ABCNews is running a story today by Lisa Stark and Lindsey Ellerson, “New Technology Successful in Reducing Severity of Car Crashes.” Basically it’s a run down of technologies (available and in development) to combat driver distraction for collision and accident avoidance. (The article runs to three pages and is well worth your time to get [...]
The week got off to a roller coaster start with President Obama politely showing GM’s Rick Wagoner the gate and giving the once great automaker 60 days to get its ducks in a row. Chrysler has just as a month to line up a merger with Fiat or cease to exist. Finding good automotive news [...]
Toyota has the third-generation Prius coming up soon, a long-awaited update to its six-year old dominant hybrid offering. The expected base price has been set at $22,000. But here’s the rub. Honda just introduced a hybrid Insight going for $20,000. Yes, the race for hybrid king of the heap is still on.
Toyota has already come [...]
Ann Arbor could be the future home of Mercedes-Benz Hybrid LLC’s planned 65,000 square foot center for hybrid electric vehicle and advanced propulsion research and development. (One would hope they have a catchier name in mind for the building.) If Mercedes-Benz goes with Ann Arbor they’ll be bringing 223 jobs to the area.
As an inducement, [...]
Tech innovations are starting to suffer as carmakers are cutting costs just to survive. General Motors as been forced to delay work on one of its most innovative engines ever, a 4.5 liter diesel intended for use in light-duty trucks.
Production on the engine was to have started this coming fall at the plant in Tonawanda, [...]
One of the more interesting tidbits to come out of the Geneva Auto Show is the news that Ford’s iosis Max concept could actually be headed for our fair shores and I must say, it’s a tasty intro to the carmaker’s new global design.
Make no mistake, the isosis is futuristic but functional with a low, [...]
Last night as I was listening to President Obama’s speech, I groaned when he said America invented the automobile. Once upon a time I was a college history professor and I seriously considered having a stamp made up that read, “Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. He invented the moving assembly line that made [...]
For as much as the idea of an electric sports car has always been sexy, I’ve never been that big a fan of Tesla because the cars were ridiculously expensive and to my mind a little counter-productive to the whole idea of electrical cars for the rest of us. I want to see practical electrical [...]
So Ford says it will release a range of plug-in electrics between 2010 and 2012, the results of its so-called Project M, an internal campaign started last summer with the goal of producing an all-electric in six months. In an industry where a model can be in development for months — years even — that’s [...]
Toyota’s decision to halt its plans to build the venerable Prius hybrid at a facility in Mississippi raises a number of interesting considerations. The foreign car companies are not immune to the current downturn in the industry, although they’re not suffering like GM and Chrysler. The real issue here would seem to be the fact [...]