Car FYI

Photo Credit: Royal Dutch Shell plc  There is always something to learn in this world. With every decade, the automobile has been both a product of our lessons and sometimes a teacher for what we personally expect from transportation. In 2016, the study into maximizing the amount of distance we can travel on a tank of gasoline continues to encourage revelations in life's classroom. This weekend between April 22nd and April 24th, Detroit operates as a school lab for young, technical explorers to test the lengths that could be travelled while expelling the least amount of energy. A total of 128 teams made up of over 1,000 students have arrived in Detroit, Michigan this weekend to maximize the efficiency of a modern self-propelled vehicle. Small gasoline and diesel engines, battery-powered electric motors, as well as vehicles utilizing compressed natural gas, ethanol and hydrogen will be tested in the 10th annual Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Coinciding with Earth day weekend, t...

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy On Wednesday, April 20th, Transport Canada has informed the public as well as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of a safety issue the organization has identified on certain Dodge and Chrysler vehicles. The issue affecting Chrysler 200, Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Avenger and Dodge Journey manufactured collectively between 2007 and 2016 relates to a power steering return hose. An investigation in response to over 100 consumer complaints by Transport Canada uncovered there is a potential the hose can fail causing the loss of power steering as well as a risk of fire. Chrysler Sebring/200 and Dodge Avenger vehicles related to the investigation were produced from 2007 to the 2013 model year. Affected Dodge Journey crossover vehicles have been produced since 2009 spanning up to the current 2016 models. The information provided by Transport Canada on the vehicles of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles are part of a new tool in the arsenal of the government safety and regulatory bo...

Photo Credit: Renault With an electrified future of automobiles depending upon the quick reaction of current car builders, there seems to be some credence to believe a window of opportunity could exist for smaller start-up operations becoming a major player. The leading supporting argument to a newcomer company unbound by its past internal combustion vehicle development hitting it big is Tesla Motors. While Canada's immediate future doesn't consist of a home-grown, mass-produced Ludicrous Mode-infused electric car, AZRA Canada does look to launch a smaller-scale Tesla Motors-style business from Quebec. The electric vehicle strategy for AZRA Canada revolves around a two-prong attack. The first component to AZRA Canada's business is supplying an electric vehicle to the marketplace. Passing through a major regulatory stage last month, AZRA Canada's all-electric product, the Renault Twizy, cleared the approval step with Transport Canada. The Twizy set to roam on Ca...

Bret Kelley/IMS for Chevrolet The 100th edition of the Indianapolis 500 set in little more than a month from now is already taking shape with the announcement of the ceremonial pace car drive. A person well-known for celebrating in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's victory lane is presented with a special duty of starting the 500-mile classic. Set to take the wheel of the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro SS pace car is IndyCar superstar team owner Roger Penske. Despite never competing at the Brickyard as a driver (what was a relatively short but noteworthy career behind the wheel), Roger Penske's name is attached to some of the most significant records at the speedway. Impressively the winning car owner for 16 of the previous 99 runnings of the Indianapolis 500, the first victory for a Penske-owned car was in 1972 driven by Mark Donohue. The 16 wins for the car owner have come with 11 drivers including Rick Mears, Al Unser and Al Unser Jr as well as Emerson Fittipaldi. Penske is th...

In recent months, an app that has received a fair bit of usage through my limited free time is Real Racing 3. An amusing race game experience for a tablet or smartphone, the game has provided some wonderfully rendered digital representations of popular race tracks and automobiles. The list of race cars available on the app currently amounts to 146 spanning the gamut of classes and categories. Real Racing 3's gaming action is also an ever-expanding virtual world. During Daytona Speedweeks, an expanded collection of NASCAR experiences were added to the game. Real Racing 3 also provides a frequent assortment of limited-time challenges allowing users of opportunity to win game currency and even vehicles by accomplishing races on a scale. For April, a Generations Challenge had added a pair of BMWs to the Real Racing 3 platform. Representing an era where car manufacturers competed in auto racing with specially-prepped, limited-production factory vehicles, the BMW 3.0 CSL ha...

Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/NASCAR via Getty Images The Toyota Camrys prepared by Joe Gibbs Racing were the toast of Texas for much of the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday night. In a race where three of the four Joe Gibbs owned cars and the associated Furniture Row Racing #78 car led for all but 15 of 334 laps, the one who triumphed at the end only truly showed his hand late on the fast Fort Worth, Texas track. The 500-mile race at the Texas Motor Speedway started after a roughly two-hour delay. Leading the field to green, the Stanley-sponsored Toyota wheeled by Carl Edwards led 57 of the first 57 laps of the race. On lap 59, Edward’s main adversary for the night emerged in the form of the black #78 Toyota Camry. Martin Truex Jr started 3rd in the field and kept his Furniture Row Racing car in the top-5 for almost the entire race. Thanks to a long green flag running from lap 34 to 136 (totalling more than half the race’s scheduled distance), Truex Jr held the lead for an impre...

Photo Credit: Tesla Motors In 2003, major auto makers in the world were not even close to considering an electric car for the general market. As a matter of fact, that automotive era was marked as the time where a large group of the small publicly available electric car population was extinguished with General Motors repossessing and destroying their fleet of EV1s. It was this time where a small business called Tesla Motors was established. Launching first a roadster, the company ambitiously committed to a luxury sedan called the Tesla Model S. Critics ate crow as the car became a runaway success for the electric car revolution. As Tesla Motors most recently attracted fanfare with the delayed but still highly-desired Model X electric crossover, the popularly of the car company became immediately apparent. how the cultural icon could serve the world well with a high-volume production vehicle. On the late day of March, the official first presentation of Tesla Model 3 gave us the vis...