Car show

Checking Out Some New (and Old) Automotive Technology

May 4, 2017
The AEM Infrastructure Vision 2050 challenge and the International Car Show highlight new and old automotive technology.

Download this article as a .PDF

Team Berkeley’s Hyperlane concept took first place in the AEM Infrastructure Vision 2050 challenge, which presented concepts for U.S. transportation and infrastructure at the Tech Experience at ConExpo CON/AGG. Hyperlane’s separate reserved lane allows self-driving cars to roll along at 120 mph.

“UC Berkeley graduate students, Baiyu Chen and Anthony Barrs see self-driving cars as the transportation of the future,” reports Leah Scully from our sister brand, Machine Design. “Their Hyperlane would take up real estate on existing highways and drive down the price point of constructing new infrastructure like high-speed rails. They expect their Hyperlane concept to be feasible by 2050, as major car companies like Tesla and Ford continue to invest in technologies for self-driving vehicles like car-to-car communications and physical sensors.”

New York Auto Show

The New York International Auto Show (Fig. 2) dates back to 1900 and will have nearly 1,000 cars and trucks on display. Machine Design editors had a preview of the show and captured some photos of the latest tech. Check out Jaguar/Panasonic’s FIA Formula E Championship electric-powered race car. The racing circuit consists of 10 teams and 20 drivers. Sebastien Buemi of Switzerland, driving a Spark-Renault Z.E. 15 was last season’s winning driver.

The International Auto Show highlights the latest and greatest cars and technology, including electric and self-driving cars, but there are a lot of cool cars that have a few years behind them. According to Machine Design once again, “The Summit Racing Equipment’s Piston-Powered Auto-Rama roared into Cleveland’s International Exposition Center (I-X Center) a few weekends ago, bringing more than 1,000 customized and classic cars, motorcycles, boats, aircraft, antique trucks, monster trucks, military vehicles, and historic construction equipment.” (see “Gallery: Hot Rods & Cool Cars” on machinedesign.com). The show’s motto is “If a piston makes it go, it’s in this show.”

One of the highlight cars is a 1930 Ford Roadster that started out as a 1930 Ford coupe. It now has 350-in.3 engine and overbored the cylinders by .030 in. to add another 5 in.3 of displacement. Jesse Woost also added two 50-mm turbochargers that add 30 psi to the incoming air. The orange hot rod hit 130 mph.

Electronics and self-driving cars may be cutting edge tech but sometimes the classics are worth enjoying.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form. 

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below. 

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.  

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence. 

Sponsored Recommendations

Comments

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Electronic Design, create an account today!