Ten years ago, ride-sharing giant Uber embraced a sci-fi future in which clean, quiet electric aircraft would shuttle passengers around crowded cities. Uber’s well-funded Elevate initiative, which included a white paper and three high-profile annual summits, effectively launched the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) industry, promising investors, regulators, and the general public that these… Continue reading First Air Taxi Service to Launch in Dubai in 2026
Author: IEEE_Spectrum
The Top 5 Transportation Stories for 2025
IEEE Spectrum’s transportation coverage this year covered breakthroughs in electric vehicles, batteries, charging, automation, aviation, maritime tech and more. Readers followed the race to rebuild U.S. magnet manufacturing, rethink EV-charging architecture, and reinvent automotive software. They tracked China’s sprint toward five-minute charging, the rise of high-power home chargers, and the push to automate airports. Our… Continue reading The Top 5 Transportation Stories for 2025
This Valve Could Halve EV Fast-Charge Times
Fast, direct-current charging can charge an EV’s battery from about 20 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes. That’s not bad, but it’s still about six times longer than it takes to fill the tank of an ordinary petrol-powered vehicle. One of the major bottlenecks to even faster charging is cooling, specifically uneven cooling inside… Continue reading This Valve Could Halve EV Fast-Charge Times
A Chip That Keeps Time (Almost) Like an Atomic Clock
For decades, atomic clocks have provided the most stable means of timekeeping. They measure time by oscillating in step with the resonant frequency of atoms, a method so accurate that it serves as the basis for the definition of a second. Now, a new challenger has emerged in the timekeeping arena. Researchers recently developed a… Continue reading A Chip That Keeps Time (Almost) Like an Atomic Clock
BYD’s Engine Flexes Between Ethanol, Gasoline, and Electricity
The world’s first mass-produced ethanol car, the Fiat 147, motored onto Brazilian roads in 1979. The vehicle crowned decades of experimentation in the country with sugar-cane (and later, corn-based and second-generation sugar-cane waste) ethanol as a homegrown fuel. When Chinese automaker BYD introduced a plug-in hybrid designed for Brazil in October, equipped with a flex-fuel… Continue reading BYD’s Engine Flexes Between Ethanol, Gasoline, and Electricity
Toshiba Targets Motorcycles and Boats With Its Batteries
Toshiba has carved out a significant share of the lithium-ion battery market in industrial, automotive, and energy sectors—despite championing a more expensive anode material with lower energy density. The Japanese company is using lithium titanium oxide (LTO) anodes as it competes with standard lithium-ion batteries to gain a foothold in price-sensitive markets including low-power vehicles,… Continue reading Toshiba Targets Motorcycles and Boats With Its Batteries
Safer Autonomous Vehicles Means Asking Them the Right Questions
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. A lot of pressure is riding on autonomous vehicles to perform flawlessly—each mistake they make erodes the public’s trust and puts immense pressure on the industry to further improve safety. What will help autonomous vehicles overcome these challenges? In… Continue reading Safer Autonomous Vehicles Means Asking Them the Right Questions
Could Terahertz Radar in Cars Save Lives?
A few years ago, Matthew Carey lost a friend in a freak car accident, after the friend’s car struck some small debris on a highway and spun out of control. Ordinarily, the car’s sensors would have detected the debris in plenty of time, but it was operating under conditions that render all of today’s car-mounted… Continue reading Could Terahertz Radar in Cars Save Lives?
A New Axial-Flux Motor Becomes a Supercar Staple
Tesla was first to patent a primitive axial-flux electric motor—Nikola Tesla, that is, way back in 1889. It would be 126 years before the concept found its way to a car, the 1,500-horsepower (1,103 kilowatt), US $1.9 million, Koenigsegg Regera hybrid, in 2015. Even today, nearly all the world’s EVs and hybrids rely on relatively… Continue reading A New Axial-Flux Motor Becomes a Supercar Staple
Amazon Pilots New Pedal-Assist Electric Delivery Vehicle
Amazon is piloting a new four-wheel, pedal-assist electric delivery vehicle built by Also, a spin-off from electric-truck maker Rivian, in a bid to make city logistics cleaner and more efficient. The vehicle—called the TM-Q—combines the stability and cargo capacity of a small van with the compact footprint of an e-bike. Amazon plans to deploy the… Continue reading Amazon Pilots New Pedal-Assist Electric Delivery Vehicle