automobiles

This Car Runs on Coffee, in the Name of Science

Popular Science - March 9, 2010 - 9:20am

Readers feeling jittery on their second or third cuppa might giggle at the concept of the Carpuccino, but few car owners will. The wacky UK invention comes in the form of a converted 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco that downs about 56 espressos per mile, the Daily Mail reports. That should only cost about 25 to 50 times the cost of running a car on gas.

The concept came out of the BBC1 science program called "Bang Goes the Theory," and will go on a 210-mile drive between Manchester and London that consumes about 11,760 espressos. But coffee aficionados shouldn't scream just yet -- the fuel comes from waste coffee grounds provided by a branch of Costa Coffee. Read more »

Car Navigation Systems Could Show Available Parking Spots

Popular Science - February 9, 2010 - 8:17am

Looking for open parking spaces in the city is one of the more teeth-grinding rituals for drivers, but researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey may have hit upon a relatively low-cost solution. They combined ultrasonic sensors with GPS to create digital maps of available parking spaces for Web-based navigation systems, according to Technology Review.

As much as 45 percent of traffic in Manhattan comes from cars wearily circling the blocks and looking for parking spaces, according to a New York City transportation advocacy group called Transportation Alternatives. That problem has driven cities such as San Francisco to create "smart parking infrastructure" that detects vehicles in parking spots using fixed sensors -- a solution that costs $500 for installing and maintaining each sensor. Read more »