Nissan today announced that it is recalling some 2.14 million cars
globally, due to a problem with the vehicles’ ignition relay, which may cause
engine stalls.
The recall affects cars in the
affected vehicles were produced in
Dates on the recalled cars range from 2003 to 2006. Affected models range
from compact vechicles to pickup trucks and luxury cars, including the March,
Cube, Note, Tiida, Titan, and Infiniti QX56.
26,000 people can’t be wrong, right? That’s the current tally of Leaf pre-orders that Nissan has collected from US and Japanese drivers excited by its all-electric hatchback. Yesterday, the car that’s built to plug into the same wall outlet as your toaster held its official pan-European launch party — with the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, and Portugal getting the first deliveries in early 2011 — and we were on site to grab a few closeup pictures and some precious time in the driver’s seat. American drivers should look out for a new set of keys in their mailbox this December, so there’s probably no better time than now to give them a preview of what they’re getting themselves into. Jump past the break for more on the Nissan Leaf.
Gallery: Nissan Leaf press images
Gallery: Nissan Leaf test drive
Continue reading Nissan Leaf launches in Europe, takes us for a drive
Nissan Leaf launches in Europe, takes us for a drive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If there’s one thing we’ve learned from years of toying with technology, it’s never to believe a manufacturer’s estimate regarding battery life, but it seems like the estimates Nissan provided for its Leaf electric car may not be too far off the mark. Though the vehicle obviously isn’t getting 367 miles to its non-existent gallon, PluginCars did manage to eke out a solid 116.1 miles in the car’s first anecdotal test, and all they had to do to go the distance was drive casually and slightly below the speed limit. “It wasn’t like I was driving like an obsessed hypermiler,” said the driver, who spent most of the trip with the A/C blasting. Nissan recently revised their range estimates for the Leaf to anywhere from 62 to 138 miles depending on speed and weather conditions, so 116.1 is a pretty solid run, but until those charging stations permeate the countryside, we’re still going to take the ol’ gas-guzzler on our road trips.
Nissan Leaf goes 116.1 miles in first anecdotal test, with the air conditioning on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The future of modern transportation awaits us. By 2012 we expect to have multiple proper, reasonable choices for fully electric vehicles, but check your calendar and you’ll see it’s still 2010, leaving us still waiting for cars like the Leaf and the Volt to make their proper appearances. Toyota would like to remind you that the Prius is still here, celebrating an amazing tenth year of availability in the US and teasing us with the upcoming plug-in model, offering a taste of EV with the practicality of a hybrid. We just spent three days with one and managed a quite impressive 91mpg average — no hypermiling required. Click on through for our detailed impressions of this five-door eco-warrior.
Gallery: Prius plug-in
Continue reading Toyota Prius PHEV preview: three days in plug-in paradise
Toyota Prius PHEV preview: three days in plug-in paradise originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Religion tolerance is a powerful force–so is the lure of fabulous prizes. A car dealer in New Jersey made controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones an offer he apparently couldn’t refuse. In a radio spot for his dealership, Brad Benson offered Jones a new car if he went back on his plans to burn a Quran on the anniversary of the September 11th attack.
After much protest, Jones eventually canceled his controversial protest, stating, “We will definitely not burn the Quran… Not today, not ever.”
And now he wants his car.
A representative for the church called a surprised Benson, asking after the vehicle. “They said unless I was doing false advertising, they would like to arrange to pick up the car,” Benson to the Associated Press. Benson chalked the whole thing up to a joke, asking Jones to fax a copy of his license.
It wasn’t a joke.
Jones, it seems, actually had some fairly noble plans for the 2011 Hyundai Accent. “We are not trying to profit from this. We are not keeping the car for ourselves,” the pastor said in an interview. Instead, he plans to donate to a charity benefiting abused Muslim women.
Jones will ultimately have to go to the South Brunswick dealership to pick up the $14,200 car–he’ll have to sign all of the appropriate paperwork first.
The French city of Toulouse is testing a system that displays available parking spots on drivers’ smartphones. The system can also tell when someone is illegally parked or hasn’t fed the parking meter.
