https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/automotive-news/ en-us Tech Xplore covers the latest in car tech A research team led by Jun Won Choi, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University College of Engineering, has developed SafeDrive, an end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving AI model aligned with recent global trends in autonomous driving technology. The work was selected as a highlight paper at the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2026. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ai-routes-safer-clearer-decisions.html Automotive Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:40:02 EDT news703512500 NASA researchers recently put a new wing design, long and thin with a lightweight structure, through a series of grueling tests to find its structural limits. What they found left them encouraged about the wing's potential, even when they pushed it past its intended limits. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-nasa-wing-limits.html Automotive Sun, 19 Jul 2026 05:10:01 EDT news703655899 Every summer, cities around the world host car-free days and temporarily pedestrianize streets. Following their success elsewhere, temporary pedestrianized streets are becoming more common in North America, including for large sporting events, cultural festivals and farmers' markets. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-carfree-streets-noise-air-pollution.html Automotive Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:40:02 EDT news703496935 India launched its first hydrogen-powered train Friday, joining a small group of nations testing the technology as part of efforts to decarbonize rail transport and cut dependence on fossil fuels. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-india-hydrogen-powered-energy.html Automotive Fri, 17 Jul 2026 05:50:01 EDT news703485661 India rolled out its first domestically built, hydrogen-powered train on Friday, a move aimed at expanding the use of clean energy in its vast rail network. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-india-hydrogen-powered-built-country.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Jul 2026 05:20:01 EDT news703483662 Federal safety investigators looking into a runaway Tesla that killed a grandmother in her home say the driver had pressed the accelerator to full speed, suggesting the vehicle's self-driving software was not to blame. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-fed-probe-tesla-feature-wasnt.html Automotive Fri, 17 Jul 2026 05:07:26 EDT news703483613 A University of Houston professor of civil and environmental engineering is using artificial intelligence to make roads safer by connecting information that is usually analyzed separately. Lu Gao used AI to analyze large-scale roadway condition data, including pavement structure, surface condition, roadway geometry and crash records, especially police crash narratives. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ai-analysis-links-pavement-conditions.html Automotive Thu, 16 Jul 2026 12:20:07 EDT news703422061 Vehicles with plug-in hybrid drives are intended to facilitate the transition to electric mobility. They can cover shorter distances purely on electric power and offer a combustion engine as a backup for longer trips. According to Empa studies funded by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the actual proportion of purely electric driving depends heavily on usage—and, in particular, charging behavior. "If someone owns a plug-in hybrid and does not charge the vehicle regularly, that person is effectively driving a heavier vehicle with a combustion engine. Due to the additional weight of the battery and electric motor, consumption can even be higher than with a comparable conventional gasoline engine," explains study author Miriam Elser. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-actual-fuel-consumption-hybrids-higher.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:20:13 EDT news703418489 A nationwide study by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities reveals that adherence to posted speed limits could dramatically curb U.S. fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, saving Americans billions of dollars annually while adding less than a minute to the average daily commute. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-limit-millions-fuel.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:01 EDT news703402727 Testing new aerospace concepts in flight remains one of NASA's most effective ways to advance knowledge and reduce risk. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-nasa-subscale-aircraft-flight.html Automotive Thu, 16 Jul 2026 09:00:03 EDT news703410679 In Germany, Japan and the United States, famous carmakers are in trouble. One reason is intense competition from Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers—and growing public demand for EVs. The automakers that dominated the 20th century have largely failed to shift to electric vehicles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-years-china-big-electric-vehicles.html Automotive Wed, 15 Jul 2026 19:40:06 EDT news703328922 Using bird bone structure as inspiration, Xin Ning and Sepideh Ebad Sichani, Ph.D. '26, have created a new class of aircraft wing structures—unbound by traditional designs of ribs, spars and stiffeners. The researchers are in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-mimicked-bird-bones-lightweight-high.html Engineering Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:20:03 EDT news703326184 No one wants to get into an uncomfortable aircraft. NASA research could help the emerging industry of air taxis—small, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft meant for short trips—understand the relationship between comfort and willingness to fly. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-nasa-smoother-air-taxi.html Automotive Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:20:02 EDT news703246194 Millions of people will take to the roads this holiday season, only to end up spending frustrating hours sitting in traffic jams. Congestion costs drivers time, fuel and patience—while also increasing pollution and placing huge pressure on transportation networks. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-dont-lanes-math-holiday-traffic.html Automotive Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:00:06 EDT news703244402 Researchers from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) have developed a European energy system model that pits two technologies against each other—future unidirectional smart charging (V1G) and vehicle-to-grid charging (V2G)—to determine which mode is most economically advantageous for EU countries in a 2050 energy system. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-customized-ev-eu-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:20:06 EDT news703242137 The safety performance of autonomous vehicle (AV) algorithms is boosted by 90% using simulation data that better incorporates near-miss incidents with outright failures, according to new research led by University of Michigan Engineering. