Tag Archives: Car

Credit: KleinVision A Chinese firm has acquired the technology behind a groundbreaking flying car originally developed and successfully test-flown in Europe, according to a report on the BBC. The AirCar, powered by a BMW engine using conventional fuel, made headlines in 2021 when it completed a 35-minute flight between two …

The electric air taxi business—spurred along for years by Uber’s Elevate initiative and also known as flying cars—is flying into a cloudy unknown: The murky pall of the Covid-19 pandemic and its related, brutal economic downturn. Given how plummeting revenues and homebound consumers have gut punched the established airline and …

This week, we talked to people trying to help stem the hurt of the Covid-19 pandemic—with mixed success. One company, Zipline, is using drones to help deliver virus testing supplies and personal protective equipment in Ghana. It has accelerated efforts to bring the approach to the US, though don’t expect …

Though the visions laid out by the developers of new electric vertical-lift aircraft have been fairly mundane so far—air taxis, cargo delivery—it was a matter of time before someone started sexing up those flying car fantasies. How soon before they appear in a Bond film? When will the military get …

Sometimes, it’s nice to see humans working with machines. This week, WIRED Transportation took you to Austin, where professional drone racers—yes, they exist!—raced against robot-directed ones on a complicated course. Sure, there was a winner in the end: the human racers. But Lockheed Martin, which sponsored the race, is hoping …

Hydrogen fuel cells have had a hard time making inroads as power sources for ground-based electric vehicles, but things are starting to look up for the zero emission propulsion tech. A new air taxi startup, Alaka’i Technologies, this week unveiled a liquid-hydrogen-powered, five-passenger electric aircraft that it claims will be …

Sometimes going back to the drawing board ain’t so bad. This week, Tesla shares took a much-needed hop as the company announced an effort to raise a small mountain of capital to keep the electric carmaker climbing. At first, the offering sat around $2.3 billion, but the company pushed it …

On the floor of the New York Auto Show this week, Genesis showed off its sweet little Mint concept, an electric two-seater with a very abbreviated sedan body. The Hyundai luxury arm does not, however, have any plans to put the adorable thing into production—perhaps because, as we learned this …

Allow me to get a bit philosophical here: History is only smooth in retrospect. Few earth-shaking shifts are inevitable. A few steps forward, some more back. Change only looks easy from a rocking chair. Which is all to say, it was a rocky week for electric vehicles, the motorized transports …

Thinking about the fantastic pie-in-the-sky future is always a fun exercise. I, too, want a self-driving car. But some weeks, it’s clear everyone needs to come down to earth. This was one of them. Tesla sued two other electric vehicle companies focusing on self-driving for trade secret theft, proving that …