Cars

At the 2012 New York International Auto Show, a healthier industry moved beyond the trauma of the last several years, rolling out an assortment of new production vehicles, concept cars, and even one flying car. Here are some highlights.

So this video was uploaded on April 1st (*danger! danger!*) but we've known of the Pal-V for a few years and we'll assume for the moment that the Dutch company was not aware of the risk in uploading a video of a flying car on April Fool's Day. The Pal-V, which stands for Personal Air and Land Vehicle, is actually more of a driving autogyro than a flying car, but it can drive like a car, and it can also fly, so we are definitively on board.

Google Maps is bringing traffic estimates back to its estimated travel time feature, and this time it’s relying on realtime data obtained from third party reports and drivers voluntarily running Google’s “My Location” feature on their Android phones. The reboot hopes to stifle user frustration with the old traffic estimate feature and, hopefully, to make Google Maps a more accurate predictor of transit times in urban areas around the globe.

Future self-driving cars could make traffic smoother and safer, among plenty of other potential benefits, but one thing you don’t hear much about — and should — is their utility for people with physical limitations. For example, Steve Mahan, who has lost 95 percent of his vision. He becomes Google Autonomous Car Driver #1 in the video past the jump.

GPS devices are great, but sometimes I want to throw mine out the window. There’s something so obnoxious about the Garmin voice, especially when you disregard its navigation choice and it tells you it’s “reCALCulating” in that disapproving tone. A new haptic steering wheel concept would be so much friendlier! Instead of smarmy commentary, the wheel simply vibrates to tell you which way to turn.

Before Electric Blue sped across Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats at 175 miles an hour late last year, no one had made an official attempt to set a speed record for battery-powered racecars weighing less than 1,100 pounds. Other groups have been racing on the Salt Flats for years in electric cars with heavier batteries and larger motors. But Perry Carter, a professor of manufacturing engineering technology at Brigham Young University, wanted a car that could hit high speeds without so much weight. See how this record-breaking electric car works over here.

Carmakers are responding to high oil prices and strict fuel-economy standards by replacing large gasoline engines with smaller, more-efficient ones. And frequently, they are using turbochargers to make the switch without sacrificing power. The problems with turbochargers have typically been high cost, mechanical complexity, and a delay in power delivery called “turbo lag.” Using two turbochargers reduces turbo lag but further increases complexity and cost. Twin-scroll turbochargers solve all of these problems. Long found only in pricey sports cars, twin-scroll turbos, which mimic the effect of a pair of turbochargers, are now appearing in less-exotic cars, such as the 2012 BMW 3-series. The new TwinPower four-cylinder produces just as much power as the six-cylinder it replaces while using 15 percent less fuel. Nearly every other carmaker is working on similar downsized, turbocharged engines. See how the turbocharger works here.

Early this year, when it became clear that the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf had missed their 2011 sales targets, critics declared the electric-car revolution over. Yet at Detroit’s annual North American International Auto Show in January, plug-in cars abounded.

The ActiveE is BMW’s all-new electric vehicle, designed as a ‘beta’ version of the forthcoming i3. Based on the swell little 1 Series Coupe, the Active E uses similar drive train and battery technologies as the i3, but in a less future-luxe package.

BMW says the Active E represents the second part of their three-phase electric vehicle development plan, which will culminate in the series production of the BMW i3 electric vehicle sometime in 2013.

Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster on Earth, drops its passengers a life-flashing 418 feet. Ferrari World’s Formula Rossa, the fastest, literally takes riders’ breath away at speeds of up to 150 mph. Though thrilling, these are phenomena of degree, not kind. BRC Imagination Arts, a Southern California design firm, has proposed something entirely new: a ride that creates the sensation of zero gravity for up to eight seconds at a time.