Gadgetopia

High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts stolen SUV : Nice.  Or terrifying.  Not sure which.

[…] shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at […] OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.

[…] It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.

Ford to use lasers instead of spark plugs to ignite and burn fuel: Is there anything cooler than frickin’ lasers?  Especially in my engine.

Ford and scientists at Liverpool University are currently testing a newly developed technology where lasers and being used to ignite fuel within the combustion chambers rather than spark plugs. The new technology is supposed to offer more benefits than what we currently have available. With laser technology, it can be focused and directed to multiple points in the piston chamber to ignite many sources of fuel. Also, it is much more stable than spark plug technology, making it easier so crank up a car in cold and damp conditions. Because of the stability achieved, they also say that is uses a lot less gasoline to ignite the fuel, which will save money in the short and long term.

My Weekend with the Electric Mini Cooper (Mini-e): Nice little review of the all-electric Mini.  These things are gonna be fun.

Let’s start with the fun stuff. I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve read about the Tesla, but this thing moves. It isn’t so much its 0-60 (officially 8.6 seconds) or its top speed (officially 95 mph), but that no matter how fast you’re going on any hill, if you give it gas, it instantly accelerates.

I think another thing that makes it seem fast is that the engine sounds that you’re used to hearing when you floor a car aren’t there. My brain expects that typical straining sound of an internal combustion engine when I press the pedal to the floor, but you don’t get that with the Mini-e… just speed. There is a little electric engine ‘whine’, but that certainly isn’t the same thing.

Winged luxury submarines ‘fly’ underwater: I’d love to play in one of these.

“There are no valves, there are no gauges,” Hawkes said. “You just power up the thrusters, start your take-off run, put the joystick forward, then the nose goes down. The wings literally pull it down.”

That’s very different from conventional submarines, which basically dive by changing the ballast of the ship to make it sink.

“It’s not just that they look like airplanes, they actually are,” Hawkes said. “The machines we build underwater should look like airplanes, not submarines. Airplanes don’t look like balloons.”

So, to go down, you essentially have to have power. Hopefully they’re buoyant, so they’d float up to the top without power.

Anatomy of a crash: This is an incredible analysis of a crash involving an Australian Ford Falcon XT.

0 milliseconds - An external object touches the driver’s door.
1 ms - The car’s door pressure sensor detects a pressure wave.
2 ms - An acceleration sensor in the C-pillar behind the rear door also detects a crash event.
2.5 ms - A sensor in the car’s centre detects crash vibrations.
5 ms - Car’s crash computer checks for insignificant crash events, such as a shopping trolley impact or incidental contact. It is still working out the severity of the crash. Door intrusion structure begins to absorb energy.

It’s incredible how much processing the car does in such a short period of time. By 70ms, the air bag is already starting to deflate, and, so far as the car is concerned, the crash is considered “complete.”

Here’s the real kicker:

150-300 ms - Occupant becomes aware of collision.

Airbus A380: Holy cats.

In November 2007, Airbus top sales executive and COO John Leahy confirmed plans for an enlarged variant, the A380-900, which would be slightly longer than the A380-800 […] This version would have a seating capacity of 650 passengers in standard configuration, and around 900 passengers in economy-only configuration.

Snowmobile of 1926: I love this video of a tractor riding on twin corkscrews from the 20s. I wonder why these didn’t take off? Maybe treads were just more versatile?

Long-time readers will remember a post on this same thing four years ago.

Ice storm tests mettle of Harvard residents: This is flat awesome.

[a resident without power] ran his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan, and several lights through his Prius, for three days, on roughly five gallons of gas.

“When it looked like we were going to be without power for awhile, I dug out an inverter (which takes 12v DC and creates 120v AC from it) and wired it into our Prius…These inverters are available for about $100 many places online,” he wrote.

The device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power.

Electric Superchargers: This is an interesting concept. Traditional superchargers run off the crankshaft, which obviously takes a fair amount of surgery. This, however, is kind of a…hairdryer.

Be aware that this company is actually selling plans and instructions to build your own, rather than selling the actual device.

The Jet Stream Electric Supercharger takes absolutely no mechanical skill to build and install and will immediately be capable of delivering a 5-30% boost in horsepower throughout the entire RPM band GUARANTEED! The heart of our electric supercharger is powered by a 12 volt lightweight motor that can push the electric supercharger fan to an impressive 24,500 rpm’s in less than one second. This produces immediate boost with no hesitation or turbo lag.

Curious to see how well they actually work. It sounds simplistic, but I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work.

Obama’s limo will be a Caddy like no other: This article on the new limousine apparently under development for President Obama includes this astonishing tidbit (emphasis mine):

[…] television clips showing Bush entering and exiting the rear doors of his limos indicate that the windows are at least 5 inches thick, almost twice the depth of what was used on presidential limousines in the 1980s and ’90s.

While I do not know what type of weapons such thick windows are designed to guard against, a half-inch of transparent armor is enough to stop a .44 Magnum round at point-blank range; at a thickness of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches, the same material can withstand higher-velocity bullets fired from military assault rifles.

It’s apparently a Cadillac in name only. The author’s best guess is that it’s a custom body on top of a GM 2500 truck frame.

At first glance, most people would say that the car in this photo is an Ariel Atom, but it’s not. It’s a garage-built recreation of an Atom, dubbed the z59.

This is the final result of 15 months and at least 800 hours of work in the garage… The car was built from scratch. The engine is an Acura k20a3 from an RSX… The car has a good amount of junk (recycled stuff) in it. The stainless panels all came from old appliances. The black body panels came from an ancient kayak and an old doghouse. The throttle pedal was made entirely from salvaged parts from a dumpster at an engineering firm around town. Of course, the engine was also recycled from a crashed car.

It’s a blast to drive.

0-60: 4.5 seconds
MPG: 35+ miles per gallon
The best part: the bizarre looks I get from random strangers.

The whole build process is chronicled in a Flickr set. Color me envious. Very, very envious.

California: Green cars too quiet: It seems every advance comes with drawbacks.

Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they’re bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street.

BRABUS smart fortwo wins latest Cannonball Run: What is the state of the automotive industry when a Smart Car wins the Cannonball Run?

Amazingly, despite all of the high-power entrants into this year’s race, a smart fortwo managed to take the victory after traveling some 3,000 miles. The machine was already a few years old and had been modified with a revised engine map from BRABUS along with some basic suspension goodies. Other than that, the little two-seater was basically stock.

Still, they only got 35 m.p.g. which never ceases to surprise me. Geo Metro’s were getting 46 m.p.g. back in the 80s.

The £50,000 jetpack that lets you become a real-life James Bond: This is somewhat huge breakthrough.

[James ] Bond’s belt was the most successful — but it could only keep the superspy aloft for 30 seconds before it ran out of fuel.

More fuel was impossible because the belt couldn’t handle the payload.

Mr Martin said his revolutionary design can stay aloft for 30 minutes, a flyingtime that he believes will make it a best-seller.

Amphicar Swim In cars go into lake: Great video footage from a Amphicar gathering in Ohio.

One of the largest exhibits of Amphicars in the world is held during the Celina Lake Festival at Grand Lake St. Marys in Celina Ohio. Amphicars were cars made to travel by land or in the water. Exhibitors come from all over the world to show off their unique vehicles.

These are the original Amphicars produced in the 60s.