Tech Guide

Cyberpunk 2077 came out in December 2020 and quickly got a lot of flak for its numerous bugs and broken promises. Be it as it may, the game offered a very unique perspective on what cars would look like in the dystopian future. But for some, playing the game isn’t enough, which is exactly what we see on the YouTube channel Burning Wrenches, where the host has an affinity for fabricating stuff. One of its creations is a real-life replica of the Quadra V-Tech, featured in the game.

Making sure a car’s paint and trim last for a long time without signs of wear and tear is no easy task. The prolonged exposure to the elements can make the paint look faded or damaged due to rocks and other debris you might encounter on the road.

To prevent such instances, a good idea would be to use car polish. Not only will you show your ride some extra love, but you will preserve the paint’s sheen for much longer. With so many products on the market, it can be a real hassle finding the right one. Luckily, we did the heavy lifting for you, by compiling a list of the best car polish products currently on offer.

If you enjoy your car, you probably want it to look pristine, like it just came out of the showroom. Part of this involves keeping the headlight lens clean and shiny. More and more new vehicles come out with plastic headlight lenses, which degrade at an even quicker rate over time. Whether it’s dirty air, stone chips, or ultraviolet rays, over time the lens become hazy and yellow. This is not only aesthetically displeasing, but might affect the effectiveness of your headlights. Luckily, the products shown below are some of the best on the market and can be found in many stores.

In general, there are three types of transmissions – manual, automatic, and CVT. Each of them have their own pros and cons. The automatic and CVT gearboxes are similar in that they do not require driver input in order to change gears. However, where they differ is in the way they function internally. So what’s the difference? Let’s find out!

The Segway Ninebot Max electric scooter is powered by a 350-watt e-motor and trumpets a maximum range of 40 miles. That’s quite impressive, but at the same time, the Ninebot Max is a rather large scooter with few folding options, which puts a dent in practicality. In fact, it could be more destined to e-scooter fleets than personal daily use, although if space is not a commodity for you, the Ninebot Max will not disappoint. Check out the review below to see if this is the e-scooter you’re looking for.

General Motors was already in talks with Rivian, but it seems that agreement has fallen through and another American automotive giant, Ford, has secured a deal with the EV maker for use of its skateboard platform and the joint-development of a future Blue Oval EV. Ford will sink $500 million into Rivian as part of a much bigger investment in EVs, estimated at $11 billion that includes models like the all-electric Mustang-like crossover or the all-electric F-150 pickup.

The car industry never sleeps (except in August) and every year it provides us with numerous solutions to new problems, and with innovations that make us want new cars even more. This is a rundown of 10 awesome vehicle and technology innovations for 2018.

Rolls-Royce has revealed its new Privacy Suite feature for the new extended-wheelbase version of the Phantom luxury limousine. The Privacy Suite is a new feature that lets occupants of the extended-wheelbase Phantom prevent the driver and the front passenger from seeing what is happening in the rear of the car, ensuring that occupants can enjoy moments of privacy and luxury all to themselves. The unveiling of the Privacy Suite took place at the Chengdu Motor Show.

General Motors has a long history with making innovative strides in engine development. The Chevrolet small-block V-8, for example, began life in the 1950s and soon became the standard for high horsepower in a small package – a legacy that continues into today’s fifth-generation GM V-8s. Even GM’s lineup of V-6 engines is impressive, ranging from the 60-degree V-6 that powered nearly every GM car from 1980 through 2010, up to the twin-turbocharged V-6 powering the Cadillac ATS-V. However, GM has a lesser-known engine family that deserves admiration for its outside-the-box thinking and outstanding technological advancements: the Atlas inline family.

That Atlas family had three main members, the front-running 4.2-liter inline-six, the 3.5-liter five-cylinder, and the 2.8-liter four-cylinder. All three shared the same basic architecture and a wide range of parts, though it was the 4.2-liter that led the Atlas program.

The 4.2-liter called the GMT360 platform home. This included the Chevrolet Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Buick Rainier, Oldsmobile Bravada, Isuzu Ascender, and Saab 9-7X. Each of these mid-sized SUVs shared the same architecture, including the industry’s first fully hydroformed frame in a mid-size SUV. Introduced for the 2002 model year, the GMT360 platform sold a couple million examples worldwide before ending production after 2009.

The 4.2-liter Atlas LL8, otherwise called the Vortec 4200, was a groundbreaking engine for GM. It featured an all-aluminum construction, dual overhead cams with variable valve timing on the exhaust side, four valves per cylinder, a coil-on-plug ignition system, a high compression ratio of 10:1, and its cylinder heads featured GM’s then-prevalent “Vortec” engineering designed to maximize airflow.

This combination allowed for the production of 1.06 horsepower per cubic inch – a total of 270 horsepower at 6,000 rpm. Torque was rated at 275 pound-feet at 3,600 rpm, but 90 percent of peak torque was available between 1,600 and 5,600 rpm. These stats far exceeded every comparable V-6 on the market at the time, including GM’s own 4.3-liter Vortec V-6.

We decided to take a closer look at the Vortec 4200 and its forward-thinking design. We reached out to GM and found Tom Sutter, the Assistant Chief Engineer for the Atlas. Sutter has been involved with engine programs for the last 30 years, ranging from Oldsmobile’s Quad Four to Cadillac’s current V-Series mills. Sutter was able to give us a deeper insight into the Atlas program, so keep reading for more.

