Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 44

It looks like Tesla Motors' Model S electric car is about to sell a bunch more vehicles, after it received five stars for all of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's tests.

There were four tests involved: front, side, pole and rollover. The Model S from Tesla scored five stars in every single test, which is somewhat of a record considering most safe cars score five stars on the frontal crash protection test, and four stars for side impact protection. Tesla adds in its announcement that during a previous roof crush test used during validation, the machine failed when applying more than 4 G's of pressure.

This pressure is the same as stacking four of the Model S cars on top of each other, all without the roof breaking - quite incredible. The NHTSA has said that the total scores made up of five stars for all tests, is one of the highest on record for a production vehicle, but how did Tesla do it?

The man behind PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has just unveiled his plans for the "Hyperloop" transport system that he one day hopes to see passengers take from Los Angeles to San Francisco, faster than the speed of sound.

Musk unveiled a 57-page PDF, which you can read here, which explains that Hyperloop would transport people and cars between cities in aluminum pods that travel up to 800 miles per hour, inside elevated tubes. Musk said he was inspired by the pneumatic tubes that transport mail around some buildings as his inspiration for Hyperloop.

Musk is a big fan of transport, using his billions of dollars he's made from his various ventures such as PayPal to develop the electric car company, Tesla. He didn't stop there, as he also spent money on a private spaceflight company, SpaceX. Musk has said that the Hyperloop would be a "cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table."

Over the last year so, Space X founder Elon Musk has been carefully dropping hints about a transportation project that could change the future of the world. Of course I'm talking about the Hyperloop Transport System that would take passengers on an underground rail ride that would transfer them from Los Angeles to New York City in just 45 minutes.

Today, Musk posted a tweet to his Twitter account that said he intends to publish the alpha designs for the Hyperloop Transport System by August 12. His tweet went on to ask that, once published, everyone supply him with critical feedback. For those who are out of the loop, the Hyperloop System will be comprised of vacuum-sealed tubes underground which will allow a magnetically levitated train to be hurled at high speeds without any wind resistance.

Initial reports suggest that the vehicle would be able to travel at 4,000 mph and since it's underground, it would be crash proof. Theoretically, there can be tunnels that break away from a main trunk tunnel and visit every major city in America. This could effectively mean that someone who resides in the low-cost areas such as Augusta, GA could work in an area with higher wages such as New York City. This would drastically change the economic landscape for America. Until August 12, we're left to speculate as to what really can happen.

Garmin is well known for its products surrounding in-car navigation, and now they are taking things to a whole new level. The company has just unveiled a new Heads Up Display or HUD for smartphones that will project relevant navigation data onto the end users windshield.

Garmin knows the danger presented when it's customers take their eyes off the road for a split second to check their GPS, so the company has invented a way to alleviate such distractions. The HUD unit will attach to a user's smartphone and will project information directly onto the windshield in the driver's line of sight. The information displayed includes: current speed, speed limit, navigation turn arrows, and distance until your next turn.

"HUD redefines the navigation experience by allowing drivers to find their way without taking their eyes off the road," said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. "Head-up displays currently have their place in select high-end cars, but HUD makes this technology available as an aftermarket accessory for any vehicle, at an affordable price."

Sitting on a flight without Internet access feels like torture, sure it's #firstworldproblems, but my entire life is digital. So to hear that JetBlue is pushing through with their Fly-Fi service, it gets me excited for the future of air travel.

Fly-Fi is set to launch sometime before Q3, but this week JetBlue are conducting some tests with one of their Airbus A320s, which will include maneuvering the plane with some pretty unique weight loads, such as the rear center of gravity positioning you can see demonstrated in the picture, above.

Once this testing is done with, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification should come through, before the testing moves into the performance section. If this all goes to plan, passengers of JetBlue on Fly-Fi can expect Internet hooked up through ViaSat-1 from 30,000 feet in the air.

Pandora, everyone's favorite Internet radio service, has just cleared 2.5 million in vehicle activations. This milestone comes as Pandora announces it is integrated with 23 car manufacturers and eight third-party stereo brands. The company says that the service will be integrated into one-third of the cars sold this year.

The milestone, while small when compared to the total number of drivers in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, does indicate that more and more drivers are choosing to adopt music streaming services over traditional radio. Spotify and Rdio have been attempting to take some of that market share, but unlike those streaming services, Pandora offers an infinite random playlist which is much more like traditional radio.

