Category: Driving

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From Autoblog: Motorsports: This is why LeMons is the best race series

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This weekend, Audi marked the competition debut of its latest R18 race cars at the second round of the World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps. Yet the most spectacular race car running on any track this weekend was thousands of miles away at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the 24 Hours of Lemons “Loudon Annoying” event taking place at the very same time.

Yes, that’s a pop-up camper trailer that’s been converted into a race car by SpeedyCop. And there’s video of it after the jump. Now, before you click, see if you can guess what the car underneath is. (Hint, there’s another photo in the gallery that makes it very clear.) That answer is also posted after the break, and it makes the whole rig even more fantastic.

Thanks to our friend (and Consumer Reports hotshoe) Jake Fisher for the on-site photos!

 

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From Wired Top Stories: Hydrogen Powered Hyundai Crosses Europe Using Existing Fuel Stations

A team of European drivers have crossed the continent in a pair of hydrogen-powered cars using only Europe’s existing hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

The Oslo to Monte Carlo trip hit the record books as the longest a hydrogen-fueled vehicle has ever travelled using only fuel from permanent hydrogen filling stations. Other cars have circumnavigated the globe and …

from Wired Top Stories

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From Autoblog: Study: Average cost of car ownership rises to $8,946 per year

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old cash register

We Americans sure do love the freedom of owning our own automobile, but the price of that freedom is climbing. AAA has released its 62nd annual “Your Driving Costs” study, which shows a 1.9-percent year-over-year increase in the cost of auto ownership. That’s an average of $8,946 per year per car, with costs including monthly payment, fuel, maintenance and insurance.

Given the sharp rise in the cost of a gallon of petrol, it’s no surprise that prices at the pump are up 14.8 percent, or an average of 14.2 cents per mile. Tire prices are up 4.2 percent, in part because material prices have skyrocketed. The average insurance policy jumped by $33 versus 2010 numbers, with an average rate of $1,001 per year.

Interestingly, used cars are worth more than they were a year ago, with a depreciation drop of 4.9 percent, which means a new car purchase may hold its value a little better than before.

If $8,946 is too rich for your blood, AAA shows that the best bet could be a smaller sedan. Compact models average $6,735 per vehicle, while 4WD SUVs top the charts at $11,360. Large sedans are close to the SUV numbers, with an average of $11,324. AAA based its findings on a driving cycle of 15,000 miles per year. Scroll down belowto read the AAA press release.

 

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From Autoblog: Professor beats traffic ticket with physics paper

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We’ve never been falsely accused of a traffic violation, having earned every last second of our time before a judge, but when it does happen to us, we’ll certainly want to brush up on our physics. Dmitiri Krioukov, a physicist with the University of California, recently pleaded his way out of a fine for rolling through a stop sign using the power of mathematics. Krioukov worked up a four-page physics paper underscoring the differences between linear and angular motion to prove that he could have theoretically come to a complete stop and resumed traveling in the time it took another vehicle to pass between him and the citing officer.

The idea is that perception of speed can be altered depending on one’s viewpoint. Since the officer viewed Krioukov from the side and the physicist supposedly came to a complete stop very quickly before accelerating again just as fast, it appeared as if he never stopped at all. Or at least that was the notion. Whether or not the judge believed the professor didn’t matter so much as the fact that Krioukov managed to shed some doubt on the accusation. He was declared innocent and spared the $400 fine.

But the story doesn’t end there. The physicist left a flaw in his proof, and has invited everyone to see if they can figure it out. From our layman’s point of view, it appears Krioukov’s Toyota Yaris managed to fall from 22 mph to 0 and vault back up to 22 in the span of three seconds. Must be quite the machine. You can check out the full paper here.

 

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Students Invent a Pothole Repair Patch Made from a Non-Newtonian Fluid

Pothole Repairs Pothole repair usually involves pouring hot asphalt into holes as a temporary patch. Alan Stanton via Flickr

Sometime soon, when you spot a pothole in the street, you won’t have to swerve around it and curse when your wheel dips in. Instead, you would deliberately drive over it, so the pressure of your car tires will stiffen the little plastic baggie the city dropped in there as a temporary fix. A little non-Newtonian fluid pothole filler could spare your wheel alignment after a harsh winter, saving municipal money and traveler troubles.

Non-Newtonian fluids are those that ooze in some conditions and stiffen in others as they respond to forces applied to them. Newtonian fluids, by contrast, act like fluids no matter what’s done to them. The classic mixture of cornstarch and water is one example of a non-Newtonian fluid. A group of students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland decided to use these mixtures as pothole fillers, as part of a contest by the French materials company Saint-Gobain, according to ScienceNow.

Here’s how it could work: Instead of driving around with a mixture of hot asphalt, road-repair crews or even police cars would carry plastic bags full of a water-powder mix. The students plan to patent their idea, so they haven’t divulged their recipe, but they say it’s biodegradable and even edible. When a city worker comes upon a pothole, he or she would drop a baggie into the hole, and then cover it up with black tape so a driver wouldn’t mistake it for an obstacle. When a car drives over it, the fluid behaves like a solid – voila, a filled pothole.

This is because it’s a shear-thickening fluid, as ScienceNow explains. Where shear-thinning fluids will squirt and flow when a force is applied, shear-thickening fluids will stiffen up, behaving more like a solid. Like this.

The students have already road-tested their plastic bag trick and say it holds up well, even after a week of continuous use. They are meant to be sturdy enough to last weeks at a time, even in wet and salty-road conditions, until pockmarked roads can be properly filled and smoothed over, the team said. The city of East Cleveland plans to help with further testing, ScienceNow said.

[ScienceNow]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

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From Autoblog: Report: NTSB still pushing to ban hands-free phones in cars

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Today’s automobiles are more connected than ever, and the National Transportation Safety Board doesn’t seem to approve. The Detroit News reports that NTSB Chair Deborah Hersman is standing behind a recommendation to ban drivers from making hands-free phone calls that aren’t of the emergency variety.

Hersman is battling automakers head-on when it comes to distracting technologies, and there are plenty of those technologies in today’s vehicles. That includes hands-free calling made via Bluetooth, which has long been viewed as a safer alternative to grabbing a phone and calling someone the old-fashioned way. The proposed ban on hands-free calling reportedly doesn’t include OnStar, which integrates calling directly through the vehicle. Hersman reportedly went as far as to suggest that automakers make their number one priority “safety, not sales.”

While we think distracted driving is worth fighting, it’s difficult to see where banning hands-free calling is the answer. And we’re not alone. Even National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Ray LaHood feels the NTSB recommendation goes too far. If automakers are forced to remove the tech from new vehicles, we’re thinking many drivers will simply revert back to hand-held calling.

The NTSB thinks that hand-held and hands-free are equally dangerous, but it’s difficult to argue that case, especially if integrated technology like OnStar is permitted. Once a phone is paired, what’s the difference between pressing the hands-free button and pressing the OnStar button? We’d argue that having kids in the back seat is far more distracting than hands-free calling, and we don’t see the NTSB calling for a ‘no kids in the car’ policy any time soon.

 

from Autoblog