Stories tagged cars
1908 Model T Ford
Courtesy Rmhermen It was 100 years ago--on October 1, 1908, to be exact--that Ford Motor built the very first of the iconic gasoline-powered automobiles to be sold. Ford developed a design and a method of manufacture that steadily reduced the cost of the Model T.
Source cnet news.
Tags : Car Magazine online has photos and info about an electric Mini Cooper.
Mini will produce 500 electric Minis as part of its radical ‘Project i’ programme initiated to rethink low-emissions urban mobility (see the forthcoming November 2008 issue of CAR Magazine for full details on this innovative project, out on Wednesday 24 September 2008).
Watch out for cars with bumper stickers. A social psychologist in Colorado has found that the more bumper stickers a car has, the more aggressive the driver will be, and the more likely to succumb to road rage.
All I’m sayin’ is “Forget about world peace – visualize using your turn signal.”
March 29 - April 4 are Nano Days at The Science Museum and other museums areound the country. To celebrate, here's a selection of recent nanotechnology stories in the news:
Japanese doctors are trying to build nano-scale robots to build custom-designed medicines,one molecule at a time.
Pharmaceutical companies are using nanotechnology to deliver more effective anti-cancer drugs.
Researchers at MIT are trying to develop an electric car with a battery using nanowires.
Engineers in California are looking for ways to use nanomaterials to store hydrogen, which may someday power pollution-free cars.
Scientists are using nanotechnology to develop more efficient solar panels.
Are you in the market for a new car? A Swiss company this week announced that it has a $1.5 million concept car -- sQuba -- that can drive on road and under water, just like James Bond's slick ride from "The Spy Who Loved Me." Life preservers are not included.
I have always wondered if Hybrids are really better for the environment. I know they save us in gas fumes from the battery pack that is in the vehicle. This saves the over all pollution in the air. The general concept is that the vehicle uses less gas by using the battery pack as energy to run the motor.
For people that don’t know what a Hybrid vehicle is - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Hybrid electric vehicle, increasingly common automobiles which employ both a traditional internal combustion engine and an electric motor/generators for provide motive force.
I currently work for a fleet leasing company and have seen a lot of new orders come in for the Hybrids. Every ordering cycle there are new hybrids being offered by the manufacturers. There are a lot of our customers that have started adapting a hybrid only policy. They will only allow their employees to order a Hybrid vehicle for gas savings and to provide cleaner air to the environment.
I just have always wondered what happens to the vehicle when it is time to be retired and sent to the junk yard. Will the battery packs be removed and if so can they be recycled? For instance in the Ford Escape Hybrids the battery pack is in the back of the vehicle, which is considered the trunk and close to the gas tank. This has always been a mystery to me. We might not have an answer for this yet as I haven’t seen many hybrid vehicles being taken to the junkyard yet.
I wonder if it might be a revloution in the future that car dealers pushed the hybrids on consumers and in the end the effects of the battery pack are worse for the environment then just driving a vehicle that used only gasoline. If anyone can answer this quesiton for me I would greatly appreciate it.
We couldn’t get the rights to a photo of a nano-ultra-capacitor, so here’s a picture of some cute baby ducks.: Photo by Mattay from Flickr.com
Many devices need to use stored energy. The most common storage devices are batteries and capacitors.
Batteries produce energy through chemical reactions in their mass, and release it at a slow and steady rate. Batteries can store a lot of energy, but they’re difficult to recharge.
Capacitors store energy on their surface, release it all in a burst, and then can be easily recharged. Many devices use capacitors – cellphones, computer memory, even some trucks and buses. But the amount of energy capacitors can store is limited – only one-millionth the power in a battery of the same size.
But perhaps not for long. A team of researchers at MIT is using nanotechnology to improve the storage capacity of capacitors. Working with materials just a few atoms thick, they can build very complicated shapes with lots of surface area to hold electrical charge. Test show these devices can hold up to 50% of the energy a battery holds, and yet still maintain the advantages of quick release and easy recharge. The researchers predict this next generation of capacitors could someday help power electric cars or store energy from renewable sources.
It's basically just a jet-driven funny car, designed to look like a portable toilet. I don't care. I want one. (From Popular Science.)
Popular Science magazine has a photo essay on car designs from the past, and compares them to “new” designs now being promoted for the future.
Oops!: New technologies being developed for vehicles may help prevent situations like this from happening to us on the road in the future.If you’re like me, you’ve had your fair share of car crashes. They’re never fun, no matter how minor the outcome.
However, science is coming to the rescue to help us be better drivers. I ran into some interesting stuff in Consumer Reports about new technologies that are being developed to reduce traffic collisions. In quick snapshots, they include:
• ESC (Electronic Stability Control) braking – which will selectively apply brakes on strategic wheels of a vehicle when sensors determine a car is going out of control. The government has required all new vehicles to have this system by 2012.
• Blind-spot detection – Right now Audi and Volvo are experimenting with ways use cameras or radar on the outside mirrors of cars that would connect to a warning light on the dashboard to tell you there’s a vehicle in your blind spot.
• Night vision – Infrared technology would give drivers the ability to see things at night that are outside the range of their headlights, particularly things like people and animals. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus are working with this technology.
• Lane-departure warning – Small cameras watching the stripes on highways will alert drivers if they start to veer out of their lane. So far, experiments show this technology works on major highways, but not so well on minor roads that don’t have as much highway paint. Infiniti has been developing this technology.
• Adaptive cruise control – This new style of cruise control would keep not just a standard speed for a car but a minimum distance it follows behind another vehicle. It will use radar to sense vehicles ahead and then speed up or slow down as traffic conditions allow.
• Pre-collision systems – Taking the adaptive cruise control one step further, collision sensing equipment will sound alarms and display warnings lights when it senses a vehicle is too close. It will also respond by fully charging brakes for a sudden stop, close windows, ready air bag and adjust seat positions in anticipation of a possible crash.
Of course, these features are still in the works and will probably not be available in any vehicles soon. What other traffic crash things would you like to see on your car of the future? Share them here with other Science Buzz readers.
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