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Anyone who has ever played with Hot Wheel cars knows that there are two staples in the track layout arena: There is the loop, and there is the jump. At the Indy 500 this year, they are scaling the jump up to real life: World-Record Jump Attempt Set for Indianapolis 500 A dedicated crew of [...]
How Formula SAE Racing Works – Students build and race 100+ MPH cars
by Marshall Brain | February 24, 2011
Imagine that you are a mechanical engineering student in college. Being a MechE, you would probably want to get your hands dirty making something mechanical. And what better thing to make than a car? Cars are the most complicated mechanical objects that people come into contact with on a daily basis. To ratchet it up [...]
Why are there dots around the edges of some car windshields?
by Marshall Brain | February 18, 2011
You Asked:
Why are there dots around the edges of some car windshields? — Jim, Annandale, Va.
Marshall Brain Answers…
Invention – an app that lets you write a ticket like a cop would
by Marshall Brain | December 20, 2010
You can now give anyone on the highway a “ticket”, just like a police officer would. And anyone can give you a ticket too. This is either one of the greatest ideas in the world because it will create much safer roadways, or one of the worst because it will be the end of privacy [...]
In many cases, when the words “cool” and “car” get used together, it usually means a supercar like this… Jet Set Go: Jaguar’s amazing C-X75 Or this… Mercedes-Benz BIOME Concept – could cars be grown in a lab? But today’s car isn’t like that. This car has a cloth body, plastic zip up windows, and [...]
Good news about the Chevy Volt – 127 MPG in the real world
by Marshall Brain | October 18, 2010
Motor Trend took the Chevy Volt out into the real world, and over the course of 300 miles got 127 MPG. With the Air Conditioner on: 127 MPG: This Volt Story Must Be Told Here’s why I’m so geeked on the Chevy Volt and why you should be, too. In normal, everyday driving we got [...]
Who wouldn’t like to have a car that drives itself? The idea of being able to sleep, or use your laptop, during the commute to work is certainly appealing. The idea of having your car drop you off at the door of a store and then go park itself is also attractive. And then there’s [...]
Three “100 MPG” cars win the $10 million Automotive X-Prize – See all three here
by Marshall Brain | September 16, 2010
The Automotive X-Prize has been underway for several years, starting with hundreds of contestants, trying to find real-world cars that get 100 MPG or better. The contest finally has arrived at three winners to share the $10 million…
There are so many things revealed in this video…
- The fact that car production, once dominated by the U.S. and Japan, is now dominated by China both in terms of production and consumption
- The massive number and size of China’s cities
- The incredible change that is coming in the way China thinks about and makes cars
It is fascinating and eye opening…
The Automotive X Prize has a simple goal: Find production-capable cars that get 100 MPG or more. Production-capable means these cars are real – they are designed to be safe, reliable and manufacturable, and they don’t run on fairy dust.
Looking at the nine finalists, you can see that this is not such an easy challenge – most of the finalist cars look pretty “weird” by normal-car standards. But then, maybe one day these X Prize cars will all start to look normal if they are successful. Most of the cars are electric cars – unusual by today’s standards where almost all cars on the road are gas-powered.
You can see how “weird” some of the cars look, and also see how they are being tested for safety by Consumer Reports, in this video…
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