MIT Robot Rides Shotgun to Make Us Happier Drivers   17 Nov 2009 15:21 GMT
Audi and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology envision a future where robots riding shotgun makes us happier, safer drivers and create a “symbiotic relationship” between car and driver. The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent would analyze our driving habits, keeping track of frequent routes and destinations to provide real-time traffic info and make friendly suggestions along the [...]
Source: wired.com

Audi Enters Design Challenge With Help From Facebook Friends   17 Nov 2009 11:30 GMT
Audi used today’s social media to appeal to tomorrow’s youth in the 2009 Los Angeles Design Challenge. This year’s challenge, “YouthMobile 2030,” asked design studios on Southern California for entries that will appeal to a generation too young to remember sitcoms with laugh tracks. Audi responded with two entries designed with input from Audi’s 400,000 [...]
Source: wired.com

A Roadmap to Vehicle Electrification   16 Nov 2009 22:29 GMT
The first mass-market electric vehicles are expected in showrooms next year, and a coalition of business leaders has laid out a sweeping plan for the adoption of EVs and the infrastructure to support them. The Electrification Roadmap makes the usual arguments for electric cars (reduced emissions, less dependence on foreign oil), lays out the challenges to [...]
Source: wired.com

Chevrolet Volt Looks Good in ‘Viridian Joule’   16 Nov 2009 20:50 GMT
General Motors received more than 13,000 suggestions when it invited the public to come up with a cool name for the Chevrolet Volt’s signature color, and after sifting through all the mail has named three finalists: environMINT, EV-ergreen and Viridian Joule. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Renaissance Center some PR people are ecstatic. If [...]
Source: wired.com

Something’s Fishy With That Waterlogged Veyron   16 Nov 2009 20:18 GMT
The only thing that chafes our hides more than someone wrecking a $2 million Bugatti Veyron is the thought someone did it on purpose. We can’t say for sure, but it looks like that deep-sixed Veyron that everyone winced at last week might have been a publicity stunt. There is too much coincidence surrounding the submarined [...]
Source: wired.com

Video of Solar Impulse Airplane Testing   16 Nov 2009 20:12 GMT
The Solar Impulse team continues preparations for a first flight in Switzerland with another engine test last week. The HB-SIA aircraft was taken out of the hangar for the second time to test systems and the four electric motors. During the ground test, nearby resident Thomas Netter stopped by the Dübendorf airport and put together a [...]
Source: wired.com

Why Portland’s Mass Transit Rocks   16 Nov 2009 15:00 GMT
Portland, Oregon is routinely ranked among the best transit cities in the county. The accolades certainly are deserved. Commuters are swept quickly and comfortably from almost anywhere to almost anywhere on a system that is reliable, convenient and bicycle friendly. It should be a model for other cities. There’s no end to the things that [...]
Source: wired.com

Autonomous Cars Will Make Us Safer   16 Nov 2009 13:00 GMT
Automakers have since 1939 been promising us autonomous cars that would take driving our of our hands and make traffic accidents a thing of the past. Seventy years later, we’re still waiting. General Motors first offered this tantalizing glimpse of the future at the 1939 World’s Fair, where its Futurama exhibit boldly predicted we’d be zipping [...]
Source: wired.com

Aptera Founders Ousted in Boardroom Showdown   16 Nov 2009 04:11 GMT
Aptera Motors has ousted founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony, sources told Wired, painting a picture of a boardroom confrontation between the original founders and the auto industry veterans the company brought in last fall. Rumors that Aptera Motors was letting them go and laying off an unknown number of people began swirling last week on [...]
Source: wired.com

Netherlands To Tax Drivers By the Kilometer   14 Nov 2009 17:37 GMT
The Dutch government wants to abolish ownership and sales taxes on automobiles and instead levy a fee on every kilometer driven. The Transport Ministry says the move will cut congestion in half and curb carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. Motorists driving a typical sedan would pay 3 Euro cents per kilometer, or about 7 U.S. [...]
Source: wired.com