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You know the old saying, “That’ll buff out.” It’s usually found in the comment section, said in jest when talking about caved in body panels or the smoldering shell of a crispy Italian exotic. Well the idiom can return to its roots of honest paint repair thanks to an easy, do-it-yourself kit found at most automotive parts shops and big-box retailers. It’s the Trizact Precision Scratch Kit from 3M.

It involves a three-step process that uses a household power drill and water to remove light scratches and paint imperfections. It’s designed to be simple enough to use for everyday people with little to no experience of paint repair.

Like most folks, my daily driver’s paint has seen better days. Small scuffs and scratches can be found on several body panels, making my 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer look like, well, a 12-year-old SUV. So you can imagine my excitement when 3M reached out about trying the new Trizact kit. I gladly let them send me a few samples. Here’s my experience using 3M’s newest system.

Continue reading for the full 3M Trizact review.

There are a lot of action cameras around these days, and someone in the market for one could quickly be overwhelmed by the variety of choices. But in reality, it all boils down to just one option for really high-quality action videos, the GoPro Hero4. It’s an expensive camera, and you might be thinking that you could find something else that does the same thing without having to pay for the GoPro name. And if you’re looking to do your shooting in 720p at 60fps, then yes, you can find something for a lot less money.

The need for a GoPro comes when you’re looking to capture more complicated video, shooting at the drag strip at night will look brilliant with a GoPro, not so much with a lot of other cameras. In truth, though most automotive applications for an action camera would probably call for a GoPro, you might not need a top-end model like the Hero4 (a regular Hero model will shoot great 1080p video and will only cost you about $130), but your pilgrimage to the Nurburgring deserves better than one of the $35 knockoffs floating around.
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Disruptive innovation. Disruptive. Innovation. You know, I think that might be my favorite two-word phrase of all time. Better than “first car” or “first kiss,” better than “Buick Regal,” “I do” or even “Your place.” There’s just something about those words that sings true to everything right (or at least constructively anarchist) in my being.

“Disruptive innovation.”

Punk rock.

An innovation is said to be “disruptive” when it forces a rapid enough change to an entire market that those involved will either be forced to adopt an entirely new business model, or shut doors forever. It creates entirely new markets and value systems by designing for a new set of consumers, and eventually drops prices for existing consumers. Some examples might include the Model T for automobiles, Wikipedia for traditional encyclopedias, LEDs for light bulbs, computer printing to movable type, and of course (here’s looking at you, kid), the internet. Disruptive innovation is like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs; it’s London burning and plague rats rolled into one – particularly if you happen to get caught on the wrong side of it.

Here in this century – nevermind electric cars or clean energy – self-driving cars will almost certainly prove to be the most disruptive innovation since the steam engine. Or at least the Model T. Not just to the automobile industry, either; to every industry with which automobiles are even tangentially connected, including mining, manufacturing and of course, energy. That might sound like hyperbole, but you can bet that the guys with the big wallets take this looming disruption very seriously indeed.

You have to wonder if the dinosaurs did the same – just before it was too late to matter.

In this two-part article, we’re first going to look at the surprisingly long timeline of the self-driving car, from the first radio control systems proposed all the way back at the 1939 World’s Fair, to the ultimate evolution of its visionary concept. We’re going to go way past the “Level 4” self-driving systems most people imagine when they hear the words “autonomous car,” and crank this disruptively technological dial all the way up to 11. You might be surprised at how close we already are to unbelievable things, how much closer we’re getting to the almost unimaginable, and how much we already owe to those who imagined those things first.

The second half of this article will be something like the second half of the “Future of Electric Cars," published last month. In the second part, we’re going to go into the social (and more importantly) economic aspects of the self-driving systems we’ll have soon. There’s a reason manufacturers and oil barons are terrified of these things; you’ll find out exactly why they fear this particular asteroid so much in the second half.

Then again, it’s not as though they didn’t have plenty of warning. Unlike the dinosaurs, auto manufacturers have seen this fireball coming for almost a century. And that’s where we start – with the first glimpse of one disruptive innovation, and a techno-punk vision that will shape our future.

Continue reading for the full story.

It’s been a long, dark road since the earliest days of car lighting, when the best you could hope for was a decent gas lamp that wouldn’t blow up when lit. Of course, back then, the weak glow of a flame in a jar was perfectly adequate for travel on dirt horse tracks at trotting speed. Since then, cars have gotten a lot faster, but human reaction time has remained about the same. That’s necessitated a whole new generation of lights to see further down the road and give us time to react to hyperspeed problems.

But more than that, headlights have become a kind of functional fashion statement — a "look at me" way of telling the world we’ve got the latest and greatest tech under the hood. It should come as no surprise then that the people who specialize in high-tech and high speed (the Germans) have provided us with the majority of headlight advances over the years; Bosch, specifically, has become a name brand in seeing where you’re going.

Yes, it seems like we’re forever coming up with new and better ways to cast photons down the road ahead of us. So which ones are best, which are pointless, and which are only around so you can tell people your car has frickin’ laser beams in its eyes?

Read on.