. . . just links from HayYoo.com and DanKostecki.com
A Ford van zooming around the Washington D.C. area last month, seemingly without a human in the driver’s seat, wasn’t self-driving after all: it was a man in a ‘seat suit.’ A fake driverless car might seem like a weird experiment, especially considering the fact that there’s an entire fake town for testing self-driving vehicles at Ford’s disposal. But as it turns out, they have their reasons: observing how people react to seeing it.
The report shows that whites, blacks, grays and silvers made up 74 percent of the cars put on the road last year, and silver has gradually falling out of favor among car buyers since the year 2000. Greens and blues, which held the top spots in the 1950s and 60s, aren’t even among the top-five color preferences in 2014. Brown, which had a good run in the 1970s, is now also absent from the top-five list.
German automaker Volkswagen is apparently also in the sausage and condiment business. While Jettas and GTIs continue to roll down the assembly line at their main plant in Wolfsburg, Germany — the makers of the “people’s car” are also producing and packaging their very own currywurst and ketchup.
Is the car wash a thing of the past? Nissan is testing a self-cleaning nanotech paint that repels dirt. Nissan describes it as a superhydrophobic and oleophobic paint, meaning it repels water and oils. A Nissan Note subcompact is being tested in Europe with half the car treated and the other half with just its normal paint. Photos and a Nissan video show the treated half is markedly cleaner. Nissan says it’s the first automaker to use the technology, called Ultra-Ever Dry, on car bodywork, creating a protective barrier between the car paint and the outside world. It stops most water and grime from sticking and creating marks on the car.
The engine is code-named the DIG-T R and in addition to its 400-horsepower peak power rating it also develops a maximum 280 pound-feet of torque–numbers that make it almost comparable with some V-8 engines still on the market. At a ratio of 4.5 horsepower per pound, the new engine even has a better power-to-weight ratio than the new turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 engines to be used in Formula One this season. The engine is a turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder putting out an incredible 400 horsepower, but what’s more impressive is that the engine weighs just 88 pounds, which means a human is quite capable of carrying it (turbocharger and all), as NISMO chief Shoichi Miyatani demonstrates above.
Peel, of the UK, hand builds reproduction models of their classic 1960’s P50. They claim that it is street legal in the US and UK. The specs are underwhelming – 1 passenger, 3 wheels, 130 pounds total weight, 30mph top speed, fiberglass body, unspecified engine. And the really bad news is a reported price of $16,000. I think it’s cute, but way, way too small, and $16,000???
ExtremeTech reported –
DUMMR.com 