Oct

Texas Instruments Surprising Car Gadget Provider

Posted by Steve Anderson Published in Uncategorized

You might be surprised to hear it, but guess who one of the biggest provider of car gadgets is. Give up? As it turns out, it’s Texas InstruUments.

Yeah, I know, I gave it away up in the headline, but that’s for the search engines. Anyway, as it turns out, Texas Instruments is the major supplier of UHF chips, which in turn provides the basis for a surprising array of devices. Check this list out:

TI has created the family to meet consumers’ demand for timely visibility into their vehicle status to ensure their car is properly maintained. The wide range of wireless applications in automobiles include tire pressure monitoring, auxiliary heating remote control and key features such as garage door openers or the standard remote control.

None of those things would actually run without Texas Instruments hardware located inside it. Now, I don’t know about you, but I personally think that’s a massive slice of fried awesome.

Tags: IF transceiver, Texas, Texas Instruments, tire pressure monitoring system, UHF chips

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Apr

Honda uses music festivals to promote 2010 Insight

Posted by Jeff Baker Published in 2010 Vehicles, Alternative Energy, Cars, Enviroment, Honda, Industry

It was recently announced that popular automaker Honda has teamed up with C3, the people behind Lollapalooza and the Austin City Music Festival.

Honda will sponsor the event and in turn get direct acess to the thousands of music fans present at the events. Apparently, Honda will have a booth set up displaying their Insight Hybrid and even a raffle of a 2010 Insight.

To get in on the action you’ll have to attend either Lollapalooza from August 7th-9th in Chicago or the Austin Music Festival from October 2nd-4th in Austin. Be there, or don’t be green!

Read (KickingTires)

Tags: Austin, austin music festival, c3, chicago, hybrid, Insight, lollapalooza, promotion, Texas

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Mar

Car2Go Arrives in Austin

Posted by Simon Published in Business

Texas will be the first U.S. home for Daimler’s innovative environmentally aware car2go pay-as-you-go city-transport concept. Daimler has announced that 200 car2go Smart Fortwos will arrive in downtown Austin this fall. The Austin trial will begin with 200 Fortwo Micro Hybrid Drives for city employees and, to make the system even more environmentally friendly, they will use an automatic start-stop function to shut the engine off when the cars are stationary.

With 750,000 people, Austin is known for its open-mindedness, its high cycling rates and its public transportation systems. “We very much look forward to becoming the first international partner of car2go,” Austin Mayor Will Wynn said.

Tags: Austin, Car to go to, Pay-as-You-Go, Texas

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Oct

GM Dealerships Offer 50 Shares of GM Stock with Every Purchase

Posted by Chris Published in Cars, GM

Some dealerships in Texas are going to offer 50 shares of GM stock to their first 100 customers. The business operated by two brothers has purchased 5000 shares at the end of last week and they will use them to celebrate GM’s 100-year anniversary by distributing them to lucky buyers. As GM stock is somewhere around $6-$7 right now, it means that each new customer will get about $300-$350 to play with.