Car Tech

Last year French automaker PSA Peugeot-Citroen launched a whole new take on the hybrid system: Hybrid Air. While previous air-powered cars have had little more substance than the air that drives them along, the French carmaker's system is set to appear in actual Peugeot production cars over the...

Three large global companies--Bosch, GS Yuasa, and Mitsubishi--have announced a joint venture to improve development of the next generation of batteries for electric vehicles. The group's aim is to double energy capacity, helping electric cars become truly mass-market in the next decade. Today...

The latest film in Honda's Environmental Short Film series focuses on the company's response to 1970s California air pollution.

Making a large, heavy vehicle like a pickup truck economical isn't the easiest of tasks. You can drop in a more efficient engine, of course. But it'll struggle against poor aerodynamics and ample weight. Ford has done both the first and the third of these, the latter handled by a new aluminum...

In the world of green cars, Nissan is best known for its Leaf electric car--which is the world's best-selling electric vehicle ever, with more than 100,000 delivered. But like any global automaker, Nissan is pursuing a variety of powertrain and other technologies to boost the efficiency of all its...

Humans and batteries--and indeed most other things in the natural world, operate on largely similar principals. Energy is generated somehow, stored, and expended for work. It's only the details that separate these processes, but the gap might shrink with the advent of biobatteries. As ExtremeTech...

Rossi Honda of Vineland, New Jersey is the first dealer to go electric-grid neutral.

Minicars are the worst-scoring group in the small-overlap frontal crash test, the IIHS says.

Regenerative braking is a standard and expected part of any electrified car now, from Honda's mild hybrids up through battery-electric vehicles like the Tesla Model S. It lets the car recapture energy from momentum, which would otherwise be wasted as brake heat, by running the electric motor in...

General Motors' Voltec drivetrain, the range-extended plug-in setup used on the Chevrolet Volt and the new 2014 Cadillac ELR, is among the most advanced drivetrains on the roads. That's not to say there isn't room for greater improvement though, and that's exactly what GM is doing. In fact, as...

BMW's plug-in hybrid i8 sports car is set to be one of the most exciting cars of 2014, but it'll also be one of the most technologically advanced. As well as the use of a new 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged engine, its part-electric drivetrain and unique styling, it'll also be the world's...

The race to find battery technologies of the future is not one without casualties. The trail left behind Envia, one of the most promising battery startups in recent years, has left something more akin to a warzone--and even huge companies like General Motors have taken shrapnel during their...

A car's mass affects virtually every aspect of its performance, handling and efficiency, and reducing it has become an all-encompassing pursuit for carmakers aiming to meet tough new fuel economy targets. High-strength steels, aluminum and even carbon fiber are now widely used, but the industry is...

Cruise control is an American driving staple. We use it on long road trips to reduce fatigue. And with the advent of adaptive cruise control systems, we're even using it on parts of our commutes, and during traffic-jammed holiday weekend slogs. For the most part, cruise control can save a lot of...

You might think that a list of the best engines on sale would be dominated by screaming sports car engines or a muscular V-8 from the latest muscle car. And while it's true that both feature on the Wards Automotive list of its 2014 Ten Best Engines, as well as several other high-performance units...

Stop-start systems have taken much longer to infiltrate the U.S. market than they have elsewhere, but several manufacturers are finally coming around to the idea of the gas-saving technology. One such automaker is Ford, which has announced that 70 percent of its North American vehicle lineup will...

It wasn't so long ago that all-wheel drive was restricted to Jeeps, trucks, and the occasional esoteric supercar. Now, according to data from Polk cited in The Detroit News, it's fitted to almost one third of the vehicles sold in the United States. MORE: 2014 Jeep Cherokee: All The Details From NY...

Researchers and development firms regularly reveal battery-technology breakthroughs. Now, Envia Systems--one company that gained much public attention by promising such a breakthrough--faces two lawsuits. One claims that Envia stole its technology from other companies. And General Motors, which...

The month wouldn't be complete without another battery technology breakthrough, and this time it's the turn of lithium-sulfur technology. Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are experimenting with a lithium-sulfur battery design with twice the...

Nissan has put a lot of investment into the battery and all-electric powertrain technology in its all-electric Leaf. Yet outside of that, the Leaf is a pretty ordinary small car in materials and layout. Meanwhile, the somewhat more expensive BMW i3 takes a radically different approach to materials...