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-cars-av-algorithm.html Automotive Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:20:01 EDT news703155230 Tires are essential to modern transport, but their production and use raise environmental concerns. One important issue is zinc oxide, a common activator used in rubber vulcanization. Zinc oxide helps rubber form the crosslinked network that gives tires their strength, elasticity and durability. However, zinc can be released into the environment during manufacturing, recycling and tire wear, where it may affect aquatic ecosystems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-fly-ash-greener-rubber.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:20:03 EDT news703149174 A man was nearly sucked out of the window of a Ryanair flight when it "detached" midair en route to Germany, with other passengers pulling him back inside, witnesses and officials said Friday. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-detached-window-ryanair-flight.html Automotive Sat, 11 Jul 2026 04:00:01 EDT news702959481 Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) National Transportation Research Center have developed a novel electric motor drive design that meets the performance demands of aircraft, marine vessels and heavy-duty trucks while reducing excess heat and premature wear. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-motor-high-power.html Automotive Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:20:06 EDT news702647422 A University of Houston engineer has built a new safety monitoring system for the operation of quadrotor drones that can keep them on course and out of danger in real time. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-autonomous-drone-real.html Engineering Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:20:05 EDT news702647521 As shipping faces growing pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions, new doctoral research from Tallinn University of Technology shows that the cleanest solution for small vessels is not one-size-fits-all. Instead, the best decarbonization pathway depends on route length, electricity supply, port infrastructure, vessel duty cycle and investment costs. The thesis focuses on vessels below 5,000 gross tonnage (GT), a segment that includes ferries, pilot boats and regional service vessels that have received far less attention than large ocean-going vessels. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-electric-propulsion-small-vessels.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 06 Jul 2026 20:00:05 EDT news702563383 Combinatorial optimization problems are often encountered in real-world applications, including logistics, scheduling and network design. These problems involve finding the best possible solution from a finite set of discrete options by maximizing or minimizing an objective function subject to specified constraints. In such problems, the number of feasible solutions increases exponentially with the problem size, making it nearly impossible to find optimal solutions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-smarter-vehicle-routing-problems-swarm.html Automotive Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:20:02 EDT news702543694 A research team led by Jihee Yoon of the Advanced Materials Research Division (Korea Institute of Materials Science; KIMS), in collaboration with a team led by Insung Hwang of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), has developed Korea's first shape-controlled graphite granule-based dry electrode manufacturing technology capable of producing high-performance batteries without using polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), a key material in conventional dry-electrode processes. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ptfe-free-dry-battery-electrode.html Energy & Green Tech Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:00:01 EDT news702281961 Recently, it has been argued that a rapid transition is unjust—particularly because of concerns about mining critical minerals, including for EVs. Specific concerns have been raised about deaths among artisanal and small-scale cobalt miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But a new analysis shows replacing petrol and diesel cars with EVs will save vastly more lives (by reducing air pollution and heat-related deaths due to climate change) than stopping artisanal mining. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-electric-car-analysis-reveals-moral.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:40:03 EDT news702286245 Indian officials said Friday they had taken down two smartphone apps following reports that some e-rickshaws could be remotely shut down, exploiting a security gap in the budget vehicles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-india-battery-apps-stalled-rickshaw.html Automotive Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:06 EDT news702283541 In March, Jensen Huang, chief executive of computer chip giant NVIDIA, declared the "ChatGPT moment" for self-driving cars had arrived. In Australia, Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system is already available on public roads. Waymo is exploring robotaxi operations in Australia. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-days-queensland-roads-reveal-car.html Automotive Fri, 03 Jul 2026 07:00:03 EDT news702279841 Tesla reported a jump in second-quarter auto sales Thursday, as Elon Musk's electric vehicle company easily topped expectations in a period of lofty gasoline prices due to the U.S.-Iran war. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-tesla-global-auto-sales-2nd.html Automotive Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:40:01 EDT news702218155 The liberalization of the high-speed rail market in Spain in 2020 led to an increase in passenger numbers compared with its competitor, air travel. Airlines responded to this increased competition by reducing seat capacity by 10% to 16%, while maintaining flight frequencies to preserve connectivity through their hub airports, according to a study by researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya published in Research in Transportation Business & Management. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-airlines-flight-frequencies-competition-high.html Business Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:24:49 EDT news702210223 Houston has already felt the first wave of World Cup traffic. Now, with a high-stakes July 4 match approaching, officials are prepared to keep the city moving, using real-time data, adaptive signals and other tools developed by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-houston-real-strategy-world-cup.html Automotive Thu, 02 Jul 2026 07:00:03 EDT news702188221 Electric vehicle batteries could last twice as long, preventing costly replacement, with a new approach to heating and cooling the batteries, according to a study led by University of Michigan Engineering. The system is designed to work with voltage and charging data that today's battery management systems already collect, rather than requiring new sensors inside the battery. It is best suited for lower-power Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which is common at homes, workplaces and public parking areas, and is expected to cover most EV charging demand. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-smarter-diagnostics-silicon-ev-batteries.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:40:09 EDT news702127861