Pandora began integrating into automobiles back in December 2010 when it adopted Ford's Sync AppLink technology with its Pandora for Android app. The service is now supported in over 100 different car models from a wide range of manufacturers including: BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Nissan, Scion, Suzuki, and Toyota.

New York Times reviewer John Broder is in some serious hot water after his review of Tesla'a latest electric car review, the Model S, has been found with a bunch of holes. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has come out, saying that Broder was prejudiced against electric cars right form the start, and did everything in his power to make the Model S electric car look bad for the road.

The onboard logs showing what charge the Model S had during the reviewers journey, as well as his recharge habits, point toward Broder taking the car off the power connection earlier than he stated in his review. Musk says:

Last summer Apple announced that it was working with car manufacturers on a new "Eyes Free" mode for Siri. The new feature would integrate with voice command buttons that are increasingly being found in new car models.

"Eyes Free" would allow users to interact with Siri without ever touching or looking at the device screen. At the time Apple said it was working with BMW, GM, Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chrysler and Honda on the initiative. Today it looks like Honda is the first to bring the new feature to market.

From Honda's press release:

Delphi, a company most known for its vehicle based electronics has teamed up with Verizon and released a new device that lets you remotely monitor, track and control your car.

The Bluetooth-enabled "Car Connect" device plugs into your car's OBD2 port. Once drivers install the device, they can then connect to it on their smart phone via a custom app.

The app is available on both Android and iOS allows them to monitor their vehicle's fuel levels, engine temperature, and other vital signs. The app will also notify drivers of any error codes that may prompt them to check their engines. An onboard GPS chip will allow real time vehicle tracking if the car is stolen. The app is also able to unlock and lock the car as well as remotely starting the vehicle from afar.

South Korean automaker Hyundai are looking to jump right into the future with some NFC-powered technology for their new vehicles over the coming years. Hyundai's new Connectivity Concept will let drivers control various features in their car through an NFC-powered smartphone.

Allan Rushforth, SVP and COO of Hyundai Motor Europe has said:

If you're someone who likes your privacy, this news won't be good for you. Federal regulators are proposing that all new automobiles sold in the US after September 2014 to come featured with a black box.

These black boxes, or as they're called "event data recorders", record everything a driver does. From the speed the car is going, the number of people in the car, and the location of the car itself at all times. You do have a chance to have your voice heard, where on February 11, the National Transportation Safety Agency will hear your comments on its proposal that will see them pushed into all vehicles.

Congress has donned the agency with the power to set the motor safety rules. The regulators' intentions are for safety - but they can be used for much worse things - such as data collection. During "events", such as a car accident, the black box would record all of the last-minute happenings such as sudden breaking, acceleration, swerving or anything else that might lead up to, or cause an accident.

Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed that auto manufacturers be required to install "black box" data recorders into all new cars and light trucks beginning on September 1, 2014. However, this proposal isn't fully needed as most manufacturers already include these in some form.

The real issue is the protections of this data. If the government is requiring logging of all this data, there needs to be protections put in place, argue some. The information gathered usually only consists of the last 5 to 10 seconds before a crash and includes information such as speed, whether the brake was applied, steering inputs and a variety of other metrics.

The information can be used to help design safer vehicles as well as determine fault in an accident. However, these black boxes don't tell the full story because they don't record what's going on outside, such as weather, animals, or other potentially dangerous events.

Most people have heard about Google's self-driving cars, but they probably dismiss it as a fantasy that anything could ever come to reality. However, the fact is that these cars are being tested on California and Nevada roads and have logged over 300,000 miles without incident, unless you count that one in the parking lot when a human was driving.

Now, Google is looking to make the vehicles even safer and has hired the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration deputy director to help them in this quest. Ron Medford has an impressive resume and has worked in the government for more than 40 years, with his most recent job being deputy director of the NHTSA.

Google really wants to get these cars on the road and they will need to pass stringent safety testing if they are to be allowed. Bringing on Ron Medford is an important step to meet these requirements. Medford is both excited to be joining Google, he's also saddened by leaving the NHTSA, an agency that works to save lives:

Tesla have just received a huge grant from the California Energy Commission to the tune of $10 million, which will help the luxury electric car maker expand manufacturing capacity for their upcoming Model X SUV.

Tesla's terms of the agreement with Commission will match the $10 million grant, with $50 million if their own money and spend the entire lump sum to keep Model X production rates high when it reaches manufacturing in 2014. This plan involves the hiring of 700 more workers with the manufacturing starts.

