Hasta La Gadget!

A study done by the Dr. Michael Sivak, the director at the Sustainable Worldwide Transportation in the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), discovered that while fuel economy has improved greatly from 1970-2010, the improvement is greatly undercut due to the amount of people who drive more often and with less passengers in their cars. The study showed that the fuel economy for the entire fleet of light duty vehicles improved by 40%, from 13 mpg to 21.6 mpg, but the vehicle load (number of occupants) decreased from 1.9 persons per vehicle to about 1.38 persons.

Because of the decrease in carpooling, Sivak discovered that the fuel economy for the fleet of light duty vehicles has only increased by 17%. Sivak also discovered that people travel more often thanks to improved fuel economy in vehicles. This is due to the rebound effect. To determine the nominal reduction of fuel consumption for a vehicle, you have to take the % increase of fuel economy and subtract 10% due to the rebound effect. An example would be a 20% increase in fuel economy results in an 18% reduction of fuel consumption.

Sivak also notes that it takes a long time for changes in the fuel economy to apply to the entire fleet of light duty vehicles, so an 18% reduction in fuel consumption would only result in 1% reduction of fuel used by the entire fleet. This brought up a discussion between researchers about whether or not there should be an increase on fuel tax to reduce the amount of vehicular distance traveled.

Another way to improve the fuel economy is if people carpooled more often. The vehicle distance traveled has increased by 155% from 1970-2010. If the vehicle load is increased by 20%, from 1.38 persons per vehicle to 1.66 persons per vehicle, the distance traveled would decrease by 15%, and while there would be a 1% decrease in fuel economy (due to the heavy load), there would be a 14% decrease in fuel consumption.

The amount of fuel used between 1970-2010 has increased by 53%, from 303 billion liters to 463 billion liters. As vehicles become more fuel efficient, people want to drive more often. There’s also the inconvenience factor some see while carpooling. Like the LA Times put it, “People are driving alone because they still ‘want the convenience of driving by themselves. They are not eager to drive an extra mile to pick up a friend.’”

[via Green Car Congress]

People carpool less and drive more due to improved fuel economy is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Awwww yeah, those suckers at the TSA are going to let us take knives on planes again. Pocket knives are the best. Get one. Here are some suggestions—all plane-legal as of April 25th. More »

You may remember back in September when Google launched a new app called Field Trip for Android devices. The location-based discovery app is now available on iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch only). From the looks of it, there doesn’t appear to be any new features that have launched, but iOS will now be able to have their own little virtual tour guide in their pocket.

As with the Android version, the Field Trip app for iOS is free to download, and it works as a virtual tour guide of sorts, automatically providing you with information of a particular point of interest that you come across. It can be great if you’re traveling and doing a little bit of sightseeing in a historical city.

The information that the app provides ranges from historical facts about a location to reviews of nearby restaurants. And similar to Google Now, Field Trip relies on your location to give you the most relevant and useful information. Essentially, you could think of that app as a sort of extension of Google Now, only it feeds you information automatically instead of having to ask for it first.

It’s not unusual for Google to wait a few months before releasing an app on iOS. Obviously, Android is Google’s baby, so the company usually releases new apps on their own platform before bringing them over to Android, contrary to what most app developers have been doing. Either way, Field Trip is now available on both platforms and is ready for your traveling needs.

Google’s Field Trip app now available on iOS is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google Glass is just a couple months away from being shipped to developers, and Google is hoping to have them available to the public sometime before the year’s end. In the meantime, people are pondering the implications of the new technology and are coming up with all the ways that Google Glass could be used, including JetBlue, which has come with their own concept for how the glasses could be used for air traveling.

On its Google+ page, JetBlue posted up a few concept images of what traveling could look like through Google Glass, with the caption, “we would continue to help the world view air travel through a whole new lens.” With Google Glass, you could check the status of your flight, get directions to baggage claim, look up taxi fare estimates, and even see where a good place to park would be.

Of course, $1,500 is quite a bit of money, and while a wearable computer like Google Glass could be worth every penny, most consumers won’t want to pay that kind of cash, especially when their handy-dandy smartphone can do the same kinds of functions. Then again, it seems Google Glass is all about the convenience factor and not having to carry around a smartphone at all.

Either way, JetBlue’s concept is actually really stellar, and it makes us want to get a pair for ourselves to make traveling easier. The airline’s Google Glass concept is a part of Google’s own marketing campaign that asks users to tweet or post the hashtag #ifihadglass and explain what they would use Google Glass for.

[via Business Insider]

JetBlue shows off Google Glass concept in airports is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

China’s Qoros Auto Co. Ltd is looking to make its first impression a lasting one. The luxurious and innovative Qoros 3 sedan, set to snare the limelight at the upcoming 83rd Geneva International Motor Show, spearheads the Chinese-Israeli company’s charge to global automotive success.