Decoding Automobile Tech

It’s scorching hot in Delhi these days, and one day while I was on my way to the office, it was around 11:05 AM and the sun was directly above my head. My watch started vibrating, and I saw it was a reminder to drink water. At the same time, I noticed the temperature was 42°C. I ignored the alert because I was stuck in traffic that was moving at a very slow pace. I was surrounded by so many vehicles, and I could feel the intense heat all around me. A thought suddenly crossed my mind: how much stress must these vehicle engines be going through while operating in such extreme temperatures? Some engines are water-cooled, some are oil-cooled, and some vehicles, like my scooter, are simply air-cooled with no external cooling hardware. It just relies on the natural airflow passing through the engine fins to cool itself. I started wondering about the high-speed piston moving inside the cylinder, constantly creating friction between the piston and cylinder walls, which generates an immense amo...

Mahindra is selling both versions of the Scorpio: the older-generation Mahindra Scorpio Classic, which has a different cult fan base, and the Mahindra Scorpio-N, which is more sophisticated, more urban-oriented, and loaded with technology. Mahindra is also heavily highlighting the new rear suspension setup on the Scorpio-N, which they call the Penta-Link Suspension . So, let’s try to decode it. Scorpio-N Penta-Link Setup Includes: 2 lower control arms (or trailing arms) 2 upper control arms 1 Watt’s linkage (which consists of two smaller links attached to a central pivot mounted on the rear differential) In combination, these form a five-link setup on a rigid solid axle, which Mahindra calls the Penta-Link Suspension . Functions of Each Component Lower trailing/control arms: Control the forward and backward movement of the axle during acceleration and braking. Upper control arms: Control the twisting movement of the axle under high ...

 A basic halogen bulb with a tungsten heating element, which I use for both high and low beam on my scooter during daily commutes, belongs to an era when headlights were used simply to illuminate the road and sometimes to convey basic signals to drivers ahead or approaching from the opposite direction. Now, in the digital era, bulbs are also getting smarter, and they are doing much more than they were originally supposed to do—that is, just lighting up the road in the dark. This Matrix LED technology has taken a simple bulb to the next level. It is no longer a single bulb in a unit; instead, it consists of around 32,000 micro-LEDs (in the case of the Porsche Taycan, for instance), each smaller than the thickness of a human hair. These lights are constantly observing the road and detecting various elements such as pedestrians, vehicles, speed signs, road surfaces, and lane markings. In real time, this data is sent to a high-speed computer, which makes decisions in milliseconds and a...

Cloud-based suspension has taken suspension technology to another level. I was just looking at the review of the 2027 Mercedes GLS, and the suspension system did amaze me. But more than that, as an enthusiast, it made me wonder: do we need this much tech? The front and corner radar systems from Continental AG, along with the Robert Bosch GmbH module (which uses an Infineon Technologies chipset and a camera equipped with a Sony STARVIS sensor), collect data on road conditions such as potholes, bumps, and other surface irregularities. This data is then uploaded to Mercedes-Benz servers powered by Microsoft Azure cloud services, using an embedded Vodafone eSIM for connectivity. Crowdsourced data from multiple Mercedes vehicles is used for machine learning tasks, which are powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). This, in turn, supports Google-powered Maps, enabling the creation of highly detailed and continuously updated road maps in the cloud. Based on this updated data, five independent mu...