popular-mechanics

Sure, these days everyone wants to win the MPG race. But it wasn't that long ago (yesterday? the day before?) that all that mattered to most automakers was having the most powerful engines under the hood. The prevailing mentality didn't stop some companies from emphasizing their high-miles ...

As our readers know, the biofuels field of investigation is huge and there are quite a number of upcoming technologies that can make the renewable fuel without competing with feedstocks. The most notable of these technologies use waste streams and often also require less water to make biofuel. ...

Popular Mechanic's Senior Automotive Editor Mike Allen raises a question in his biweekly Mechanics Diary that is rarely broached by auto writers: How about cars with less power? The automobile industry, using advertising which runs into the billions of dollars each year, sets the pace. A pace that ...

In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, editor Mike Allen declared himself a fan of ultracapacitors for hybrid cars. He explains how he visited Honda's development facilities 15 years ago and found himself testing a mild hybrid that used an ultracapacitor to store energy. However, we all know ...

Popular Mechanics has issued a very interesting and in-depth article (read it here) about the upcoming diesel invasion that is arriving in the U.S. The headline quite summarizes the spirit of the article, which finds that diesels can outperform hybrids in terms of fuel economy and ease of use.The ...

One of the teams entered in the Automotive X-Prize is from Cornell University and they have selected an unexpected car which they will use as their test platform. In order to meet the goal of 100 mpg gasoline equivalent, team members have decided to build a plug-in hybrid and have procured an old ...