27308148
submission
thecarchik writes:
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, OnStar will reveal the latest on their system. This time, the system will be equipped in a Chevy Volt research vehicle, which seems to be a more appropriate vessel than a Buick for previewing your latest technology. In a press release teasing the appearance, OnStar said the system will offer such features as cloud-based streaming of information and entertainment, rear-seat infotainment management and video chat.
Video chat may sound like a terrifying feature for any car, but OnStar said in last year's CES press materials that the feature would only be enabled when the car is in park. Other features like video streaming would also be limited to the rear seat or to a parked vehicle. In addition to the 4G system, OnStar will show the latest in smart-charging technology. It will also make an announcement about its over-the-counter FMV system.
27308064
submission
thecarchik writes:
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, OnStar will reveal the latest on their system. This time, the system will be equipped in a Chevy Volt research vehicle, which seems to be a more appropriate vessel than a Buick for previewing your latest technology. In a press release teasing the appearance, OnStar said the system will offer such features as cloud-based streaming of information and entertainment, rear-seat infotainment management and video chat.
Video chat may sound like a terrifying feature for any car, but OnStar said in last year's CES press materials that the feature would only be enabled when the car is in park. Other features like video streaming would also be limited to the rear seat or to a parked vehicle. In addition to the 4G system, OnStar will show the latest in smart-charging technology. It will also make an announcement about its over-the-counter FMV system.
27144966
submission
thecarchik writes:
It's exciting stuff, and hints that driverless cars really are not far from being viable — Google's own car has travelled more than 1,000 miles with no driver input, and as if to confirm its success record the only time it's been involved in an incident was when under human control. They've even sent the car around an autocross course at high speed.
Google has been awarded a U.S. patent for the driverless car technology. Specifically, the patent refers to the technology that handles the transition from human control to autonomous control. It explains details of how the car knows when to take control, where it is located and which direction to travel in.
27005752
submission
thecarchik writes:
If there's one lesson to be learned from Aptera, it may be this: Starting an electric car company takes a huge amount of money--orders of magnitude more than the software startups Silicon Valley venture capitalists like to fund.
Over the last week, we've interviewed former CEO Paul Wilbur and former marketing VP Marques McCammon, who were there to the very end.
Both Wilbur and McCammon believe the company came very close to surviving--and suggest that years of discussions with the Department of Energy over its advanced technology vehicle manufacturing (ATVM) loan program ultimately took too long, dooming Aptera to run out of cash.
That $25 billion DoE program offered low-interest loans to automakers and parts companies that would use them to retool existing plants to build advanced-technology vehicles with fuel efficiency at least 25 percent higher than vehicles they replaced.
With a presidential election year coming up, Wilbur says, "the [ATVM] program could go away completely." No big-name investor stepped up to carry Aptera, in the way that Next Autoworks had famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins to lead its funding.
So, Wilbur says, "We wanted to do the right thing for our employees," closing the company while there was still enough cash to pay them a small amount of severance.
26769820
submission
thecarchik writes:
In a review of past research on the topic, drunk drivers were far more likely to be the cause of fatal car accidents than stoned drivers are — 10 times more likely, to be precise. In fact, one study suggested that sober drivers are actually more dangerous than their pot-smoking peers..
The newest study comes from Dr. Daniel Rees and Dr. D. Mark Anderson, who examined traffic fatality statistics across the country. Those statistics are good fodder for research because they contain detailed information about the probable causes of accidents. What Rees and Anderson found was fairly surprising: in the 13 states that legalized the use of medical marijuana between 1990 and 2009, traffic-related deaths fell 9%. Part of the reason for this may be the fact that in those states, alcohol consumption among young people between 20 and 29 declined. In fact, beer sales dipped a not-insignificant 5%.
26760332
submission
thecarchik writes:
While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances. That's where the Chevy Volt-style range extender comes in, though the Volt adds unlimited range by burning gasoline in a conventional engine to generate electric power.
Now a new type of fuel cell offers the potential for a different kind of range extender, one that removes the enormous practical problem facing hydrogen fuel cells: the lack of a distribution infrastructure to fuel vehicles that require pure hydrogen to feed their fuel cells.
Researchers at the University of Maryland have managed to shrink the size and lower the operating temperature of a solid-oxide fuel cell by a factor of 10, meaning it could conceivably produce as much power as a car engine but occupy less space.
The advances come from new materials for the solid electrolyte, as well as design changes, and the researchers feel they have further avenues for improvement left to explore.
