Cars

Flying race car narrowly avoids decapitating another pilot

The best part about the video—other than that ridiculously close call of the flying race car launching right pass the driver—is how the driver who almost got crashed into, calmly fixes his side view mirror and keeps driving. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Why Tesla’s Model 3 Could Be the Most Important Electric Car Ever

Tesla’s next electric car officially has a name: The Model 3. It seems like an all-around average sedan, no crazy up-swinging falcon doors or other outlandishness. Even the $35,000 price is pedestrian. It’s also what could make it as important to automotive history as the Model T. To understand why that price tag is such…

Here’s how the wheels of the supersonic car are made

When you’re trying to build the fastest car in human history, like the guys making the Bloodhound SSC, you have to make wheels that basically re-invent the wheel. To reach 1000mph and go supersonic, the wheels they’re using weigh over 230 pounds, nearly 3 feet wide and spin four times faster than a F1 car.…

In 1893, 2.5 million pounds of horse manure filled NYC streets per day

Think New York summers are pungent now? Imagine what it must’ve smelled like at the turn of the 20th century. Before the introduction of the automobile, horses were leaving about 2.5 million pounds of shit in the streets per day. From the book The Big Roads by Earl Swift: Crossing a street could be an…

This Green Monster Was Once the Fastest Car on Earth

The Green Monster isn’t just a wall in Boston. That title was also once carried by a series of land speed record-breaking jet cars. For a few glorious years in the mid-1960s, these vehicles showed the world what six wheels and the engine from an F-104 Starfighter could do. The early 60s were an exciting…

I Rode Shotgun in a Rally Race By Strapping a Phone To My Face

Google Cardboard and its ilk are proving that virtual reality isn’t just the realm of the Oculus Rift; you can do wonders with not much more than a phone and a couple of lenses. I saw some proof of that this morning, when I rode shotgun in a motorsports rally by strapping a phone to…

About 40% of American-made cars in 1900 were steam-powered

Thanks to recent documentaries and news stories, many Americans have woken up to the fact that electric cars aren’t such a new idea. What’s gotten less attention is that steam-powered cars were actually quite popular at the turn of the 20th century as well. From Pacific Standard: The steam-powered automobile may seem like a bit…

The Weird Pattern On this Girl’s Eyeball Is From an Airbag

Airbags certainly do save lives, but getting hit in the face at 200 mph—even by a bag of air—is not without its consequences. A teenage girl in Michigan got a real eyeful when an inflating airbag actually left its mesh pattern on the surface of her eye. In this case, the airbag inflated so fast…

This Weird Morphing Skin Could Make Future Vehicles Super Aerodynamic

This strangely alive-looking blob isn’t a prop from a sci-fi movie. It’s a smorph, a morphing material that could make the cars, trains and airplanes of tomorrow extremely aerodynamic, using the same trick that helps golf balls fly faster and straighter. At low speeds, a golf ball’s dimpled, irregular surface cuts its aerodynamic drag in…

Using the Oculus Rift to Find Your Next Car

Going to a car dealership is notoriously fraught with anxiety. In addition to some guy in a plaid jacket trying to upsell you on hubcaps, you never know if they’re going to have the exact car you’re looking for, with the right options, in the right color. How do you know if it’s what you…

The Race to Save Your Car’s Dashboard

Earlier this week, Google showed off Android Auto, a dashboard navigation and entertainment system powered by an Android smartphone. It’s almost identical in concept to competing designs from Apple and Microsoft. For perhaps the first time, these companies have a unified vision for the future of in-car electronics. And that’s the best news car buyers…

Hyundai Is Working on a Car That Slows Down When It Sees Speed Cameras

God knows we should all be driving slower, but we’re only human. Even the threat of a fine can’t stop us. So to counteract this self-destructive streak of ours, Hyundai is working on car that automatically slows itself down in the face of speed cameras. A Hyundai spokesman offered some insight into this awesome little…

Android Auto Hands-On: An Automotive Life-Saver for Android Users

We human-type beings suck at using our mobile devices while driving and we frequently kill and/or dismember ourselves in an attempt to pull off that stupid stunt. To try to keep Android users alive to buy more Android products, Google today unveiled Android Auto. We just got to play with it a bit, and we…

This Aluminum Car Was Built To Run On Abandoned Railways

Nearly 5,000 miles of abandoned railways criss-cross the the landscape in Mexico and Ecuador, left dormant for decades after privatization of the national system suspended passenger service in 1995. Two Guadalajara-born artists wanted to travel the paths of these “modern ruins,” so together they designed what just might be the coolest hybrid of all time.…

Rumor has it Google will unveil a new in-car Android interface at I/O next week. Dubbed Google Auto Link, the setup would let drivers control their Android phones via the car’s built-in controls and display screen, not unlike Apple’s CarPlay. [Auto News]

January 2000: Truck concept vehicle from Ford called “The 24.7” featuring technologies like internet, hands-free mobile phone, real-time route assistance, weather reports and stock read-outs. [Getty Images]

Peer Into the Cockpit of a 1,000 MPH Car

When you’re behind the wheel of a the car designed to hit 1,000 mph, you want the dash to be well appointed. Fortunately, looking at the newly finished cockpit of Bloodhound SSC reveals that it’s fully loaded with tech. As well as the rather essential speedometer, the car’s future driver Andy Green says one of…

This is how a 3,000-car race would look like if the Earth were the Moon

Professional video maker Rickard Rick produces renderings of games in his spare time and this 3,000 car race-cum-epic-pile-up is one of his best. The physics are a bit crazy, as if the Earth had the Moon’s gravity, but the results have a dream like quality that makes it fun and hypnotic to watch. SPLOID is…

Two lowriders fight each other in the most ridiculous bouncing battle

Here’s all the proof you need that America is a wonderful land where any dream can come true: a place exists in Texas where two lowriders bounce up and down and ridiculously fight each other. I mean, this is better than BattleBots.

Elon Musk Wants To Make A Flying Car

“Maybe we’ll make a flying car, just for fun,” Elon Musk told The Independent yesterday. Explaining that he’d “thought about it quite a lot,” the only thing stopping him appears to be every single thing that’s kept the flying car from becoming a mainstream reality in the past 100 years. “We could definitely make a…