Car Tech

The job of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is to make passenger travel safer, whether that travel occurs by car, bus, train, or airplane. Recent advances in vehicle safety have produced safer cars, but in this case safer also translates to more expensive. Consider the 2013 Infiniti...

Like it or not, autonomous cars are coming. But with any new technology, especially one that’s particularly groundbreaking, the introduction of self-driving technology in cars is being done gradually, with each introduction merely a stepping stone to the next facet of the technology. First...

Car 2 Car and Car 2 Object communications are the next big steps forward in vehicle safety, and both are necessary milestones on the road to fully autonomous cars. Automakers such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Ford, General Motors and Nissan have been active in research for years, and now Toyota...

Acura may not quite have the prestige or the cachet of longtime luxury marques like Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, or even Lexus, but it does have top-drawer access to the most innovative powertrain and chassis engineering developments from Honda. And with Acura’s upcoming flagship sedan, the 2014...

The problem with highway signs is that drivers rarely, if ever, pay attention to them. “Keep right, except to pass” may as well be written in hieroglyphics for all the good it does, and the same can be said for signs that read, “Caution, bridge freezes before road surface.”...

For decades, automatic transmissions had three or four speeds, which were deemed sufficient to provide reasonable acceleration and fuel economy. Then came the five speed automatic, which was standard issue on most cars until just a few years back. Then, the race for more gears in the transmission...

The BMW M Performance range of vehicles, performance upgrades and accessories are still not available in the U.S., but it’s only a matter of time until they head our way. We’re betting that one of the more popular items will be the BMW M Performance steering wheel featured in this...

Currently, Jaguar Land Rover’s range of models roughly comprise seven largely unrelated platforms, but going into the future the company hopes to prune these down to just two or three. The goal is to get around 70 to 80 percent of Jaguar Land Rover’s core model range on common...

While some would say that miniature cameras are the best thing to ever happen to televised racing coverage, they generally limit what you can see to a fixed view. With current technology, you may get a feel for what the driver sees when looking straight ahead, but you have no sense of what looking...

Like it or not, a future filled with semi-autonomous (and eventually, fully-autonomous) automobiles is coming. For all the complaining from enthusiasts (ourselves included), there’s no denying that self-driving cars will improve safety for today’s attention-impaired drivers, as well as...

Earlier this month Volvo signed a Memorandum of Understanding with fellow members of the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium being run in Europe, helping pave the way for the implementation of Car-2-Car and Car-2-Object communication technology in its cars. By enabling vehicles to communicate with...

Not to be mistaken with the production-destined R8 e-tron electric supercar we’ve been reporting on for the past couple of years, Audi has been testing a unique R8 prototype fitted with what the company describes as a modular electric car platform. The prototype is labeled the F12 e Sport...

If you're curious about one of BMW's most tantalizing pieces of forbidden fruit, you'll want to read our drive review of the M135i M Performance hatchback, fresh from the U.K. Those with a fear of robots and autonomous cars might want to avoid Infiniti's latest future tech video, demonstrating...

Conventional steering systems provide a mechanical link from the steering wheel to the front wheels, which is generally power-assisted via hydraulics on modern automobiles. For decades, this delivered a reasonable blend of handling and ride comfort, even if it came with certain trade-offs in...

A few weeks ago Nissan revealed a special Leaf prototype, which was able to park itself, sans driver, thanks to Nissan’s own autonomous driving system. It turns out this was just a teaser for more comprehensive autonomous driving technology from the Japanese automaker, which it plans to start...

Last year, Americans purchased some 12.8 million new vehicles. Of that number, 1.3 million vehicles, or roughly 10 percent, came with turbocharged engines. In just five years, however, turbo supplier Honeywell expects that total to climb to four million turbocharged vehicles, representing...

Cadillac will offer an upgraded entertainment package on its 2013 SRX crossover, which features some of the latest technologies including a Blu-Ray DVD player and a cordless remote control. The new package will be linked with Cadillac’s CUE interface system and be accessible from every seat...

While Google and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) may be the two names most closely associated with autonomous vehicles, they’re hardly the only organizations working on self-driving cars. Ceatec Japan is an annual conference highlighting the latest advances in...

In the first behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming Forza Horizon video game from Turn 10 Studios, we saw how the Horizon Festival would be the focal point of the game, centering the racing, drifting, and general hoonage around one setting. This time around, we see more action and learn why...

Volvo is paving the way for the implementation of Car-2-Car and Car-2-Object communication systems in its own vehicles with the signing today of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with fellow members of the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium being run in Europe. The consortium’s goal is to...