A prototype flying car has completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked Read more about Flying car completes test flight between airports[…]

It’s only fitting that Sabine is paid tribute at the track itself, after her much-too-young death back in March, following a fight with cancer. Turn 1 of the Nordschleife has been renamed, becoming Sabine Schmitz Kurve, to honor her at the start of every lap taken at a circuit that is, without doubt, hers. Porsche Read more about Turn One of the Nurburgring Nordschleife Named for Sabine Schmitz[…]

Hypercars with $3 million price tags aren’t usually synonymous with environmental sustainability. Christian von Koenigsegg, founder and chief executive of Koenigsegg Automotive, wants to change that. The Ängelholm, Sweden-based company is experimenting with ultra-high-voltage battery packs and biofuels using emissions from volcanoes to build environmentally “benign” and potentially even carbon-neutral cars, without sacrificing performance. […] Read more about Koenigsegg, the Maker of $3 Million Supercars, Experiments With Volcano Fuel – Bloomberg[…]

Southern California–based Hyperion Companies, Inc., and its Hyperion Motors division, is banking on cutting-edge, space-grade hydrogen fuel-cell technology to help consumers embrace the electric car market with much more vigor. Hyperion’s first salvo in the battle against combustion is the XP-1 prototype—a futuristic supercar with a claimed 1,016-mile range and the ability to haul to Read more about Hyperion’s New Hydrogen-Powered XP-1 Supercar Has 1000 Miles of Range, recharges in 5 minutes, 0-60mpg in 3 seconds[…]

An incredibly light new material that can reduce aircraft engine noise and improve passenger comfort has been developed at the University of Bath. The graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol aerogel weighs just 2.1kg per cubic metre, making it the lightest sound insulation ever manufactured. It could be used as insulation within aircraft engines to reduce noise by Read more about Meringue-like material could make aircraft as quiet as a hairdryer[…]

The Flaris LAR-01 has a number of striking stats, including being a ton lighter (literally) than its competitors, along with an unusually short-field landing capability, and detachable wings. But its most impressive number is the 250-knot true air speed, […] Garmin G600 avionics and Flaris Flight Assistance System flight computer, as well as the landing Read more about Flaris’s New LAR-01 May Be World’s Fastest Single-Engine Business Jet, can land on grass fields – at only $1.5m[…]

A court in Norway has found Tesla guilty after it was sued by owners who complained of reduced battery capacities and charging speeds. It has been ordered to pay 136,000 kroner ($16,000) each to buyers of certain Model S owners, a judgement that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Nettavisen Read more about Norway fines Tesla for reducing battery capacities and charging speeds[…]

After ten years of toiling, the team has demonstrated in a paper published on Thursday in the journal Optica the development of a laser with record-breaking intensity over 10²³ watts per square centimeter. Nam told Motherboard in an email that you can compare the intensity of this laser beam to the combined power of  all Read more about Scientists Create Record-Breaking Laser With Power of all sunlight reaching earth focussed on a tiny spot[…]

Stratolaunch, the aerospace company founded by the late Seattle billionaire Paul Allen, put the world’s biggest airplane through its second flight test today, two years after the first flight. “We are airborne!” Stratolaunch reported in a tweet. Today’s takeoff from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port at 7:28 a.m. PT marked the first time the Read more about Stratolaunch sends world’s biggest airplane on second test flight[…]

New York (CNN Business)A computer chip shortage has shut down the Louisville, Kentucky, Ford plant this week, the latest shutdown because of an industry-wide problem that is expected to spread to many other auto plants in the coming months.The Louisville plant employs 3,800 hourly workers, who will receive about 75% of their normal pay during Read more about GM, Ford, Tesla, Nio, Nissan, Toyota, VW, Subaru, Fiat – electric car companies shutdown due to global chip shortage[…]

his week, Tesla finally gave in to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s request to recall its Model S sedans and Model X SUVs over flash memory failures that will cause the cars’ signature 17-inch portrait-oriented central touchscreens to fail after a certain length of time—but not without pushback on the very definition of the Read more about Tesla Claims Failing Touchscreens in 135000 car NHTSA Recall Were Only Meant to Last 5-6 Years Anyway[…]

