7/17/12 By Charles Murray, Senior Technical Editor for Design News If gas prices reached $5, $6, or even $7 a gallon, would you respond by purchasing a hybrid? How about an electric car? Some consumers are already contemplating their responses to those questions. And the news is that alternative fuel vehicles have apparently begun creeping into the mainstream consciousness. A

HARRISBURG, Penn.–It’s trite but true: companies (and people) who don’t adapt are doomed to (best-case) fail or (worst-case) die. But this is particularly challenging today when the voice of the customer’s customer (or some non-customer actor) is so much louder than ever. In more consumer electronics applications, social media communications trends drove handset design for several years; today it’s apps

By Naomi Price, Managing editor for content, Drive for Innovation I recently had a chance to pilot the Drive for Innovation Volt—a fun experience and an eye opener into the world of EVs. I’ll be the first to admit–and my children will loudly back me up—that the cars I drive are generally of the duller, purely utilitarian persuasion. Not the

ELKHART LAKE, Wisc.–As an engineer, Jay O’Connell (you might say) has a dream job. As chief technical director for the Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan BMW racing team, he puts his Cornell engineering degree to use making cars go really fast (and last) around race tracks in competitions that last four hours. His five-man engineering team works almost like any other engineering team, only

NOVI, Mich.–Since its invention, lighting has been as much about function as it has been about form. It's no different in automotive lighting. Remember the old three-headlight Dodge pick up trucks from the 1960s? Or was it Ford? Or both? I'll never forget the first time I saw it, on a remote mountain road at dusk when I was a

By Andre Weimerskirch and Kai Schramm for EE Times, Design 4/13/09 More and more devices in our modern world come with a multitude and variety of embedded systems. An obvious example of this trend are today's vehicles, which have several dozen electronic control units (ECUs) that control almost everything, such as air conditioning, electric windows, the engine, and the brake

By Scott Pennock, for EE Times, Design 9/28/09 Hands-free kits and in-vehicle hands-free systems have been around for many years. The technology for these systems isn't standing still, though; changes introduced by automotive OEMs, the network, as well as increasing customer expectations are driving many new innovations. For example, wideband technology being introduced in Europe allows for greater call fidelity, but

Time was when a state-of-the-art police squad car had a radio and cherry on top. Today, it’s a whole different ball game. Most squad cars are their own rolling command centers and have to handle not only navigation and multiple radio frequences, but also lights, sirens, and data systems designed to give police the quickest, most insightful information they can have.

By Joe Nocera, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times 06/25/11// The moment I realized that driving the new Chevrolet Volt was fundamentally a new experience was not when I first turned it on and went around the block. Yes, it was whisper-quiet, powered by its 16-kilowatt-hour, 400-pound battery, but it still felt like a “normal” automobile. And it wasn’t when