Car Tech

GM’s OnStar may have been the first to offer drivers a panic button and a help button for on-the-road emergencies or questions, but in the years since OnStar’s launch the technology has become widespread. Today, help buttons are offered in telematics systems from Hyundai (Blue Link)...

Under-inflated tires wear quicker, consume more gasoline and pose a potential blow-out risk as the tire heats up or comes unseated from the rim of the wheel. Despite the risks, Goodyear says that most drivers (without TPMS technology) only check tire pressure about once per year. In 2011, Goodyear...

The new trend in racing sim games centers around expanding the play environment. Driving on a track, no matter how detailed and accurate, gets old after a while since there’s nothing new to see or explore. Enter games like Need For Speed: Most Wanted and Forza Horizon, which base the action...

According to BMW’s research, cities continue to grow larger as more and more people embrace an urban way of life. As a result, cities are getting more crowded with both pedestrians and automobiles. One of the biggest challenges in future urban mobility, then, is finding harmony between...

When it comes to driving games centered around running from the police, the best rules are no rules at all. While we’re at it, it would be great if we had access to any car we wanted at the start of the game, and better still if the ability to roam freely throughout an almost unlimited...

If you're a typical car owner, or even an enthusiast, you probably don't know what QNX is--but you should. Or at the least, you should know about the company's work in the field of in-car technology, because chances are good you use it every day. In the near future, you'll use it to do new things...

The purpose of front and rear bumpers on automobiles is self-explanatory: at low impact speeds, bumpers are supposed to absorb energy and prevent body damage to a vehicle. In that regard, they’re passive safety devices, coming into play only when a low-speed accident occurs. The best kind of...

Europe’s SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment) project, first established in 2009, has come to an end, with the results proving positive for all those involved. One of the partners was Swedish automaker Volvo, which is now looking at integrating some of the findings in its production...

Unless you've been living under a digital mountain of rocks, you've heard the new iPhone 5 was announced today. Maybe you even watched a liveblog of the updates. But here, we bring you the juicy details of the iPhone 5 and the iOS 6 updates from a driver's perspective. So how will the latest bounty...

There is a simple joy in a properly rev-matched manual gearbox downshift that’s near impossible to describe. For a brief moment in time, years of practice blend muscle memory, mechanical motion and precision timing to yield perfect harmony between man and machine. Some manual-transmission...

So you're planning a trip across some non-trivial fraction of the country, but you know you (or your passengers) will need or want to be connected to the Internet along the way. What to do? Sure, extending the web into the car basically ruins any chance at a Griswold family moment, but it can also...

No, this isn't a story of first contact, or of a benevolent alien civilization bestowing the miracles of eons of technological development. Rather, it's the story of how high-tech materials enable mundane cars to do extraordinary things, like spin a turbine at 190,000 rpm. That, surprisingly...

Some models of the 2013 Chevrolet Camaro range will sport a frameless mirror with electrochromic capabilities.

Coinciding with a similar program being run in Germany, the U.S. Department of Transportation is about to start a trial of technology relying on car-to-car and car-to-object communications. The hope is that cars, either through warnings made to their driver or through autonomous systems will be...

The thought of autonomous, self-driving cars brings doom and gloom to most gearheads. It's hard not to imagine a future where driving for fun is a thing of the past. We probably don't have to worry for quite some time, so in the meantime it's easier to appreciate the technology behind cars like...

Last year Rolls-Royce launched a new certified pre-owned vehicle program called Provenance that was aimed at helping to take the worry out for anyone considering spending the huge sums that even a used Rolls-Royce commands. Today the automaker has launched a new app that should make finding your...

A downloadable app for customizing your dream Mustang is now available for the 2013 model.

Over the years, experience has taught us one thing time and time again: when something sounds too good to be true, chances are good that it won’t deliver as promised. That’s why we’re somewhat skeptical about a new tire-coating process, described in The Detroit News, that promises...

As automakers look to meet ever more-restrictive emission standards and ever-increasing fuel economy goals, automatic start stop systems, which shut down an engine after a few seconds of idle and then instantly restart it, will become more and more commonplace. As with any new technology, start...

As we move closer and closer to a future that involves fully autonomous cars, it’s becoming clear that systems developed for the self driving cars of tomorrow are making cars of today safer. Recent studies prove that technologies like collision detection, lane departure warning, adaptive...