Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:10:05 GMT

Yamaha Recalls 2008 Rhino 450 and 700

Yamaha Recalls 2008 Rhino 450 and 700 due to possible brake failure.

About 7,800 units affected. The brake caliper on the left front wheel could have been made incorrectly, resulting in brake fluid leaking. This can cause a loss of braking and control of the vehicle, posing a serious safety risk to the driver and passenger. There have not been any reported accidents or injuries due to this possible defect.

Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled Rhinos and contact any authorized Yamaha Rhino dealer to schedule a free repair. Registered owners were sent direct mail notification of this recall.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Yamaha at (800) 962-7926 anytime, or visit the firm's Web site at www.yamaha-motor.com Posted by: Matt      Read more     Source

April 1, 2008, 10:11 PM CT

Can a laser scanner drive a car?

A car that navigates city streets without a driver - steered only by a computer? That might seem impossible to a number of. But scientists from Fraunhofer and the FU Berlin are presenting such an automated vehicle at this year's Hannover Messe on April 21 through 25, 2008 (Hall 25, Stand H25). Its core element is a three-dimensional laser scanner.

Can a computer steer a car through a city without a driver's help? The 'Spirit of Berlin', a vehicle developed jointly by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin and their colleagues at the Freie Universität Berlin, proves that it is possible. The vehicle, which will be on display at this year's Hannover Messe, made it to the semi-finals of the 'DARPA Urban Challenge' competition entirely alone -without a driver or a remote control. The Urban Challenge for unmanned vehicles is organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the United States Department of Defense. In November 2007, the third edition of the event was held at the site of a former air force base in California for the first time.

One of Spirit of Berlin's most important sensors is a rotating 3-D laser scanner that was developed at the Fraunhofer IAIS. The scanner classifies the navigable route and is able to distinguish the street from footpaths, parking lots, houses and pedestrians. "The scanner, which is fixed to the roof of the car, constantly moves laser beams back and forth through a mirror on a vertical axis - it moves the laser beam from top to bottom and back again," explains IAIS project manager Dr. Hartmut Surmann. "If anything gets in the way, such as a pedestrian, the laser beam is reflected and sent back to the scanner. The software analyzes the information while the car is in motion and steers the vehicle in the right direction. The system comprises two back-to-back laser scanners that rotate in the same way as the flashing lights on police cars and are thus able to 'see' all of the car's surroundings." The lasers can record two complete images per second. One of the challenges involved is to keep adjusting the recorded values to allow for the distance covered. "At a speed of 36 kilometers per hour, the car moves 10 meters per second. Consequently, the measured data must constantly be adjusted to the car's current position," Surmann explains......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:54:04 GMT

A Dubious World Record

he demo drive is an essential step along the Road to the Sale for automobile salespeople, but as test-drives go, this one was a marathon.

A Honda dealership in Melbourne, Australia, was the victim. A new Honda Accord was driven from the dealership and ended up in the middle of central Australia a week later with nearly 4,000 miles added to the odometer.

Police say they were stunned when they pulled over a driver for failing to pay for gasoline at a service station in the Australian Outback, only to discover that the car was on an extended demo drive. The driver was taken to a local court and charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle. He will sit in jail until authorities decide where to prosecute him.

The "customer" allegedly conned salesmen at the Honda dealership, chatting with staff members for 20 minutes, feigning interest in buying a new car and filling out the necessary paperwork for the test drive.

But as soon as he got into the driver's seat, he sped out of the dealership before the salesman could step into the passenger seat.

The dealership is making the most of the situation. "We'll be putting an advertisement in the newspaper selling the car," the dealership owner said. "It will say, 'Buy the car that took the longest ever demonstration drive'."

The dealership would be taking $1 off the car's MSRP for each of the 4,000 miles it traveled. That means it will cost $43,550 Australian dollars. Posted by: Jeff Bressler      Read more     Source

February 11, 2008, 10:43 PM CT

Carbon Capture Strategy For Emission-Free Cars

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech scientists envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators).

The Georgia Tech team's goal is to create a sustainable transportation system that uses a liquid fuel and traps the carbon emission in the vehicle for later processing at a fueling station. The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel. Currently, Georgia Tech scientists are in the process of developing a fuel processing device to separate the carbon and store it in the vehicle in liquid form.

