Renault Duster to be launched next month in India

We haven't been writing articles about the automotive industry for a while now. Although, this news is specifically related to the Indian Auto industry. French automobile manufacturer Renault hasn't been doing quite well in India and the major reason being the poor range of option it provides to the Indian customer. 

Although that's changing slowly, Renault has some very aggressive business strategies in the years to come and with the new Renault Duster, things might really turn around for Renault.

Renault Duster is a car that comes under the compact SUV segment which aims to provide the luxury of an SUV at the price of a Basic Sedan. The Duster is expected to be priced in the range of Rs 7-10 lac. It will be available in both Petrol and Diesel variants.

Wave Disc Engine the next step in Combustion Engines

Internal Combustion Engines more or less have had the same basic design since the first time they were created, except for the Wankel engine also called the rotary engine which did not gain a lot of popularity in the auto industry due to its short coming of inefficiencies. With the new generation of Hybrid cars which utilize a combination of electric motors and combustion Engines there is a need to develop a new design of engines and move away from the of concept of piston cylinder and valves.

Researchers at Michigan State University have built a model prototype gasoline engine design that's unlike any other engine design seen before. It works on the principle of shock waves and utilizes what is called a 'shock wave generator', which is basically a disc/rotor having precisely designed wave-like pattern carved into channels.

Volkswagen Demonstrates the 'Temporary Auto Pilot'

This past month in June, Volkswagen; as a part of the 'HAVEit' project presented to the world the “Temporary Auto Pilot” (TAP) system, which allows the car to drive semi-autonomously up to a speed of 130 kilometres per hour on a motorways. The driver has to monitor the vehicle, this technology actually is a link between today’s driver assistance systems and the vision of fully automatic driving for the future.

Research project 'HAVEit' (Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport) is basically an EU funded project aimed at increasing driving safety and boosting the European automotive industry in the international market. HAVEit, is a collaboration between 17 partners from the European automotive industry and scientific community. 

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New Technologies from Nissan

Leading Japanese car manufacturer Nissan announced Two new technologies World-First Electro-hydraulic Power Steering system and a new Intelligent Braking Technology.

Electro-hydraulic Power Steering system 

There are two technologies for power assisted steering which are generally used, one is the hydraulic power steering which is used in most of the cars in the world, it utilizes hydraulic pressure generated by a rotary vane pump driven by the engine to assist the driver for steering and the other is the Electric power steering which uses an electric motor to assist the driver, it works on complex electronics. It has more advantages than a Hydraulic one but can be less reliable at times. It is generally used in sports cars luxury cars and hybrids. Electric power steering is considered to be more fuel efficient of the two.