News
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Jeep’s Parent Has A Clever Fix For Rainwater Pouring Into Your Trunk
The company’s earlier version needed a water sensor and a control unit, and this one needs neither.
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GM Wants Its EVs To Detect Battery Leaks Two Weeks Early
A new patent application has the car reading its own high-voltage wiring for the first signs of a leak, then deciding without the driver how much charging and power to take away.
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Toyota Wants Your Thumbs-Up Or Your Car May Stop Itself
A deliberate hand signal becomes the car’s way of asking the question driver-assist systems still answer badly, which is whether anyone is really in charge.
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GM Patents Brakes That Back Off When You Accelerate
Cornering adds an unexpected complication to GM’s effort to keep released brakes from rubbing.
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Jeep’s Parent Wants to Put Your Car’s Gauges Outside the Windshield
A French patent application moves the driver’s display to the far side of the glass, and the patent office’s own search suggests the idea is older than it looks.
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Honk, Then Listen: Jeep’s Parent Wants Self-Driving Cars To Sound Out Blind Corners
A French patent application teaches an automated car the oldest courtesy on a mountain road, then goes quiet on what happens when nobody honks back.
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Rivian Isn’t Giving Up on Its Smaller Electric Pickup Idea
The pickup name has outlasted two applications without ever reaching a vehicle, and the timing of the newest one is no accident.
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Ford Wants to Stop Oncoming Cars Mistaking Trucks for Motorcycles
A newly granted patent treats a burned-out headlamp as the other driver’s problem too, and gives both vehicles a job to do.
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Jeep Has Held the Switchback Name Since 2018, but Now You Can Buy One
A fresh trademark application arrived the same day as Jeep’s mismatched Wrangler finale, and the reason sits in the fine print of an older registration that never went away.
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Toyota Wants to Make EVs Charge Faster by Squeezing Their Batteries
The pressure that holds an electric car’s cells together is normally locked in at the factory, and a new Toyota filing argues it should change with what the car is doing.