https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/automotive-news/ en-us Tech Xplore covers the latest in car tech Researchers at Adelaide University have discovered a promising new strategy that could deliver fast battery charging. The team, led by Professor Shi-Zhang Qiao, an ARC Industry Laureate Fellow in the University's School of Chemical Engineering, created pouch battery cells using interfacial anion-reduction catalysis to record a charge of more than 85% after six minutes. The cells also provided about 240.4 watt-hours per kilogram after fewer than six minutes of charging. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-minutes-recharge-battery-advance-rewrite.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 21 May 2026 13:00:01 EDT news698586361 As electric vehicle (EV) adoption grows in the United States and globally, the demand for EV batteries and their critical materials—such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite—is expected to surge dramatically. This makes the resilience of the supply chain underpinning battery production increasingly important. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ev-battery-imports-domestic.html Business Thu, 21 May 2026 11:40:02 EDT news698582221 The experimental plane Solar Impulse 2, which completed a historic round-the-world trip in 2016 without using jet fuel, crashed into the Gulf of Mexico recently, its owner revealed. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-historic-solar-plane-gulf-military.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 14 May 2026 03:13:00 EDT news697947149 Despite regional variability in climate, electricity sources, congestion, and the wide variation in individual driving patterns, electric vehicles generate less greenhouse gas emissions and do not cost more than comparable gas-powered vehicles for drivers and vehicle fleet owners in most parts of the United States, according to a new study by MIT researchers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-drivers-evs-emissions-benefits.html Consumer & Gadgets Tue, 12 May 2026 12:40:03 EDT news697807801 Fast charging shortens the life of vehicle batteries, but is necessary on longer journeys with electric vehicles. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now developed a new AI method that adapts fast charging to the health of the battery. Their study shows that battery life can be increased by almost 23% without extending the charging time. All that is required is an update of the vehicle's software. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-smart-ai-electric-vehicle-batteries.html Automotive Tue, 12 May 2026 11:20:05 EDT news697803481 A crucial clue to simultaneously increasing electric vehicle (EV) driving range and battery lifespan has been discovered. A research team at KAIST has observed the exact moment of degradation in lithium metal batteries at the nanoscale (approximately 1/100,000th the thickness of a human hair) and identified the fundamental cause of performance decline. This is evaluated as a significant turning point in accelerating the commercialization of next-generation batteries. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ev-battery-range-real-images.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 11 May 2026 17:20:01 EDT news697736882 In managing airport traffic, small errors can cause catastrophe. A group from the CMU Robotics Institute's AirLab used the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's Bridges-2 supercomputer to create World2Rules, an AI that draws from airport data and historical crash reports to help human controllers spot collisions before they happen. Their paper is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ai-tool-airport-traffic-avert.html Automotive Fri, 08 May 2026 11:20:03 EDT news697456622 At high speeds, even the smallest movement can have major consequences. When an aircraft tilts sharply during flight, the air around it does not flow smoothly. It twists into powerful, swirling currents that can destabilize the entire vehicle. These swirling structures, known as vortices, can behave unpredictably, sometimes causing aircraft to pull to one side or rotate unexpectedly. In extreme cases, they can damage critical components such as sensors or wing flaps. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-flight-angles-affect-turbulence.html Engineering Mon, 04 May 2026 15:20:02 EDT news697125241 Electric vehicle sales in China and Europe have reached a threshold or "tipping point" that has triggered an irreversible shift away from their petrol and diesel-powered equivalents. For their article published in Nature Communications, researchers analyzed global sales from 2016–23 and observed that EV sales were increasing exponentially across 32 countries, with the global fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles doubling every 1.5 years. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-electric-vehicles-europe-china.html Business Fri, 01 May 2026 09:20:08 EDT news696845701 From driving cars to flying drones, as autonomous robots take on more responsibility, they also face more human-like dilemmas—including what to do when rules collide. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-autonomous-robots-equal.html Robotics Fri, 01 May 2026 09:00:05 EDT news696843961 On average, car crashes cause more than 40,000 deaths per year in the United States. Technologies like seat belts, advanced airbags, and automated braking systems have improved car driver and passenger safety, but pedestrian deaths due to crashes have actually increased by 48% over the last decade, reaching about 7,500 fatalities in 2022. Transportation researchers comb through police crash reports to identify infrastructure countermeasures that will help in the greatest number of cases. However, sometimes improving the average situation isn't enough. