It doesn\'t seem too long ago that the electrical system in a vehicle was mostly concerned with lights, starter motors, radios and windshield wipers. Those days are long gone. The automotive industry is currently realizing a dramatic increase of electronic equipment for onboard vehicle control. In modern cars, a variety of electronic control units (ECU) delivers sophisticated real-time control...
According to several reputable studies, up to thirty percent of a typical gasoline car engine\'s output is lost during braking in everyday city driving situations. Believe it or not, this simple principle is one of the primary reasons gas mileage on the highway is so much higher: less braking.
Most cars\' braking systems depend on friction, applied on metal drums or disks, to stop the...
Envelope-pushing automotive engineers and suppliers continue to help vehicle manufacturers make vehicles safer by providing a complete portfolio of active and passive safety products that are being continually improved through engineering design innovation.
It\'s been two decades since automotive engineers tackled the challenge of converting very expensive, low-volume, military aerospace...
As experienced drivers and vehicle owners can readily attest, today\'s vehicles are safer than ever before. Thanks to passive safety improvements like driver and passenger air bags, steel reinforced side beams, innovative seat restraints and frames that include engineered crumple zones, impressive reductions in vehicle accident fatalities have been witnessed.
According to statistics...
It started out simple enough. Historians may argue the chronology, but \"Active Safety\" likely began with the \"horn,\" an effective way to alert the guy ahead of you that you might run into him if he doesn\'t move. Then someone came up with the idea of something called a \"turn signal\" to let other drivers know which way you were thinking of going. That led to another great idea, \"brake...
Technology gurus are hiding in a variety of places these days. Say, for instance, the automotive industry.
The automotive industry has produced some of the most advanced and user-friendly technologies publicly marketed in recent years. We can now not only operate our cars without keys, but we can also map our next trip, download information from our desktops onto a \"carputer,\" assess the...
It\'s Saturday, which means you have chores to do. You jump in your minivan and turn the ignition. Without being told, your favorite song is cued, your seat is automatically heated to your preferred temperature, and you are reminded of about how many miles you can drive until you need gas. \"Oh,\" you think, \"I\'ll get gas first.\" With the touch of a button, your navigation system shows your...
\"Human-Inter-what?\" clipped Simon, peeking over his morning paper with a loud crinkle. A favorite farmer of seventy-eight years at my local coffee shop, Simon never failed to give me the truth precisely as he saw it. I had asked him what he thought of Human Machine Interface Technology. \"Sounds like science fiction to me. Don\'t we already interact - interface, whatever - with machines?...
A driver is desperately trying to make a business appointment and fiddles with the phone to call ahead that she is running late. Another flips through a portfolio of CDs trying to find just the right music selection. Both overestimate their abilities and swerve momentarily into the next lane.
In today\'s busy world, people often find themselves multi-tasking; and unfortunately, drivers are...
When you pull your car or truck into a gas station these days, \"going green\" takes on several meanings, depending on your point of view. For one thing, as the cost of gasoline continues to inch higher, the larger amounts of green stuff leaving your wallet has an immediate impact. But that\'s not the \"green\" impression that environmentalists, marketers and manufacturers are focused on....