If there are no problems between now and the production of the Model X SUV, Tesla will be much closer to their goal of producing a truly mainstream electric vehicle. The Model X SUV won't be that goal, but it is definitely getting closer. The new Model X SUV will hopefully fall into the same price range as the Model S, which ranges between $50,000 and $70,000. Tesla's VP of Finance, Mike Taylor, said:

If you were itching to use your phone to make some calls during a flight, you might want to take a look at Dubai-based Emirates, who have just started allowing passengers to use their phones to make calls on its A380 aircraft.

The service is compatible with normal phones in conjunction with OnAir, who is the company that provides Wi-Fi service for the airliner. There is a limitation, through Federal Aviation Administration rules, that the phones can't be used over the United States, where the service will cease working within 250 miles of US soil.

Emirates have been on the forefront of pushing technology in their aircraft for quite sometime, as they equipped their Airbus fleet with phones and fax machines all the way back in the 90s, and in 2006 the airline even offered in-seat e-mail and text messaging to all passengers. The first call with the new in-flight phone service was made on October 2, and was placed to China, said Emirates.

It was only last month that Google's self-driving cars hit 300,000 test miles without an accident, and now we're looking at California getting the self-driving cars hitting their roads. California governor, Jerry Brown, signed a new law that will see the cars hit Californian roads.

The new law signed in will see trials of the self-driving cars on California's roadways, with one condition - there has to be a licensed human in the driver's seat to take over in the case of an emergency. Brown said at the signing ceremony at Google's Mountain View-based HQ - "today we are looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow's reality".

Google did some modifications to a Toyota Prius, which sports video cameras, radar sensors, a laser rangefinder and detailed maps - using all of this data to drive itself. Google's self-driving vehicles also sport a failsafe mechanism that allows the driver to take control by grabbing the steering wheel or pressing the brakes.

Imagine a self-driving car, want to go on that long drive but don't want to sit behind the wheel and concentrate for 8 hours straight? Well, the future is self-driving cars, and search, mobile OS and cloud giant, Google, with their self-driving car project has been a success.

The self-driving car project has hit the milestone of 300,000 test miles without an accident. The cars have been spotted in Mountain View around the Google Plex, on highways, and more. Too bad I live in one of the smallest states of Australia, I'd laugh if I saw one of these on the road, but feel jealous all at the same time. Google have talked about the self-driving project, where they've said:

Qualcomm have found a new partnership with French carmaker Renault, where the two companies will begin field trial of its revolutionary wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology.

If the trial is successful, it could eventually lead to a wider adopton of all-electric vehicles, as well as other potential uses in many different markets. Drawbacks in the way of widespread charging stations have really stopped this type of technology from impacting our day-to-day lives, or making it into vehicles in bigger numbers, but it looks like WEVC could change all of this.

Qualcomm's technology uses a concept involving inductive power transfer from tow coils tuned to create a magnetic field to "move" the power from one location to another. In order for the vehicle to be wirelessly charged, it requires a charging mat that gets embedded in the ground, and a receiver to be installed on the underside of the vehicle.

Australian airline Qantas are set to provide Apple iPads to use as in-flight entertainment, the move follows a successful test run from late-2011. Qantas would put iPads in their entire Qantas 767 fleet starting from Q4 this year, starting on flights based on Australia's east-coast routes.

Qantas have 23 Boeing 767-300 aircraft, meaning the company is looking at providing at least 5,000 iPads, without including units for spare tablets in case of one malfunctioning. The in-flight content is set to be provided by Panasonic's eXW solution dubbed Qstreaming. Qstreaming uses an onboard server to stream over 200 hours of on-demand entertainment to the iPads via strategically placed Wi-Fi access points.

Part of the test run late last year included the suggestion that Qantas would allow customers to use their own iPads with the service, but the company is still assessing whether or not to allow the option. I don't see why they should hold back, just allow them to download the app itself onto their iPad.

Considering Android is mostly on smart devices such as smartphones and tablets, it does get baked into all sorts of different devices. But, this news is somewhat different. The next device to see Android get its OS is in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jets.

Two models are destined to be fitted, the first is Panasonic's eX3, and the Thales TopSeries Avant. Details on the Thales model were unveiled alongside a demonstration at the Farnborough International Airshow just recently.

The TopSeries Avant model will sport 10- and 17-inch versions, but there's no details on the display type, nor the resolution. Performance-wise, we should find a dual-core, ARM-based processor rocking inside, backed up by 1GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. The central server will feature 32 cores in either an Intel Xeon, or AMD Opteron-based processor, 128GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage.