Technology Reviews

Bosch engineers achieved these results by refining existing technologies. There is no need for additional components, which would drive up costs.

Ford has patented a car model, which has an in-built two-wheeler that can break away from the car itself. But will ever see the light of the day? We can only hope.

About a year ago, Mahindra Electric and app-based taxi service provider Ola tied up in the Central Indian city of Nagpur to provide clean mobility point to point solutions. Amongst the electric cars, the four door Mahindra e2o Plus was put into service as a taxi and despite some initial teething issues, mainly due to range, have done rather well. 100 electric cars were put into service and according to tweet put out by Mahesh Babu, Chief Executive Officer of Mahindra Electric, these cabs have already covered 25 lakh kms in under a year. While naturally aspirated petrol or diesel cars regularly cover extensive distances, a fleet of electric cars covering such a high distance average is actually quite the rarity.

The inclusion of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay has pretty much made infotainment systems standardised across different cars, as more and more users choose to pair their smartphones for easy accessibility. However, Toyota Motor Corporation has categorically refrained from offering Android Auto connectivity across its vehicles across multiple brands including Toyota and Lexus, despite the massive popularity.

A few months ago, we brought you the first and exclusive news on how Pininfarina would go from being primarily a design house to also being a standalone automaker to take on the likes of other electric automakers like Tesla.Last week, the now Mahindra owned Pininfarina madeits long awaited debut as an automaker - Automobili Pininfarina and now here are a few sketches that showcase what its first car, the PF-Zero will look like. The first car will be launched in 2020 and will be an electric hypercar making almost 2000 bhp of peak power with a 0-100 kmph time of under 2 seconds, a 0-300 kmph time of about 12 seconds and a top speed of just over 400 kmph! The electric hypercar will cost about 2 Million Euros and will have a very limited production run with very high levels of customisation. The car will be showcased at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concourse for the first time and will most likely be displayed in the new Automobili Pininfarina blue and red theme.

Volkswagen says that this technology could be available in production cars from as early as 2020, which is barely two years from now.

BMW has opened a new technology campus near Munich, Germany which will be a facility for development and innovation in autonomous driving technology.

A few weeks ago we brought to you an exclusive review of the Mahindra Genze electric scooter all the way from San Francisco. The Genze scooter is purpose built to be a workhorse with just one seat and a loading bay at the rear which gives it an immediate distinction as compared to the other two wheelers available in the segment. We knew Mahindra was testing the Genze scooters in India for reliability trials and now, one such prototype has been spied doing the test rounds. Although India is being used as a test bed for the electric scooter, it is however unlikely that it will get launched here anytime soon primarily due to price and segmentation reasons.