The research was published in Energy Conversion and Management. The research was funded by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense NDSEG Fellowship Program and Georgia Tech's CEO (Creating Energy Options) Program......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

December 28, 2007, 7:58 AM CT

Pilot error declines as factor in airline mishaps

The number of airline mishaps attributed to pilot error significantly declined between 1983 and 2002, as per an analysis conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While the overall rate of airline mishaps remained stable during that time, the proportion of mishaps involving pilot error decreased 40 percent. The rate of mishaps correlation to a pilots poor decision-making declined 71 percent. The scientists attribute the decline to better training and improvements in technology that aid pilot decision-making. The findings appear in the January 2007 edition of Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine.

A 40 percent decline in pilot error-related mishaps is very impressive. Pilot error has long been considered the most prominent contributor to aviation crashes, said the studys lead author, Susan P. Baker, MPH, a professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Bloomberg Schools Department of Health Policy and Management.

The study examined 558 airline mishaps between 1983 and 2002. Baker and her colleagues also looked at the circumstances of pilot error, which they characterized as carelessness on the part of the pilot and crew, flawed decision-making, mishandling of the aircraft or poor crew interaction......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:21:37 GMT

Mussolini's Alfa Romeo Up for Grabs

It is difficult for me to write anything positive about the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who allied with Hitler in the lead-up to WW2. Nevertheless when a car Il Duce once owned is offered for auction I'm obliged to pay attention. Actually, Autoblog was the source for this article, based on an item in Italiaspeed. The car is an Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Pescara Spyder, ordered in 1935 with custom coachwork by Carrozzeria Touring. Included was an auxiliary jump-seat and an engine tuned to 95 horsepower, up from the standard 68 hp. Ah, though Benito may have been a car fancier he didn't drive! That job went to Ercole Boratto, a former Alfa Romeo factory test driver. In 1936 Boratto took the car to the famous Mille Miglia street race where he and the dictator's Alfa finished third in class. Mussolini's sports car will be auctioned by H&H at England's Cheltenham race course on February 27, 2008. It is expected to fetch between six-and-eight-hundred-thousand pounds sterling (approximately one and a half million dollars). Regardless of how nasty a previous owner may have been, provenance certainly (absurdly?) adds to the price. Posted by: Philip Powell      Read more     Source

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:09:14 GMT

What Kind of a Car Are You?

It's Friday. Time for a little fun. Again, a tidbit from Leslie Ungar, take this quiz to learn what kind of car you are.

I took the quiz and learned that I am a Ferrari 360 Modena. Only 10% of quiz takers fell in the same category. According to the survey:

You've got it all. Power, passion, precision, and style. You're sensuous, exotic, and temperamental. Sure, you're expensive and high-maintenance, but you're worth it.

The most popular car results are:

Chevrolet Corvette: 1850992 (27%)
Porsche 911: 1011182 (15%)

It's interesting that from the answers you give to 12 yes/no questions, they (whoever "they" are) can analyze your personality and boil it down to a single sentence. I like to think I'm a little more complicated than that, but I suppose the tags "temperamental and high maintenance" cover all the bases.

So what kind of a car and why do you care?

Here's what I think: on a day to day basis I can get bogged down in the details of just getting through each day and forget the characteristics that make me unique. I am passionate about life and what I do. I am passionate about music and writing and family and it comes across when you work with me. I've had customers and friends tell me "BREATHE" because I get excited about their business and the possibilities and what we can accomplish together that words just start pouring out. They also tell me that I'm refreshing and they like the energy.

However, when I'm focused on work and kids and the house I sometimes forget my unique difference. I see myself as a 4-door sedan - just average, just the basics to get you from here to there.

So take the quiz, see what kind of a car you are and spend just a moment reveling in the fun analysis.

vroom, vroom, vroom.

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer, Sport car! Posted by: Deborah Brown      Read more     Source

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:20:17 GMT

Winter Dreams of an Elegant Florida Concours

Every year at this time I start dreaming of winter getaways and find myself tempted by visions of spending the entire month of March in Florida. What a month for car enthusiasts! My dream trip would start at Amelia Island, March 7-9, for the annual Concours d'Elegance and RM auction. In 2008 Amelia Island will feature the cars of the 1966-1972 Trans-Am Series, appropriately honoring the great Parnelli Jones, an Indy driver who was equally skilled on road courses. I'd see, among others, the Bud Moore-prepared 1970 Boss Mustang 302 driven by Jones and the 1968 Penske-Sunoco Camaro piloted by Mark Donohue. Both drivers competed in the only Trans-Am race I was fortunate enough to witness live, at Lime Rock in 1969.

