It’s just as we’ve always suspected: Uninspiring automotive appliances and arrow-straight, hyper-safe roads drive commuters to sheer boredom, turning driving into a chore and making drivers inattentive and dangerous on the road. The cure? Make cars and roads dangerous again.
Source: Autoblog, Toronto Sun
Want to buy a muscle car? Don't wait too much longer. Photo: Ford Motor Company
One of the more interesting topics in pit lane conversation during last weekend’s CTS-V driving event was the growth of hybrid offerings from virtually all car manufacturers. As enthusiasts, most of us had a common opinion: hybrids were a knee-jerk reaction from manufacturers, scrambling to comply with upcoming Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. The new standards set by the current administration call for a CAFE of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016; to put things in perspective, current CAFE requirements call for 30.2 mpg for passenger cars and 24.1 mpg for light trucks. Fines for manufacturers who don’t meet these standards (Porsche or Ferrari, for example) are reasonable today, but will rise to as much as $10,000 per vehicle sold by 2016. In other words, hybrids are seen as the best way to meet these Draconian standards in just four years. One problem: to an enthusiast, current production hybrids aren’t nearly as satisfying or entertaining to drive as their fossil-fuel-only siblings.
TPMS Sensors
Most people don’t give much thought to the tire pressure monitoring systems used on production vehicles starting in 2007. When the light on the dashboard illuminates, you know it’s time to check your air pressure; aside from that, TPMS is largely ignored by most drivers. That may not be the case for hackers, as a group from the University of South Carolina and Rutgers University has proven that a car’s ECU can be accessed via the tire pressure monitoring system.
The NHTSA is finally starting to release details that would clarify the cause behind “unintended acceleration” of Toyota vehicles. In a briefing before Congress, NHTSA officials presented data on 58 crashes involving Toyota vehicles, where owners claimed sudden, unintended acceleration. Here’s the breakdown by case:
Japanese Inventor Designs Common Gas, Brake Pedal. Disaster Looms.
Masuyuki Naruse always believed that the two pedal arrangement for the accelerator and brake pedals was a bad idea. In his eyes, it’s human nature to stomp downward in a panic situation, which led him to develop an innovative gas and brake pedal combination some 20 years ago. With Naruse’s design, there’s no way a driver can confuse the gas for the brake; in a conventional layout, this happens with some regularity, usually with disasterous results. You could ask the NHTSA for details about this, but don’t expect a straight answer since it might vindicate Toyota.
In the future according to technology giant Intel, cars will become very smart, much like HAL the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Equipped with sensors, data recorders and the ability to communicate wirelessly from vehicle to vehicle, Intel’s car of the future will report potholes to municipal authorities, block drivers from going the wrong way down a one way street and can even work with onboard cameras to determine street names and provide ‘hands on’ navigation. Should you be unfit to drive (maybe that second bottle of wine wasn’t a good idea after all), the Intel based car could, in theory, have the ability to get you home safely.
Photo: Terrafugia
Remember all those issues of Popular Science that told us we’d be driving flying cars by the year 2000? Sure, the bastards lied to us, but flying cars may soon be a reality thanks to some flexibility from the FAA.
The Terrafugia Transition, pictured above, represents our best hope for a flying car. Until recently, it was just a prototype, uncertified by the FAA for flight. Why? Because in order to meet vehicle safety requirements such as crumple zones, air bags and steel door beams, the Transition was too heavy to be a “light sport aircraft”. In a rare moment of compassion, the FAA granted an exception to the Transition, allowing it into the light sport aircraft classification despite being overweight by 110 pounds.
The author, with his first ride.
As an automotive writer, I get to drive a lot of different cars. Some are innovative, well built and deserving of praise; others, not so much. Over the past ten years there seems to be a trend of adding technology for technology’s sake, not because it improves the vehicle or enhances the driving experience. Sometimes, we have to take a step back and admit that what we thought was progress (Flooze, HD DVD, Sony Betamax), really turned out to be a step backwards.
Audi plans to send an autonomous TTS up Pike’s Peak at this September. The car, developed with the Stanford University Electronics Research Laboratory, is festooned with sensors and crammed with computer gear. It’ll use GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and more to feel its way up the 12-mile course without a driver—at race speeds. It’ll be the first time a robo car has driven the course at more than 25 miles per hour. The car can be shut off remotely if it decides to veer off the course and hunt for spectators. And they have Tom Selleck on standby, just in case. The guys over at Wired Autopia took a ride in the robo car as it careened around the dirt course at 40 mph. Check out the video.
Source: Wired
The House has passed a bill, the Advanced Vehicle Technology Act of 2009, that might just lead to future new cars being made out of plastic. It still has to go through the Senate, but are we contemplating a future where we’re all driving polycarbonate cares with panel gaps larger than the federal deficit? Possibly … the bill calls for nearly $550 million per year in research into fuel-efficient cars and trucks that reduce dependence on petroleum. One of the funded projects is to have the Department of Energy demonstrate the production of “cost-effective lightweight materials such as advanced metal alloys, polymeric composites, and carbon fiber;” that is, plastics. Is the government going to require that your next Ford be an oversized Power Wheels car? More after the jump.
