Tech Thursday: Smartphones in Cars

A recent Business Week article on smartphone apps in cars covers ground we at FIWK have already been over, but it's still interesting to consider.

Below is a CNet Car Tech video which covers another really interesting way for smartphones to communicate with cars - especially electric cars. Ford is displaying the ability for an app on your phone to set the charging parameters and features on your electric vehicle remotely (starting about halfway through the video):



This is a great integration of phone and car technology, right?

In a related story, the grill on the Ford Focus electric is one of the best examples of robot mouth in automobile history.

Tech Thursday: 214 MPG

We here at FIWK have been loosely following the green movement - from Aaron's quest for a new car (I'll be joining your search soon) to Royce's first foray into the Smart Grid - so I thought it wise to continue this look with Pop-Sci's DIY article on making your own MPG improvements. The headliner? Dutch designer Allert Jacobs' 214-MPG motorcycle (the Dutch sure are having a good week!). I love everything about this article.

Image Via Pop-Sci.

Quick Tech Thursday: Disappearing Car Door

This has a dubious connection to tech, but I thought it was pretty cool

Weekend Comedy 5/1

Taken from Aaron's epic comment on the car post

Car Design: The Whale Shark Mouth

I call this look the Whale Shark Mouth. I believe the photos tell the story. Starting several years ago, I've noticed that this design feature has been appearing in more cars every year.

Car Design: McLaren MP4-12C

In the spirit of our design blog friends Buzz Beast and Smile Like You Mean It, here is a quick look at the newly announced McLaren MP4-12C supercar.

BW: BMW Links Exec Pay to Line Workers

This BusinessWeek article is very light on details, but I find BMW's concept of creating a consistent compensation policy among all levels of its workforce interesting. Personally I think the most logical scenario for any bonus or salary increase is for it to be tied to overall company performance. Hopefully that's what BMW is doing for all its employees - not tied to stock price, mind you, but another, truer measure of the company's health. Do you think other companies might emulate BMW's compensation policy?

Frankfurt Auto Show Highlights

Business Week put up some good slideshows of the Frankfurt Auto Show highlights in addition to the coolest concept cars on display both there and via production photos. The Frankfurt, Germany show seemed to have a lot of carmakers showing off electric cars, a topic we've covered, as well as variants of production-minded green cars. These green cars are interesting to me because they appear to satisfy my wish for cooler eco-friendly cars that add economy to good car design.

Smart Management: Chrysler and Starbucks

Two recent Business Week articles showed different approaches of companies managing in the economic downturn. The first is from Chrysler and its new CEO Sergio Marchionne of Fiat; Marchionne is moving quickly to increase competitiveness at Chrysler and is aggressively changing the management there. The second example is that of Howard Schultz re-taking his place as Starbucks CEO after vacating the position from the company he founded; he is looking for more efficiency within the company and opening the company to new ideas.

Electric Car MPG

There is an interesting article in Business Week about the difficulty of measuring MPG of electric cars and other green cars like the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt and all electric Nissan Leaf

Civic emissions comparisons

Continuing our hybrid car discussion and using the Honda Civic as the key example, here is a comparison of emissions between styles.

Since there is no good way to link to these results, posted below are the results of the EPA Green Vehicle Guide's comparison of the 5-spd automatic Honda Civic, the Honda Civic hybrid, and the Toyota Prius.

Green Car Analysis - Honda Civic edition

After our last comments discussion of the green car market, I want to present a comparison of hybrid vs. non-hybrid vehicles using the Honda Civic as an example.

The "Green" Car Market

I am in the market for a new car in the next year or two. I want a cool, good-looking car, like an Audi A5, but I also want something that blends coolness with environmental consciousness, like the Tesla Model S. Neither of those are at a reasonable price point for me, so I've been browsing greencar.com to find a more practical "green" car.