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-pedestrian-deaths-ai-rare-patterns.html Automotive Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:20:04 EDT news696781547 Automated vehicles have been steadily rolling out in U.S. cities, but scaled deployment still faces a daunting challenge: proving the technology can safely navigate the complexity of real-world driving. Virginia Tech researchers estimate that traditional testing methods could take decades—or hundreds of millions of driving miles—to validate the full range of situations an automated vehicle may encounter. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ultimate-driver-automated-vehicles.html Engineering Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:20:10 EDT news696765721 If a city's suburban railway network is expanded, additional flats are likely to be built in an agglomeration that is better connected as a result. The opposite also holds true: If new buildings spring up like mushrooms in a suburb, this will call for an expansion of the transport infrastructure. Urban development and transport therefore have a mutual relationship. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-traffic-roads.html Engineering Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:40:05 EDT news696684721 The development of batteries for electric vehicles has progressed much faster than experts and policymakers had anticipated. New research shows that the market is well equipped to cope with both raw material shortages and price increases. This raises questions about which materials are actually critical to the energy transition, according to the researchers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ev-battery-fragile-swap-key.html Business Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:20:04 EDT news696080162 Infrared sensors that detect the short-wave infrared (SWIR) region can clearly recognize objects not only during the day and at night, but also in fog or smoke, making them a key component of future intelligent technologies such as autonomous vehicles, robotics, night surveillance, and medical imaging. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-fog-generation-infrared-image-sensor.html Hi Tech & Innovation Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:20:02 EDT news695985121 A transparent radiative cooling film technology that dissipates heat directly to the outside without consuming electricity has been developed to reduce vehicle overheating during summer. The technology was validated through real-vehicle experiments conducted under diverse conditions—including different countries, seasons, and both parking and driving scenarios—and demonstrated the ability to lower cabin temperatures by up to 6.1°C and reduce cooling energy consumption by more than 20%. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-transparent-cooling-car-cabin-temperature.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:40:04 EDT news695647989 In tropical cities, afternoon thunderstorms can plunge entire neighborhoods into brief moments of darkness. When civil engineer Markus Schläpfer moved to Singapore a decade ago, he recognized these thunderstorms as an emerging engineering challenge. For cities that hope to run on solar energy, these short periods without strong sunlight could destabilize urban power grids and undermine reliability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-electric-cars-tropical-cities-solar.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:05 EDT news694686121 A research team has developed a next-generation platinum-based catalyst that improves both activity and durability in hydrogen fuel cells. The study is published in Advanced Materials. The team was led by Professor Sang Uck Lee of the School of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, with Ph.D. candidate Jun Ho Seok as a co-first author and Dr. Sung Chan Cho, in collaboration with Professor Kwangyeol Lee's team at Korea University and Dr. Sung Jong Yoo's team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-fuel-cell-barriers-platinum-catalyst.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 03 Apr 2026 10:40:01 EDT news694431421 In a study focused on New York City, MIT researchers have shown that existing sensors and mobile data can be used to generate a near real-time, high-resolution picture of auto emissions, which could be used to develop local transportation and decarbonization policies. The paper, "Ubiquitous Data-driven Framework for Traffic Emission Estimation and Policy Evaluation," is published in Nature Sustainability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-traffic-emissions-block-real.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:03 EDT news694348321 Electric vehicles (EVs) could do more for our environment than simply replace gasoline. Published in Joule, a new assessment of EV charging strategies suggests that EVs could serve as a vast network of mobile batteries, storing excess energy and feeding it back into the grid when demand surges. This approach could ease grid strain, cut emissions, and create revenue—but only if gradually paired with timely grid upgrades. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-electric-vehicles-power.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:00:01 EDT news694252984 A new way of making sustainable aviation fuel that could cut the reliance on used cooking oil as a feedstock has been developed by a team of engineers led by the University of Sheffield. The new technique captures CO2 from the air, combines it with hydrogen, and then heats it using concentrated solar energy to produce the fuel. For their study published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers used comprehensive computer modeling and simulation to understand how and where this first-of-a-kind technology could function at an industrial scale. