Welcome to TRANSLOGIC World Report: Your weekly roundup of transportation tech news from around the web.
Last week Google’s self-driving Prius initiated a 4-car fender-bender near the company’s Mountain View, Ca headquarters. Certainly bad news for fans of autonomous driving tech, an innovation that could eventually lead to safer roadways and more efficient traffic management. The catch: Google claims that the accident “occurred while a person was manually driving the car.” Green design blog Inhabitat calls that explanation into question. [JALOPNIK via INHABITAT]
In other autonomous FAIL news, DARPA’s 13,000 MPH HTV-2 unmanned glider launch and subsequent crash was detailed yesterday on the agency’s Twitter and made headlines on TRANSLOGIC and around the web. Apparently contact was lost with the hypersonic aircraft around 9 minutes into the opperation, and the glider crashed along its flightpath into the Pacific Ocean. DARPA had better hope that third time’s the charm, as this was the second failed HTV-2 mission. [DARPA via TWITTER]
Sustainable Bruichladdich distillery on the Scottish isle of Islay is using the waste products from the production of their organic whiskies to generate electricity. Some of that liquor load is being directed to the distiller’s Nissan Leaf EV, which inspired a collaboration between the green spirits manufacturer and the car company. Introducing the limited edition Bruichladdich Leaf whisky. [AUTOBLOG GREEN]
And, of course, be sure to catch this week’s episode of TRANSLOGIC before it goes away and hides in our episode archive.
Click the image below to watch TRANSLOGIC 66: Rapid Prototyping:
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