Technology
New Lightweight Steel Could Improve Cars' Fuel Efficiency
The material bests titanium alloys for its strength and ductility
Automobiles775 articles archived since 1845
Environment
Explaining Stagnation in the Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Market
Editor's Note: This is a guest post from Will Sierzchula, a researcher who analyzes factors which influence the development and adoption of alternative fuel vehicles.
Technology
Consumer Electronics in 2015: Building the Internet of Things
The 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas kicked off a year that promises to broaden the scope of Internet-connected gadgets and deliver new ways of interacting with smartphones, automobiles and other devices...
Technology
Book Review: The Powerhouse
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
Health
X-Rays at War, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: January 30, 1915 X-rays were used for medical operations within a couple of months after they were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen in late 1895...
Technology
3-D Printing Poised to Advance Cleaner Cars
The technology could help make more efficient cars, more cheaply
Technology
What's Next for the Automobile?
Forget alternative fuels: the next big change for cars lies in information technology and automation, which will lead to new designs and are the best hope for the widespread adoption of all-electric vehicles...
The Sciences
Science Far from Center Stage in Obama's State of the Union
President Barack Obama's sixth State of the Union address, his first before a Republican-led legislature, was studded this evening with references to science and technology amidst talk of middle class tax cuts, thawing U.S...
Technology
Gestures and Eye Movements Will Control Cars
Carmakers are working on ways to let drivers interact with their cars using presumably safer hand gestures and eye movement in addition to voice controls and touch screens. Larry Greenemeier reports
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Technology
Extreme Submarine, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: January 16, 1915 Before the First World War, Simon Lake designed and built some innovative submarines for the U.S.
Technology
The New Chevy Volt Is Impressively Unremarkable
Over the holidays, while visiting family in Southwest Missouri, where I grew up, I saw one of the oddest sights on local roadways since armadillos started showing up as road kill: multiple Chevrolet Volts...
Environment
Cheap Oil Means Raise the Gas T-Word
Low oil prices present an opportunity to come to grips with our crumbling infrastructure and the cost of climate change. David Biello reports
Space & Physics
Physics Week in Review: December 20, 2014
The Christmas holiday approacheth, and for those of a Maker bent, here’s how to Build A Sled For Slinging Snowballs — Winter Warfare Will Never Be the Same. If you’re more the craft-y sort, now you can deck the halls with Nobel physicists with this physics twist on the craft of cutting paper snowflakes...
Technology
How Lithium Ion Batteries Grounded the Dreamliner
Official report on Boeing 787 fires tells a cautionary tale about advanced batteries
Technology
First Airplane Flight Marks 111th Anniversary!
It was 111 years ago today that the world's first piloted, powered, controllable, heavier-than-air machine built and flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the air.
Climate Change
Who Eats Whom under the Arctic Sea Ice
San Francisco — Although polar bears and seals have become the poster children for vanishing sea ice in the Arctic, they have thrived for a long time.
Environment
Consumers Hold onto Cars Longer, Making Exhaust Dirtier
The average car age in the U.S. has jumped, keeping new emission control tech off the roads
The Sciences
Will R&D Ever Get the Tax Break It Deserves?
The innovation industry faces an uncertain future, as long as the United States R&D Tax Credit remains a Congressional roller coaster ride.
The Sciences
A Motorized Single-Wheel Car
Innovation and discovery as chronicled in past issues of Scientific American
The Sciences
Motor Vehicles, 1914 [Slide Show]
A look at the machines that moved us a century ago
