cars

Every month in Popular Science we feature 12 must-have products. The goods might range from skateboards to dental floss to laser televisions, but they all share one thing—a tech innovation that's never been used in such a way before. Here, we've collected over 100 of our top picks.

Launch the gallery for a look at . . . The Goods.

Every month in Popular Science we feature 12 must-have products. The goods might range from skateboards to dental floss to laser televisions, but they all share one thing—a tech innovation that's never been used in such a way before. Here, we've collected over 100 of our top picks.

Launch the gallery for a look at . . . The Goods.

Traffic delays are the bane of any commuter—even those who use a GPS, which warns you about traffic jams on your route to work. The reason: getting real-time data is difficult as the traffic information is routed from the scene to a massive database that only feeds GPS units on regular intervals.

Quick, name a car with three-wheel drive. Okay, trick question; this isn't quite a car, but Peugeot's idea of a fuel-efficient all-weather runabout. The HYmotion3 Compressor Concept foresees a hybrid vehicle in more ways than one: part gasoline-, part electric-powered; part car, part scooter. The French automaker says it offers the stability of a trike with the protection of a safety cell similar to that which supports occupants of a Smart car.

The Transition is not a flying car. The vehicle, set to go on sale next year, will cruise smoothly on the road and through the sky. It will have four wheels, Formula One–style suspension, and a pair of 10-foot-wide wings that fold up when it switches from air to asphalt. And when the engineers at Terrafugia in Woburn, Massachusetts, let me sit inside their just-finished proof-of-concept vehicle and grab the steering wheel, it’s easy to imagine piloting this thing up and out of traffic, into the open skies.

To make its Duramax 4.5 diesel cleaner and leaner, GM turned traditional engine design inside out and dumped 70 parts.

The biggest change was flipping around the exhaust system to direct hot gases through short pipes toward a central turbocharger and catalytic converter inside the “V” of the engine. This compact design harnesses more exhaust heat and requires fewer components than conventional V8s, which send exhaust through long manifold pipes that protrude from each side of the engine, taking up more space and losing heat before they reach the turbo.

To make its Duramax 4.5 diesel cleaner and leaner, GM turned traditional engine design inside out and dumped 70 parts.

The biggest change was flipping around the exhaust system to direct hot gases through short pipes toward a central turbocharger and catalytic converter inside the “V” of the engine. This compact design harnesses more exhaust heat and requires fewer components than conventional V8s, which send exhaust through long manifold pipes that protrude from each side of the engine, taking up more space and losing heat before they reach the turbo.

California’s Central Valley, that blistering flatland of artichoke fields criss-crossed by the occasional four-mile straightaway, would seem the perfect place to open up a big engine. But as I arrived in Davis, California, on the day my parents moved there from Seattle, I was hit with the sudden realization that I had, in fact, chosen the perfectly wrong trip on which to test BMW’s monstrous M6.

Davis, it turns out, is possibly the bike-friendliest town in the nation.

When Lawrence Tech's Element One team won top honors in the first-ever Formula Zero design competition—a contest created by two Dutch auto designers to get young engineers interested in hydrogen cars—they received two prizes: a fuel cell, and a deadline. The award meant they had the green light to build their design and race against other student teams in the Formula Zero hydrogen-powered go-kart race, which starts this month in the Netherlands. And just like that, they were off, scrambling to get their kart ready in time.

The transportation program at the Art Center College of Design has produced legendary car designers, including BMW chief of design Chris Bangle and Henrik Fisker, the creator of the Fisker Karma electric supercar. But this year, after professor Bumsuk Lim’s inaugural motorcycle-design class, the buzz is all about bikes, especially Jake Loniak’s exoskeleton motorcycle concept Deus Ex Machina.

The weeklong 2008 British International Auto Show started yesterday and through the Lightnings, Citroens and, yes, Ford Fiestas one common thread has stretched; and it is green. Most of the low and mid-range manufacturers addressed the public's clarion call for less reliance on pricey fuel.

When is a daredevil stunt jump actually a "jump" and when does it become a form of ill-advised rocket flight? While we enjoy the dramatic and circus-esque musical soundtrack in the video, let's also appreciate some interesting physics issues relevant to Kenny Powers' unsuccessful jump. I'm not sure how carefully they thought this one through, but I suspect at least they must have recognized that their "souped-up" Lincoln Continental had to be under rocket power not only during the approach and up the ramp but during the jump (flight) as well.

In the latest Forbes list of the 10 worst polluters, you'll find the usual suspects including the Hummer H2 and Chevy Suburban 2500 (tied for fifth place). But at the top of the list is an SUV that hasn't received its fair share of environmental scorn: the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI.