Car Tech

While we all want a Ferrari 458 Italia, not all of us are fortunate enough to have the means. Luckily, Thrustmaster has come to save the day with a new Ferrari 458 steering wheel set-up for the Xbox 360. Thrustmaster worked with both Microsoft and Ferrari during the development of its steering...

Automotive heavyweights Ford and Toyota joined forces yesterday to make a very interesting announcement. Toyota's executive vice president for research and development, Takeshi Uchiyamada, appeared with Ford's group vice president for global product development, Derrick Kuzak, to say that the...

If you're trying to squeeze in one more vacation before summer comes to a screeching halt, you might want to crack open Google Maps. You already know that the service can plan your travel route, but now, Google Maps can help you pack, too, by giving you weather forecasts for your target...

The lightbulb killed the gas lamp. The DVD killed the VHS tape. And now, the world is preparing for the death of another invention past its prime: the standalone GPS device. We've been expecting this funeral for some time. Google Maps' debut on smartphones was a bad omen, and each new travel app...

Regular readers will remember Zimride, the carpooling service that works like a social network, matching needy commuters with altruistic drivers. Until recently, Zimride had been a private service, sold to universities and large corporations to help students and employees get where they need to go...

Solar panel technology has, thus far, not been of much use for automobiles. You may be able to specify a small solar panel on the 2011 Nissan Leaf or 2012 Toyota Prius, but it's mainly used to top up the energy needed to power accessories such as your air conditioning or in-car entertainment. As a...

Garmin has launched a new teaser campaign via email and Facebook, and because it's a slow news day, our crack team of marketing specialists has decided to take some guesses at what all the fuss is about. So far, it appears that Garmin's campaign has two components: an email containing an image that...

British company Zeroshift is developing a revolutionary new transmission that promises to offer faster gearshifts than a dual clutch transmission, which is already blistering quick at eight millisecond shifts, but is also more fuel efficient, lighter and cheaper too. The key is the...

The 1980s was an exciting time to be a young person. The reason? Video games. From coin-operated arcade games to the advent of home games consoles a whole generation had a new form of entertainment and for the budding gearheads, the best fun was provided by racing games. Just as car technology has...

On Tuesday, we wrote about Hewlett-Packard and about how some at the company were hinting that HP's mobile operating system, webOS, would soon come to dashboards. We expressed a heavy dose of doubt about that -- and it turns out that we were right to raise an eyebrow. Today, HP indicated that it...

It reads more like a 1950s space race vision of the future than a pragmatic 21st Century theory, but we could now be a step closer to driving a nuclear-powered car. In light of the recent events in Japan following the tsunami that caused meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and previous events...

UPDATED: Click here. Remember webOS? We don't hear much about Hewlett-Packard's mobile operating system these days -- mostly because it's busy being overshadowed by Android, Apple, Blackberry, and even Windows (now that Microsoft inked a sweet deal with Nokia). But webOS is alive and quietly...

Along with standing around at a gas station watching your last paycheck click away before your eyes, parking has to be one of motoring's less pleasurable pursuits. Just like filling your car though it's a necessary evil, so in the absence of doing away with it completely, anything that makes it...

If you've always found the Segway's two wheels to be a little excessive you'll be pleased to hear Audi has come to the rescue. The A0 - A1 being a European-market minicar and A2 an aluminum-bodied economy car - is a conceptual foray into the world of personalized mobility developed jointly by...

Back in May, we told you about new technology from BMW aimed at making left turns safer. Now, the company has uploaded a handful of videos showing that technology in motion, as well as other developments that could eventually make your commute more worry-free. All five of the tech developments...

We're so used to seeing carmakers taking leaps forward in in-car technology and mobile innovations that it comes as a shock when progress takes a step back. When the 2011 Hyundai Equus luxury car was launched it gained high praise from all quarters for offering huge levels of equipment at a price...

Some carmakers would have you believe that it's no longer enough to simply drive around in their product, that driving is now a connected experience and one to share with a wider audience than just your passengers. To this end, BMW's new mobile app, "The Ultimate Drive" lets you discover the best...

List of materials commonly associated with supercar construction: Carbon fiber, aluminum, fur, titanium, gold... Hang on, fur? Sounds ludicrous, but automotive designer Da Feng's latest supercar creation The Flake makes use of bodywork that acts in a fur-like manner to enhance aerodynamic...

Over the past couple of years, autonomous cars have shifted gears: once considered a novelty act akin to life-size remote-controlled vehicles, there's recently been serious talk about using autonomous cars for everyday transportation. And as one of the world's biggest auto markets, China isn't...

If ethernet brings up images of 1990s technology and its use in cars suggests a spaghetti of cables like your office, then think again. Freescale Semiconductor is one of several companies now exploring ethernet technology in an automotive communications and networking environment, and it could...