Then I'd head to Sebring for the historic races preceding the annual 12-hour enduro, which I'd broadcast for the CBC back in.... well, never mind. From there it would be the Barrett-Jackson auction at Palm Beach, March 28-30 or the Russo and Steele auction at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, from March 27-29. A racer to the core, I'd hang in until April 06 for the IRL street race in St. Petersburg. Now, that's my idea of a winter vacation. (Thanks to Vintage Motorsport magazine for reminding me of these events.)

[Photo: 1953 Ferrari 375MM owned by Bruce & Jolene McCaw of Bellevue, WA] Posted by: Philip Powell      Read more     Source

December 4, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Research On Hydrogen Storage

Research on hydrogen-fueled cars may be one step closer to application thanks to a new form of hydride discovered by researchers at the ESRF. The material, lithium borohydride, is a promising energy storage system: it contains 18 weight percents of hydrogen, which makes it attractive for use in hydrogen-fueled cars. Its drawback is that it only releases hydrogen at quite high temperatures (above 300 degrees C). The team at the ESRF has found a new form of the compound that could possibly release hydrogen in mild conditions. This discovery, completely unexpected from the point of view of theoretical predictions, is published recently as a Very Important Paper in Angewandte Chemie.

Atomative industry hydrogen as a perspective energy carrier. If a good hydrogen strorage material will be developed, the petrol in cars can be replaced by clean hydrogen energy. Five kilograms of hydrogen would take you as far as twenty liters of petrol. Today there are several compounds of interest, which are known to either store relatively large amounts of hydrogen or release it easily, but none do both in a way suitable for practical application.

Scientists at the Swiss-Norwegian experimental stations (beamlines) at the ESRF are currently studying several compounds of light elements with hydrogen and the different forms they take at different pressure and temperature. Lithium borohydride, LiBH4, is one of the compounds they study as it has a high weight content of hydrogen (18%). The new form of this compound, which researchers have just discovered, is promising because it appears to be unstable. Until......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

November 27, 2007, 10:19 PM CT

Performance of auto crash warning systems

Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed and tested a laser-based ranging system to assess the performance of automobile collision warning systems. Scientists in industry and at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will be able to use the NIST technology to accelerate the development and commercialization of safety systems that alert drivers to multiple, and sometimes virtually simultaneous potential crash hazardsboth from forward or side collisions as well as from running off the road. DOT believes that such warning systems could reduce substantially the number and severity of injuries to motorists and save lives.

Preliminary tests of prototype collision detection systems with the NIST technology have revealed both potential benefits of the systems and areas that need improvement.

As per DOT, of the 3.6 million rear-end, road departure and lane change crashes that occur each year in the United States, 27,500 result in one or more fatalitiesabout three-quarters of the nations yearly auto-related deaths. DOT estimates that widespread deployment of advanced integrated driver assistance systems may reduce such collisions by 48 percent. The department has formed a partnership with the automobile industry called the Integrated Vehicle Based Safety Systems (IVBSS) initiative to hasten deployment of advanced warning systems in the U.S. vehicle fleet......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

November 27, 2007, 9:08 PM CT

Cuter scooter defined by electricity

It's energy efficient, it's clean, compact and simple, and, above all, it's very cool.

All of these factors could be significant in getting people to adopt a lightweight, electrically powered scooter designed by William J. Mitchell, the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences, and several of his students in MIT's Smart Cities Group, in collaboration with SYM, a major scooter manufacturer in Taiwan, and ITRI, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute. A prototype of the new design was a hit at the Milan Auto Show, where it was unveiled earlier this month.

Motor scooters are a very popular form of transportation in Asian and European cities, Mitchell said, because they provide convenient, inexpensive transportation. But conventional scooters, using inefficient two-stroke gas engines, are also a source of local air pollution. The new design "was all about providing a clean, green, silent electric scooter that would provide, even better, the same kind of urban mobility," he said.

As an added bonus, the simplicity of the electric design, which eliminates the powertrain by putting motors directly inside each of the two wheels, made it possible to design the scooter so that it could be folded up to about half its size, making it even easier to store in crowded urban environments......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

November 21, 2007, 5:19 AM CT

During biggest travel weekend

Thanksgiving marks the heaviest travel weekend of the year and that means large increases in the number of fatal car crashes, especially in rural areas. And nowhere is that more true than in states that dont adequately enforce seat belt laws.