“This technology comes from space travel,” says Patrick Givanovitch. “They were supposed to help find landing spots on Venus.” The French space agency CNES and Givanovitch’s Toulouse-based start-up company Lyberta helped develop the street-level sensors and refit both their hardware and software to map urban parking spaces. Over time, they plan to add data from global positioning systems as well.
“We know in real time where there is parking available in the city,” Givanovitch says. In addition to helping drivers find spaces and easing congestion, the hope is that city planners will be able to use the data to optimize traffic flows and parking arrangements throughout the city.
The sensors actually work by electromagnetism. They’re placed just below the street and connected in a network using ordinary coaxial cable. An occupied parking spot has a different magnetic profile than an empty one. If a garbage bin or service truck is parked in the space, they can sense that too.
Since they can detect the exact time a car parks and leaves in a space, the sensors can bust meter-cheaters as easily as overhead intersection cameras can detect cars running red lights. Just as the information that a spot is open can be relayed to a driver looking for a space, information that a car’s gone over its time limit can be relayed to the police.
Toulouse’s pilot program will eventually be expanded to cover the entire city; city planners in Paris and Los Angeles are also interested in implementing the technology.
Relief for Harried Drivers: The Parking Space that Finds You [Der Spiegel]
Image by Stefan Simons for Der Spiegel
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Self-driving cars are hardly new. We’ve seen dozens of automatic vehicles over the years, many of which have seen advances driven (so to speak) by various DARPA challenges. But now that Google’s involved — whoa! — the mainstream media is suddenly whipped into a frenzy of hyperbolic proclamations about the future. Still, it is fascinating stuff to watch. So click on through if you like having your tech salad tossed with a side of smarmy TV-news voiceover. Trust us, it’s delicious.
Continue reading Google’s driverless car drives interest in driverless cars (video)
Google’s driverless car drives interest in driverless cars (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
On Saturday, when I filed a story about Google’s driverless car, I emailed Google for more information, including pictures and perhaps even a ride. I received a response on Monday, well after Google gave The New York Times the backstory.
On Monday, I asked Google for more pictures, which they graciously provided. I also asked for a ridealong. I figured after covering technology for about fifteen years, I might be able to ask them an insightful question or two. Perhaps even test it a bit. Newp. I was told it wasn’t going to happen.
Fair enough – I can understand that liability might play a role. But no – they handed that one off to Becky Worley of Good Morning America. Sure, Worley has some cred as a security reporter for TechTV. But it won’t stop me from grumbling.
Google Computer-Driven Prius from Ben Tseitlin on Vimeo.
“[W]e have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves.” Hang on, what? It’s never a good sign when life imitates an early Stephen King novel… Those are the words of Sebastian Thrun, Google’s Distinguished Software Engineer, posted to the Official blog. The blogs of the rest of the world naturally responded with a collective, “wait–what?”
Google has, in fact, created a self-driving car–not only that, the company took it on a test drive down the coast of California, from its Mountain View campus to its office in Santa Monica. Then, naturally, they cruised the thing down Hollywood Boulevard. Word is that the car really wanted to check out the selection at Amoeba Records.
And this isn’t the first time Google has taken the car out into the wild. Past exertions have included Lombard Street (the world famous “crookedest street”), the Golden Gate, the Pacific Coast Highway, and the circumference of Lake Tahoe. The car has driven some 140,000 miles–with trained operators on-board, naturally.
The goal of the vehicle is “to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use,” according to the company. The cars (yes, cars plural) utilize video cameras, radar sensors, and lasers (that’s how you know it’s from the future) to spot other traffic. Built-in maps, meanwhile, help the vehicles navigate the road.
The car is in constant contact with Google’s data centers, which process all of the information gathered by the vehicles.
In all, Google seems confident of the potential of its crazy future car, “We’re also confident that self-driving cars will transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new ‘highway trains of tomorrow.’ ” Anyone else think that this is beginning to sound like an exhibit from the 1964 World’s Fair?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
