Simrad V 5035 Ais Transponder Class A on 2040-parts.com

Lamborghini Aventador: The ‘Soon to be Green’ Supercar

Lamborghini are to introduce a series of ‘Green’ updates for the Aventador including cylinder deactivation and stop-start. Hot on the heels of the news that the Lamborghini Aventador has already sold 1,000 units – in half the time it took for the Murcialago – comes the news that Lamborghini are planning on making the Aventador a much ‘Greener’ supercar. Top of the list of updates planned is cylinder deactivation which will seamlessly deactivate six of the Aventador’s six cylinders under light load, yet immediately offer the full Monty of twelve as soon as your right foot twitches.

News watch July 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Tuesday 31 July 2012•Porsche SE recorded a first half profit of €1.15bn, in comparison with €149m for the same period in 2011. The enormous jump has come not from directly selling cars, but from the group's investments in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH and Volkswagen AG (Porsche SE)•Reuters suggests Germany's car market is in recession, but few outside the industry would know it, thanks to a controversial sales practice that inflates official statistics and paints a flattering picture of demand.

MIT develops self-transforming materials that behave 'like robots without robots'

A cross-disciplinary research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a suite of programmable materials, including carbon fiber, printed wood grain, textile composites, rubbers and plastics, that self-transform when exposed to an external stimulus. Director of the Self-Assembly Lab, Skylar Tibbits, presented a TED talk on 4D printing in 2013, where he demonstrated how a flat sheet of material could effectively build itself when exposed to water, like a robot without a robot. Following positive feedback from industries including aviation, automotive and manufacturing, his lab has been working on developing materials that change according to different activation sources, including heat, light, and air pressure, in addition to water – all of which have automotive relevance.