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-solar-energy-key-sustainable-aviation.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:20:03 EDT news694177852 A new battery design that could significantly extend the range of electric vehicles and the lifespan of portable electronics has been developed by researchers at the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute (ATI). In a study published in ACS Applied Energy Materials, researchers introduce a novel lithium-ion battery anode that delivers some of the highest energy storage capacities reported for silicon–carbon nanotube systems, while maintaining stability over hundreds of charge cycles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-lithium-ion-battery-power-longer.html Energy & Green Tech Sun, 29 Mar 2026 10:00:20 EDT news693754399 Researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, or FCAAP, are helping to solve a safety challenge in military aviation: the extreme noise generated by supersonic jets during takeoff and landing. The research, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, demonstrates a new model for understanding how supersonic jets of air collide with the ground or other structures to create a resonant feedback loop that produces extreme noise that can reach dangerous volume levels. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-mach-reveal-noise-feedback-loops.html Engineering Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:00:01 EDT news693673081 As self-driving cars begin operating in cities, a question remains about how to make them work in rural areas with limited telecommunications infrastructure. New research from Washington State University suggests a potential answer, demonstrating that a small, affordable computer running a compressed large-language model may be an effective decision-maker for autonomous vehicles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-small-edge-cars-rural-areas.html Automotive Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:40:01 EDT news692951942 In shipping, efficiency is everything. Take the shortest (safe) route between two points. Offload cargo as quickly as possible to the person who will pay you the most. Pick up your next load as fast as you can and start it all over. But the effective management of these shipping vessels' routes, and the kinds of voyages that really are most efficient, has gone understudied by an industry that can be set in its ways, according to István Z. Kiss, a professor of network science at Northeastern University London. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-cargo-ships-greater-efficiency-tanker.html Business Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:20:01 EDT news692882161 So-called "driverless" cars often have human operators remotely controlling the vehicles to help navigate tricky driving situations and avoid accidents. But this setup poses a number of challenges. How do you ensure the operators stay alert? And what happens when operators are asked to monitor multiple vehicles at once, particularly in dynamic environments? Researchers are proposing a new approach to this remote-operation system that addresses these concerns and could serve as a blueprint for the future of remotely operated vehicles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-aims-remote-robotaxi-ready.html Automotive Wed, 11 Mar 2026 11:20:01 EDT news692444570 Researchers from Edith Cowan University (ECU) are developing new technology that could change how drunk and dangerous drivers are identified. Using a single 3D deep learning model, researchers are able to detect three major causes of road accidents simultaneously: blood alcohol concentration, fatigue and expression, such as anger. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-music-dangerous-ai-facial-analysis.html Automotive Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:20:01 EDT news692442661 Spurred by EVs and electrified aviation, global demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to more than double its 2023 levels by 2030, far outstripping demand, according to S&P Global Insights. New batteries must be powerful, but also affordable enough for industry to adopt on a massive scale. As a battery component, sulfur—low-cost, abundant and with a high theoretical specific capacity—seems tailor-made for the challenge. But so far, that theoretical capacity has stayed theoretical. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-cheaper-ev-batteries-fabrication-tweak.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 04 Mar 2026 15:00:03 EST news691856646 Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are becoming increasingly common on roadways, but making them as safe as possible may entail going beyond the particular specs of the vehicles themselves to upgrading the roadway infrastructure. EyeDAR, a low-power millimeter-wave radar sensor roughly the size of an orange, could provide radar-equipped AVs with critical inputs about surrounding traffic, extending and enhancing the vehicles' sensing accuracy. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-extra-eyes-cars-roadside-radar.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:50:02 EST news691688701 Climate change was poised to create an interesting catch-22 for electric vehicles. Electrifying transportation can go a long way to reducing carbon emissions that are driving up global temperatures. But warmer temperatures also accelerate the degradation of batteries, whose performance can be a make-or-break factor for people considering an EV purchase. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ev-battery-gains-outmatch-degradation.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:40:07 EST news691679281