Transportation
From autonomous EVs to electric planes, from hydrogen trains to biofuel transportation, check out the most recent developments on how we’re moving transportation towards a more sustainable future in the good news section below.
Laser breakthrough could speed the rise of self-driving cars
LIDAR is a portmanteau of “light” and “radar.” In essence, these sensors monitor their surroundings by shining a light on an object and measuring the time needed for it to bounce back. They work well enough, but they aren’t without their drawbacks. Today’s Read More...
Bhutan aims to make electric cars main mode of transportation
Ahead of the U.N climate meeting set in Paris later this year, negotiators are looking at Bhutan, one of the world's poorest countries, for inspiration. The tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas is implementing plans to make electric cars the main mode of transportation in order to protect the Read More...
By 2018, Dutch rail will be fully powered by wind
The Netherlands, a nation that’s been keen on harnessing the power of the wind since pretty much forever, has announced that in an effort to slash transport-related carbon emissions, its entire electric train network — all 1,800 miles of it — will run on energy produced at European wind Read More...
Google's self-driving cars in Austin have removed humans entirely
Our first glimpse of Google’s driverless cars came in 2012. Since then, Google has confined most of its test-drives of these vehicles to the roads outside its headquarters in Mountain View, California, and recently expanded tests to Austin, Texas (reports of other self-driving car tests by Read More...
Wireless charging for electric BMWs by 2017?
Are BMW’s electric vehicle (EV) offerings going to be set up for wireless charging in only the next few years? An interesting question — it certainly does seem that the technology is developing at a fairly rapid rate, so maybe widespread use is something that we can expect soon. What Read More...
Tesla's newest car is so good it broke Consumer Reports' rating system
The jury is out. And here's what Consumer Report, a leading source for product reviews in the US, wrote about the Tesla model S P85D: "The Tesla initially scored 103 in the Consumer Reports' Ratings system, which by definition doesn’t go past 100. The car set a new benchmark, so we had to make Read More...
Autonomous cars keep getting smarter all the time
We're all wired differently. We are erratic, impulsive and unpredictable, especially while driving. For that reason, engineers in Berkeley, California, are preparing autonomous cars to predict our driving behavior. They had volunteers drive in a simulator so they could collect data to better Read More...
2016 Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car runs on...leftover lemonade? Huh?
As part of its promotional efforts for the 2016 Toyota Mirai fuel-cell car, the company has been working to demonstrate the myriad ways it says hydrogen can be extracted from the environment in a sustainable way. RELATED: Second Toyota Mirai Video: Hydrogen Is Like First Oil Well The latest video Read More...
The best used car bargains now are EVs and hybrids
Used vehicle sales are soaring these days, and so are their prices. Though it tends to counter the conventional wisdom that only highly valued collectible cars ever increase in value, Edmunds.com reports that used car prices jumped by 7.6 percent in the second quarter of 2015 to reach a record Read More...
Uber will partner with University of Arizona for self-driving car research
Uber is setting up a new self-driving car project at the University of Arizona, according to an email sent out today to university employees. The new project will focus on self-driving car technology, particularly the mapping and optics challenges involved in developing a fully autonomous vehicle. Read More...