Boeing Co. will pay $2.5 billion to resolve a Justice Department criminal investigation and admit employees deceived aviation regulators about safety issues that led to two deadly crashes of the 737 MAX, authorities said. The settlement, which was filed Thursday in Dallas federal court, would lift a legal cloud that has hung over the aerospace Read more about Boeing Reaches $2.5 Billion Settlement of U.S. Probe Into 737 MAX Crashes, has to admit a lot of wrongdoing[…]

t’s no secret that Tesla tends to ship cars to customers with questionable fit and finish. Sometimes components don’t fit the way they should, so fake wood from Home Depot is used to ensure they do. Other times, glass roofs simply detach while driving down the highway. This time, however, it’s not a random Facebook Read more about These Repair Bulletins for Tesla’s Quality Problems Are Downright Embarrassing—and Serious[…]

When passengers board airliners, they expect everything to be sorted with the aircraft. Decades of safety innovations and regulations have made flying the safest form of travel. But as revealed in an explosive report by the Los Angeles Times, planes are filling up with toxic fumes, injuring crew and passengers alike, while the Federal Aviation Read more about Toxic Fumes On Planes Are Knocking Out Pilots And Making Passengers Sick – Manufacturers, regulators refuse to do anything[…]

An absolute legend

Fully driverless robotaxis are now a practical reality on Chinese roads. AutoX has become the first company to put a fleet of the completely driver-free vehicles on the country’s streets, with the cars now roaming Shenzhen. They’re not yet available to the public, a spokesperson told TechCrunch, but it’s still a significant move. AutoX claims Read more about China’s first fully driverless robotaxis hit the streets of Shenzhen[…]

Is one of Tesla’s infotainment systems defective by design? That’s a question the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hopes to answer. It has started an engineering analysis after hundreds of customer complaints of bricked systems resulted in a preliminary investigation in June. NHTSA thinks it knows what the problem is: an 8GB eMMC NAND flash Read more about After 12,523 replacements, Feds investigate Tesla Media Control Unit failures[…]

Worn-out NAND memory chips can cause a whole host of problems with some Tesla cars, ranging from the failure of the rearview camera to an absence of turn signal chimes and other audio alerts, a watchdog warned this month. Some 159,000 Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles built between 2012 and 2018 are at Read more about Worn-out NAND flash blamed for Tesla vehicle gremlins, such as rearview cam failures and silenced audio alerts[…]

Flying is a highly controversial topic in climate debates. There are a few reasons for this. The first is the disconnect between its role in our personal and collective carbon emissions. Air travel dominates frequent travellers’ individual contributions to climate change. Yet aviation overall accounts for only 2.5% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This Read more about Climate change and flying: what share of global CO2 emissions come from aviation?[…]

The “Baby Boom” is finally here. After six years of development, Boom Supersonic is unveiling its XB-1 demonstrator. The craft is the company’s first supersonic plane, designed to prove the technology ahead of a full-size airliner, Overture. […] As we reported on back in August, Boom is looking to build the first supersonic civilian airliner Read more about Boom unveils the XB-1, supersonic testbed for Overture, supersonic airliner[…]

Amazon received federal approval to operate its fleet of Prime Air delivery drones, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday, a milestone that allows the company to expand unmanned package delivery. The approval will give Amazon broad privileges to “safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers,” the agency said. The certification comes under Part 135 of FAA Read more about Amazon Prime Air drone delivery fleet gets FAA approval[…]

We propose a prototype design of a propulsion thruster that utilizes air plasma induced by microwave ionization. Such a jet engine simply uses only air and electricity to produce high temperature and pressurized plasma for jet propulsion. We used a home-made device to measure the lifting force and jet pressure at various settings of microwave Read more about Jet propulsion by microwave air plasma in the atmosphere: AIP Advances: Vol 10, No 5[…]

The Air Force recently proved through a series of tests that its KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft can fly more efficiently just by mounting the cockpit window’s wiper blades vertically instead of horizontally. The potential fuel cost savings: about $7 million per year. Researchers with the Advanced Power and Technology Office, part of the Air Force Research Read more about Air Force Announces it Can Save $7 Million by Adjusting One Plane’s Windshield Wipers[…]