Young people are also making more use of transit, bikes, and foot power to get around.
“Unfortunately for car companies, today’s teens and twenty-somethings don’t seem all that interested in buying a set of wheels. They’re not even particularly keen on driving, ” Jordan Weissmann noted at TheAtlantic.com a couple weeks back.
Continue reading… “Why younger generations in America are driving much less”
Gas prices are a supreme motivator.
Drivers tend to convert to the fuel-efficiency religion once they get severely wounded in the wallet. It’s a sad fact that environmental concerns alone are often not enough… Of course, the best ways to save on gas costs are to walk, bike, and take transit (for an example of a city that has great sustainable transportation, check out Colombia’s Medellin). But if you’re going to drive, you should get the most fuel-efficient vehicle that meets your needs. Near the top of the list, the Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius can be found, and thanks to relatively high gas prices in the U.S. lately, they’ve both set new sales records in March 2012.
Continue reading… “Prius and Volt Set New Sales Records Thanks to High Gas Prices”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fV7BGl9M4[/youtube]
Terrafugia, makers of Transition — the world’s first flying car — has released video of a production-type prototype flying over Plattsburgh, N.Y. today. (Video)
Continue reading… “World’s first flying car goes for test flight”
You might already be familiar with Google’s self-driving car project. They have spent years working on a tough engineering problem—how to create a hardware and software system capable of gathering and interpreting massive amounts of real-time data and acting on that knowledge swiftly and surely enough to navigate innumerable varieties of crowded thoroughfares without ever once (among other human frailties) exploding in a fit of road rage at the guy who just cut hard left across your lane without even bothering to flash his blinker.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EgVHdTuE10[/youtube]
ET3, a licensing organization, holds a patent to Evacuated Tube Technology or ETT and say that with their tubes, you will eventually be able to get you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours and from New York to London in less than an hour.
Continue reading… “Evacuated Tube Technology – rewriting the rules of high speed travel”
Denver Zoo’s poop-powered tuk-tuk.
One thing a zoo has plenty of is poop. And the Denver Zoo is no exception. They decided the best way to deal with it was to convert a little three-wheeled truck to use zoo poop as fuel. (Video)
Continue reading… “The Denver Zoo’s truck powered by poop”
Tacocopter
Could Tacocopter be the next great startup out of Silicon Valley? The Internet is certainly going wild for it. Tacocopter boasts a business plan that combines four of the most prominent touchstones of modern America: tacos, helicopters, robots and laziness.
Continue reading… “Could Tacocopter be the future of unmanned food delivery?”
Natural gas home refueling appliance.
The only automaker currently selling natural gas-powered passenger car s in the U.S. is Honda. The Japanese automaker wants to double sales of its Honda Civic Natural Gas sedan and to do so it wants some of its dealers to install compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling stations.
Continue reading… “Honda wants dealers to install CNG refueling stations”
An interesting project called “Starlight” seems to have made use of thin film solar cell technology and advancements in lightweight materials technologies to create a perfect low cost solution for high altitude services, which engineers have been trying to achieve for long time.
Continue reading… “Starlight – solar electric hybrid airship”
Using optical camouflage, experts at Mercedez have figured out how to make an entire car disappear.
Technology experts at Mercedes Benz have figured out how to make an entire car disappear. using optical camouflage. (Video)
Continue reading… “Mercedes-Benz creates ‘invisible car’ using LED’s and a camera”
Driverless car
The first thing you have to do is accept the idea that we will one day all be in driverless cars. But the people who think about such things for a living are seriously convinced this will happen. (Video)
Continue reading… “What will intersections look like in a world of driverless cars?”
Google’s self-driving car
Google wants to hire engineers to design and test the self-driving cars it’s been working on. Check out some of the new job listings Google has posted in the last couple weeks:
Continue reading… “Google wants to hire engineers to test its self-driving cars”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.