Tag: Cars

I am a big fan of Star Wars and a big fan of cars. My son collected Hot Wheels cars growing up and probably had 1,000 of them at one time. He was like a Hot Wheels Rain Man, he always knew when one was missing from his giant pile, and we had to search the house to find it.

If you aren’t a car geek, you may not know what a hypercar is. Hypercars are a step above your typical exotic supercars, often with powerful hybrid drivetrains that push them into the 800+ horsepower range.

We have known for a while now that GM would be launching a 4G LTE hotspot service inside some of its vehicles. The first car to get the service will be the 2015 Malibu. After the service rollout in that Malibu, it will come to a number of other cars under the GM umbrella with four Buick models, 15 Chevrolets, seven Cadillac models, and six GMC vehicles.

There is a huge difference between most automatic transmissions that have a torque converter and paddle shifters and the dual-clutch automatics with paddle shifters featured on many European sports cars. A paddle shift automatic in a Ford product, like the Taurus SHO, needs about 1000 RPM to shift a gear making for a very annoying driving experience.

Volvo is a car company that has built its reputation around on safety for the most part. The company is talking a bit about its new in-car experience and that experience revolves around a big touchscreen.

The new PS3 racing game Gran Turismo 6 lets players drive concept cars made expressly by automotive companies and other brands for the game. Honda is one of those companies, but it’s also using a newer form of technology to reach out to its fans.

I’ve owned a few cars over the years that had shiny bits in the interior that would glare right in my eyes at certain times of the day. It was very irritating. Ford wants to eliminate that problem and has a slick rig that it uses to simulate the outdoors for use in testing its vehicle interiors.

While I’m not all that crazy about the idea of fully-autonomous vehicles, I do think that some of the technology which is emerging from related research and development efforts could definitely help with vehicle safety. Take for example, this new obstacle avoidance system that Ford is working on.

Its impressive to hold a Coca-Cola bottle in your hand and think that about 30% of the bottle is actually made from renewable plant material. Coca-Cola and other soft drink companies have long been using a durable lightweight called PET.

I find that receiving too much information while I’m driving can be a major distraction, but I guess that Nissan thinks that Japanese drivers can handle it. They’ve just unveiled their own augmented reality glasses which appear to compete directly with Google Glass.

If you’re a fan of cars, racing, or stupid vehicular stunts you’ve probably seen Ken Block and his Gymkhana series of videos. Gymkhana Five saw Block tearing through the streets of San Francisco and the sixth installment in the YouTube video franchise is now available for our enjoyment.

So many people end up in car accidents every year. One of the common reasons was because the driver wasn’t paying enough attention. Some apparently can’t let go of their smartphones when they’re on the road, while others are too busy tinkering with their radios, or putting on makeup.

Earlier this month we saw a car with a joystick shift lever. It looks cool, but it doesn’t have any additional function. Ford engineer Zachary Nelson made a more high-tech shift lever mod that’s geared towards newbie drivers.

Modern automobiles benefit from increasingly small and smart computers, which can help control or augment everything from a car’s dashboard display to fundamental functions like steering. But as the world is slowly realizing, if something runs software, that thing can be hacked.

Geek Greek was “looking for a fun mod” for his car. He turned to his love for flight simulators and ditched his car’s boring gear stick and replaced it with an old PC joystick. Now all that’s left is to turn his car into an airplane.

A couple of years ago we saw a pretty sweet Scion xB that was modded as an homage to 8-bit gaming. It would’ve been more awesome if it had this engine. It’s a Honda Civic B series engine made to look like a NES controller, complete with the Konami Code at the bottom.