The Future of Cars #2

A network of talking vehicles. 

Now days, electronics talking to each other isn't an uncommon occurrence. The bluetooth speaker telling your smartphone it's running out of battery or your car warming itself up with a push of a button on your smartphone app. It's not much longer until your car will be communicating with all the other cars on the highway on your way to work and home. 

This means that cars will be able to share traffic conditions as well as the weather and road blocks. The speed and direction of your car will also be shared with other vehicles on the road, warning others about potential hazards. This is called vehicle-to-vehicle communication, also known as, V2V. 

Prototypes have already been tested on about 3,000 cars and trucks. These devices send a short range safety signal to other vehicles to find potential accidents. The cars will send a "beep" to other cars when they detect danger, such as when another car enters a intersection, a pedestrian walks by, or another driver is driving way to fast. 

The research team behind this believes that this could get rid of almost 80% of all car wrecks on the road today. It's only a matter of time before this V2V technology is equipped on all vehicles.

3-D Printing Innovation Making better Vehicles?

The technology for 3-D printing only gets better, and with the latest news from Frontier Additive Manufacturing it could make vehicles more advanced and efficient. 

Eric Lynch, president and co-founder of Frontier Additive Manufacturing commented, "We are commercializing a multiple-laser method to create products at the micro-structural level that exceeds current 3-D printing capabilities' structural integrity with the ability to adjust material properties in the original location of the part. These are replacement or new products that could easily replace new or worn parts in manufacturing machinery, automotive or aerospace engines. The technology is developing quickly, and we are already successfully engaged with the medical implant industry. We also are in discussions with the automotive, aerospace and oil and gas industries."


The older 3-D printing methods could only hold about 60-70% of the original parts, which could obviously create problems down the road. Although Eric Lynch and his company are finding solutions to go above and beyond what was previously thought possible. The company's work is also decreasing the time needed to make such products significantly. Lynch claims that they'll be able to manufacture parts in an all in one center, cutting down on certain processes that were previously needed and focus the work on a single part. 

This has the potential to help the auto industry produce stronger, lighter, more advanced parts faster than ever before. 

Future Auto Ideas

#1 Air Propulsion

In the LA Auto Show Design Challenge, Cadillac advances their EV and efficiency efforts with the idea of air propulsion. It has an incredible range of 1,000 miles on compressed air before refueling. To bad it's not expected to be here anytime before 2030. 


#2 In-wheel Magnetic Drive System

It's a mouth full, but i'll cut down the weight and moving parts that are needed making the car that much better. The wheels have hub-less motors that are exclusively patented by Nissan technology. This kind of tech could be out in another 15 years. 

#3 (Finally) Oxygen Emissions 

One extremely awesome future vehicle tech model is the Mercedes Biome. This car of the future doesn't produce those hateful emissions. Instead, it spews back oxygen into our air. It was a compelling concept at the LA Auto Show. Although, it's not expected to be an option until 2050.  

Volkswagen Hybrid Gets 260 MPG

Sleek, smooth, with a style that fits right into Back to the Future.  If you're lucky enough to get your hands on 1 of the 1,000 vehicles produced during 2014, you can get 260 mpg in this Volkswagen XL1.

The XL1 uses a plug-in hybrid system to get the outstanding amount of effieciency. It's also worth mentioning that this vehicle is incredibly light on its feet, weighing just 1,750 pounds, which is half of the weight of an average car.



Many people were surprised to see this vehicle to actually go into production. Originally it was simply a concept car a few years ago, then it was publicly announced in the Geneva Motor Show.
Even though the car is only a two seater, a whole Mormon family can get to church costing only pennies, if they're willing to make four quick trips that is.

The "Egg Car"

Hyundai created a weird, egg shaped, concept car for people to roll around in. The "egg" (a.k.a. the E4U) fits one driver and will scoot them along at a causal walking speed.





What makes this car especially unique is that it uses a rotating semi-spherical piece instead of a wheel to move around. This looks much like the lower half of a sphere that's constantly spinning while on the move.





The driver stands on a platform that also allows the diver to steer by tilting the frame to where they want to go. There are two "legs" on the back of the device that helps with stability from side to side. Since you can never be to safe, rumor has it that there's a matching helmet along with the vehicle.