...
Antony Ingram -
Audi Wins Le Mans 2011, R18 TDI Withstands Huge Crashes
Audi Sport has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the La Sarthe circuit in Northern France in one of the closest races in many years, but were it not for the strength and safety of the R18 TDI sports prototype, the weekend could have been very different. Less than an hour into the race, star driver...
Antony Ingram -
Carbon Fiber: The Next Step, Courtesy Of New Teijin Tech
Carbon fiber is enjoying something of a birthday this year. With the release of the 2011 McLaren MP4-12C supercar, McLaren celebrates thirty years since they developed the first carbon fiber monocoque chassis, used in their 1981 Formula 1 racing car. They were then the first to develop a carbon...
Antony Ingram -
Schedoni unveils new carbon-fiber briefcase
As an expensive and hard to manufacture material, carbon-fiber is usually found in high-end applications such as supercars and airplanes but now an Italian company is offering up some carbon-fiber briefcases that should prevent any limp-wristed execs from straining themselves too much. The new...
Jeremy Weber -
Brembo teams with Italian watchmaker for carbon-ceramic special edition
Watches and cars have shared a long history together. Something about the kindred spirit of precision, style and function of both endeavors finds an overlapping fanbase. Few watches exhibit that cross-pollination better than the Meccaniche Veloci Quattro Valvole CCM - a carbon-ceramic watch built...
Kenneth Hall -
A consortium of industry agencies and the United Nations wants the world to cut its vehicular emissions by 50% by 2050. The cutely-named '50 by 50' plan calls on governments around the world to cut back voluntarily, since there is no real enforcement mechanism. "We're not saying that nobody can have a car," said Jack Short, secretary general of the International Transport Forum, a constituent of the consortium. "This is a building-block towards making the transport sector part of the solution towards a low-carbon economy." In addition to helping the planet by cutting back emissions, the group...
