On-demand car wash service launches – Car washes are now the latest item you can order from your phone in southern Montgomery County. Carbrio, which officially launched July 31, promises to send one of its washers to your car within an hour of receiving a text to hand-wash the vehicle. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The most basic wash—windows, tires and lamps—costs $15, while a full exterior and interior cleaning costs $35, according to the Carbrio website.
“Carbrio compliments the way we live today,” Carbrio founder Bob Gordon said in a press release. “Washingtonians face mounting time pressure, spend hours behind the wheel and pay a high price to live here. Carbrio’s instant ordering and service to the car door is simple and convenient.”
The business is located at 4938 Hampden Lane in Bethesda.
Lockheed uses unmanned helicopter to deploy unmanned vehicle – It won’t be long until the drone wars now… On Aug. 7, Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin successfully used an unmanned helicopter, called the K-Max, to deploy an unmanned ground vehicle during a military robotics event at Fort Benning, Ga. A soldier then remotely drove the ground vehicle to an observation point and used a camera to “scan for enemy forces,” according to a company press release. Lockheed officials hailed the advancement as a way to keep soldiers out of harm’s way.
“This successful demonstration with both unmanned air and ground vehicles shows us that these missions are not only possible, but can be available much sooner than you would expect,” said Scott Greene, vice president of ground vehicles for Lockheed Martin in a press statement.
Pictures: The K-Max unmanned helicopter and the SMSS unmanned support vehicle.
Barwood Taxi president believes Uber is “hitting below the belt” – The president of Barwood Taxi in Montgomery County compared the ride service Uber to a boxer who can “do whatever he wants, even hitting below the belt” in a Gazette op-ed published last week. Lee Barnes wrote that app-based transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft are disregarding laws and regulations designed to protect consumers and in doing so hurting licensed taxi companies such as Barwood. Both Uber and Lyft are based in San Francisco. Barnes argues that “if Uber and other companies want to operate in this industry, they should have to comply with the same insurance, inspection, and licensing regulations required by the local jurisdictions.”
Barwood has joined other Maryland taxi companies in an antitrust lawsuit against Uber.
Uber however believes the effort to regulate its business will result in limited transportation choices and that many taxi company regulations don’t apply to it because it doesn’t own its own cars.