Perhaps taking a lead from Elon Musk’s open source policy at Tesla, Toyota has announced that it will freely share up to 6000 of its patents on hydrogen fuel cell technology in what is seen as a bid to drive the development of fuel cell cars.
The Smoking Tire has shown that you can turn an ordinary car into something extraordinary.
If you’re keen to put down your order for one of the limited edition Shelby Cobra 427’s, you can do so starting 13 January, but you better do it fast.
Shenzhen has finally joined China’s other cities – including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou – in restricting the number of new car sales, making it the eighth Chinese city to implement such rules in an effort to alleviate the cities’ polluted air and congested roads. Announced last week and effective immediately without prior public notice, drawing the ire of its residents, the new rule only allows 100,000 new license plates a year, and the fortunate ‘few’ will be determined through auctions and lotteries. Located in southern Guangdong, the city has about 3.1 million registered private cars but only 1.04 million parking spaces, according to the city’s transport commission.
Is it just us or has 2014 been a very eventful year for the automotive world? From recall scandals to exhilarating new technology, we picked the top five news that have rocked the industry this past year.
You would think that the non-stop honking in major cities across India – the culprits being the thousands of rickshaws, public buses, car and motorbikes that clog the roads – would now have faded into background along with the rumbling of engines and the occasional mooing of cows; you would think it was like the score of a movie – always there, but no longer noticed. Not so. Drivers use the horn as often as the accelerator pedal and perhaps more than the brakes. Honking is done so extensively that foreign car manufacturers, like Audi and Volkswagen, actually fit their vehicles intended for the Indian market with stronger, more durable horns.