The University of Minnesota Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) today released an analysis showing a strong correlation between states lacking strong seat belt laws and states with a high proportion of fatalities on rural roads.

For some reason, the states struggling most with rural fatalities are not using one of the most powerful tools at their disposal, said CERS Director Lee Munnich Jr., of the University of Minnesotas Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of fatalities in rural areas in 2005, none had primary seat belt laws, or laws that allow law enforcement officers to pull people over for not using their seat belts. In contrast, 13 of the 20 states with the lowest percentage of fatalities in rural areas had enacted primary seat belt laws. See chart at the end of this release for how states measure up. To view a graphic map of 2005 Rural Fatalities and Primary Seat Belt Laws, By State, visit http://www.ruralsafety.umn.edu/state/2005/SeatBeltLaws.html......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

November 18, 2007, 9:13 PM CT

New control techniques for preventing aircraft crashes

TU Delft will demonstrate how improved control techniques can reduce the risk of aircraft crashes. The demonstration involves reconstructing troubled flights such as the El Al flight which crashed in the Bijlmer area of Amsterdam in 1992 in a flight simulator and adding the newly developed technology.

The presentation in Delft forms the final phase of a research project involving the GARTEUR international research partnership (participants include TU Delft and the National Aerospace Laboratory NLR) into Fault Tolerant Control. This involves techniques for keeping damaged aircraft in the air for longer and enabling continuing flight control. The key to this is to improve control techniques which enable the aircraft to continue to be controlled. The implemented improvements are based on the analysis of flight data from aviation accidents by the NLR. This has led to improved interpretation of the (defective) condition of the aircraft.

On Wednesday 21 November, these improved techniques will be demonstrated to the general public at TU Delft. Many realistic accident scenarios will be taken as examples, including the Bijlmer crash. These will be reconstructed using TU Delfts Simona flight simulator, but this time also using the newly-developed control techniques. Simulator experiments have shown that the new techniques make it easier for the pilot to land seriously-damaged aircraft safely......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

November 12, 2007, 9:16 PM CT

That friendly car is smiling at me

A forthcoming study from the Journal of Consumer Research looks at how consumers anthropomorphize products, endowing a car or a pair of shoes with human characteristics and personalities. The researchers, from the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago, find that people are more likely to attribute human qualities or traits to inanimate objects if the product fits with their expectations of relevant human qualities and are also more likely to positively evaluate an anthropomorphized item.

We sometimes see cars as loyal companions going so far as to name them. We argue with, cajole, and scold malfunctioning computers and engines, explain Pankaj Aggarwal (University of Toronto) and Ann L. McGill (University of Chicago). We find that if the product has a feature that is typically linked to a human prototype, then people are more likely to humanize the product, and also evaluate it more positively.

For example, the scientists observed that people are more likely to buy into the idea of a family of products if all the products are differently sized, with some products representing parents and others representing a teenager and a small kid.

Similarly, non-identical products presented as twins fared worse in evaluations than identical objects presented as twins. The scientists also observed that products with positive traits were better liked than products with rebellious or negative traits. In the study, identical looking objects presented as good twins were better liked than the same products presented as evil twins......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

November 1, 2007, 8:08 PM CT

Robocar named a finalist

Team MIT has made it to the finals of the DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition for cars and trucks that run without human help. The qualification was announced Thursday, Nov. 1, by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, who is sponsoring the competition with the goal of developing vehicles that can operate on their own in battle and keep humans out of harm's way.

The announcement means the MIT vehicle--a self-piloted Land Rover LR3 dubbed "robocar"--and its team of student and faculty developers will compete in the finals Saturday in Victorville, Calif. DARPA plans to recognize the top three finishers Sunday with awards of $2 million, $1 million, and $500,000.

"Our team is absolutely thrilled to be invited to participate in the race," said team leader John Leonard, professor of mechanical and ocean engineering at MIT. "My co-PI's Jon How, Seth Teller, David Barrett and I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our students and staff, who have done a phenomenal job in creating a highly innovative autonomous vehicle in just 18 months. We also thank our sponsors who helped us to make it this far, and our families who made tremendous sacrifices in supporting us to undertake this project. We look forward to the challenge of trying to finish the 60 mile race course on Saturday"......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source