Technical

Lightweight wheels have many dynamic advantages and carbon-fibre is key to ultimate performance... Carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) is an extremely strong, rigid and light composite material with many engineering applications. For once, I allowed my emotional side to overshadow my technical mind ...

Direct-injection petrol technology means better performance and efficiency. But there's a dark side... Black grimy sludge. From the outside, the gasoline-direct-injection (GDI) engine appears shiny but it hides a dirty secret: severe carbon fouling of the intake ports and valves. It can be compared ...

You pay dearly for your fuel (or electricity, in case of an EV) but where does all the energy go? Motoring is all about an energy balance. Without energy, a vehicle is just a static display and not the mode of transport (or fun driving machine) it was designed to be. It takes energy from the battery ...

Lithium-ion batteries attract all the headlines, but the humble lead-acid type still has an important role to play today… and tomorrow. Two thousand. According to Kelvin Naidoo, group technical executive at AutoX, that’s how many times a vehicle engine is started every minute in South Africa. ...

Traffic congestion and convenience considerations heavily favour an automatic transmission when shopping for a new vehicle. Modern autos are a far cry from those sluggish units of yesteryear and, in most cases, outperform manual transmissions in terms of performance and fuel consumption. Therefore, a ...

“Power is how fast your car hits a wall at full throttle; torque is how far it moves the wall after impact,” is one description of the two units I recently heard. Unfortunately, this explanation is not entirely accurate, but it is a way of making sense of the concepts in simple terms. Although ...

An all-electric Porsche? I have to pinch myself as I climb into the Porsche Taycan for my shotgun ride around the carmaker’s Düsseldorf test track. Is this a sign the electric-vehicle (EV) revolution has truly started? There is not much time to philosophise before the Porsche test driver mashes ...

The modern camping trailer is a prime example of practical engineering. We go behind the scenes to find out how one is designed and built... What load-shedding? Camping on the South Coast in the luxurious Bushwakka Sundowner, I’m oblivious to the national energy crisis. The battery pack, charged ...

Ever wondered exactly how an engine works? Now you can play with this interactive model and have a little fun while you learn. Local company DigiSoft has given us a taste of its simulation capability by bringing the famous Toyota 1,6-litre 4A-GE engine to life in digital form. The user can change parameters ...