When I first wrote about cars powered by compressed air in 2008, I thought that the world had jumped back 100 years ago. Then, like now, companies were coming up with ideas to try and sell machines and many of the ideas being developed today were in existence a century ago but the underlying technology wasn’t there to make it cost effective to produce or viable to sell. The … [Read more...]
Samsung Electronics Buys Harman
Samsung Electronics has bought Harman who make visual screen and navigation systems for cars. The deal was worth $8bn and was announced last November. Why? The answer lies in this quote from an Apple executive: "The car is the ultimate mobile device". Despite Apple and Samsung being firm competitors, this quote rings true in this case. Harman, based in Connecticut, makes … [Read more...]
Ground Effect
Over the last few months as I have described the history of vehicle manufacturing you will have noticed the close relationship between cars and aircraft – primarily because both industries were born around the same time and used similar components or materials. It was common for aircraft component manufacturers to re-use the technology for automotive use. Air-craft Ground … [Read more...]
Battery Development – Graphene
Some weeks ago, I wrote an article about Lithium Sulphur battery development. Now I have read another article (in the Economist magazine) about a new idea to improve battery power and charging times. I am always fascinated with the way humans can build on a technology. I remember watching a TV programme about the evolution of the steam locomotive and how people worked on the … [Read more...]
The New Australian Car
Following on from an earlier post about the Chief Designer at Hyundai saying that within three years, Australians would be buying an “Australian” Hyundai - and that it would be a big seller, I discussed the notion that an indigenous car could only be that if it was designed and built locally. Then along comes another story - about a true Australian car! Let’s recap the current … [Read more...]