25659490
submission
thecarchik writes:
Its wheels are comprised of a few atoms each; its motor, a mere jolt of electricity. Scientists in the Netherlands have introduced the world's smallest car-- and it's only a single molecule long.
It's certainly no Porsche , but scientists at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands are still excited about their latest achievement: creating a "car" that's only a billionth of a meter long.
The nanometer-sized vehicle , comprised of a miniscule frame with four rotary units, each no wider than a few atoms.
25476076
submission
thecarchik writes:
Earlier this year at the official launch of the 2012 Model S Sedan, Musk said that Tesla was planning on installing ultra-rapid charging stations along major arterial freeways such as the I-5 between Canada and Mexico, but declined to give specifics.
But in an official Tesla earnings call last week, Musk let slip where the first of these ultra-rapid charging stations would be: somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
However, even by the shortest route, the distance between the two cities is nearly 400 miles, meaning that an equidistant SuperCharger would be no use to owners of Model S sedans with smaller 160 or 230-mile battery packs.
24812890
submission
thecarchik writes:
The 2012 Fisker Karma was partially funded by $529 million in low-interest loans granted in 2009 by the U.S. Department of Energy's advanced technology vehicle manufacturing program.
With EPA certification, all Fisker Karmas will now have a window sticker affixed, showing the car's efficiency both on electric power and in range-sustaining mode when its gasoline engine runs to generate the electricity that powers the car's motors.
The sticker will display: 20 MPG On Gasoline with a range of 32-Miles on Electric power only. In comparison, the Chevy Volt gets 37 MPG in gasoline only mode and has a range of 40 miles on electric power only.
24787880
submission
thecarchik writes:
Once a secret project, Google's autonomous vehicles are now out in the open, quite literally, with the company test-driving them on public roads and, on one occasion, even inviting people to ride inside one of the robot cars as it raced around a closed course.
Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun, who guides the project, and Google engineer Chris Urmson discussed these and other details in a keynote speech at the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco last month.
Thrun and Urmson , including footage of what the on-board computer "sees" and how it detects other vehicles, pedestrians, and traffic lights.
24593056
submission
thecarchik writes:
GM had hoped to announce its latest green vehicle tomorrow morning, at a nice, orderly, staged press event to celebrate Chevrolet's 100th birthday, but the cat is now out of the bag.
Based on conversations with a number of sources knowledgeable about the electric car industry:
The vehicle is the Chevrolet Spark EV that was spied testing in Michigan just last month (and which we predicted would be GM's first all-electric car sold in the U.S.).
The Spark EV was originally unveiled this past June, as the Chevrolet Beat EV, in India. It is an electric conversion of the upcoming 2013 Chevrolet Spark minicar (known in some markets as the Beat).
24360498
submission
thecarchik writes:
We already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan — but at a press event ahead of tonight’s exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a sporty side.
Cutting the brisk 0-60 time of the standard Model S from 5.6 second to under 4.5 seconds, the sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series.
“That’s quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera],” joked Musk. “Not bad for an electric luxury sedan.”
But if you thought 300 miles was the maximum range a Tesla Model S could do, you’d be wrong.
24248648
submission
thecarchik writes:
After announcing plans to change its terms and conditions to enable what one U.S. Senator called a "brazen" invasion of privacy, OnStar has decided to reverse its course, and will not collect and share data from canceled subscribers.
OnStar had planned to change its terms of service to allow it to continue to collect data about drivers' location, speed, and other factors, and then share (i.e. sell) that data even after the owner of an OnStar-equipped vehicle had canceled their subscription, unless they called and specifically requested the tracking be turned off.
In a press release today, OnStar President Linda Marshall said, "We realize that our proposed amendments did not satisfy our subscribers. This is why we are leaving the decision in our customers' hands.
24113532
submission
thecarchik writes:
The software for the Saskatoon parking meters has a bug that allows parking meters to be refilled for free if the same parking card is used and the meter has fully expired. If repeated for an entire day, the driver parks for free.
Reporters recently observed a number of people apparently exploiting the software flaw. When asked about it, many of them denied knowing anything about the glitch, although some others—who did not want to be identified—admitted to having exploited it for some time.
Saskatoon parking services officials have known about the problem for five years. However, the decision was made to increase enforcement rather than fix the error in the programming in the smart card's chip, which would cost $40,000.
The parking authorities said that the lost revenue and additional costs of additional enforcement are less than paying to fix the software bug.
