Newsflash: Americans are fat. And no, we’re not just big boned. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions over the past couple decades, and as a result diabetes, heart disease and just about every other health issue are on the rise.
The Atlantic reports that the amount of fuel we’re using is on the rise as well, as heavy occupants need more fuel to get from Point A to *insert drive-thru joke here*. A 2006 study shows that Americans weigh so much more than they did in 1960 that we’re using up an additional billion gallons of petrol every year.
That’s about $4 billion a year at today’s gas prices, and nearly one percent of overall fuel usage. And that was back in 2006 – as we continue to plump up, the dollars continue to pile up. Inside Line reports that each pound we gain as a population adds up to another $39 million. It’s too bad we can’t get stop/start tech for our appetites.
As of this month, South Koreans will be able to get themselves into a bought at their local dealer. wants to get more people in more lands behind the wheel of its icon to offset declining sales numbers here at home, and South Korea is an easier target for the moment because of the free trade agreement recently ratified between that country and the U.S.
The 430-horsepowerCoupe model goes on sale May 4 for 86.4 million South Korean won ($76,528 U.S.). Obviously, the anti-tarriff provisions of the free-trade agreement haven’t come into force yet. The Corvette will join eight other Chevy models on sale on the Asian peninsula.
A report by the at the university of Duisburg-Essen in Germany has revealed that , currently the number three luxury carmaker, could move up to number two in 2015, . Mercedes owned the second slot until last year, when overtook it. has held the lead in the luxury market since 2005.
“We aim to be the front-runner wherever we compete on a permanent basis,” Zetsche said in a speech earlier this month. “Wherever we are not number one, we will strive to become it,” he added.
BMW will sell 1.76 million vehicles in 2015, followed by Mercedes with 1.68 million and Audi with 1.63 million, the CAR report said. One of the reasons Mercedes could see such growth is that it intends to introduce 10 new models by 2015, including a sportier version of the A Class (above).
Audi and BMW have no plans to cede any ground to Mercedes in the World War of Luxury Vehicles as the two German brands continue to vie for number one. Audi has said it plans to sell two million vehicles by 2020, which would surpass BMW and total sales. Additionally, Audi plans to build a plant in Mexico, which could increase it’s U.S. lineup from 16 vehicles to 27.
UPDATE:The Focus ST has officially been added to Ford’s configurator. to build one yourself.
Well now, the inexpensive performance game just got considerably more interesting. has officially dropped pricing on its upcoming 2013 Focus ST, and it starts at $24,495 (*including a $795 delivery charge). That kind of coin will net you a EcoBoost 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for a whopping 252 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque, along with a torque-steer compensation system that works in conjunction with electronic power steering to keep the nose pointed in the right direction. If you’re keeping track, those power metrics are slightly north of the figures Ford had previously released. A variable-ratio steering rack toes the line between sport and comfort while the sport suspension sits the chassis 10 mm closer to the ground than the stock configuration.
That fire-spitting four-cylinder breathes easy through a free-flowing exhaust, and interior options like Recaro bucket seats give the cabin a little pedigree. Of course, massive wheels and plenty of aero work are both part of the package as well. What’s more, Ford says it will give early buyers a GoPro HD Hero2 Motorsports camera when they pick up the keys. Sweet.
The entry price puts the Focus ST well below fellow front-drive competitors like the and , but within spitting distance of playful hardware like the twins and the all-wheel drive . Suddenly, it appears we live in a world where cheap speed is in abundance. Head over to the for a closer look and be sure to click for the full press release.
Well now, the inexpensive performance game just got considerably more interesting. has officially dropped pricing on its upcoming 2013 Focus ST. That kind of coin will net you a EcoBoost 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for a whopping 252 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque, along with a torque-steer compensation system that works in conjunction with electronic power steering to keep the nose pointed in the right direction. If you’re keeping track, those power metrics are slightly north of the figures Ford had previously released. A variable-ratio steering rack toes the line between sport and comfort while the sport suspension sits the chassis 10 mm closer to the ground than the stock configuration.
That fire-spitting four-cylinder breathes easy through a free-flowing exhaust, and interior options like Recaro bucket seats give the cabin a little pedigree. Of course, massive wheels and plenty of aero work are both part of the package as well. What’s more, Ford says it will give early buyers a GoPro HD Hero2 Motorsports camera when they pick up the keys. Sweet.
The entry price puts the Focus ST well below fellow front-drive competitors like the and , but within spitting distance of playful hardware like the twins and the all-wheel drive . Suddenly, it appears we live in a world where cheap speed is in abundance. Head over to the for a closer look and be sure to click for the full press release.
These days it seems like the dream of a new Esprit is getting nothing but further away, while the troubled company responsible for it applies the classic black and gold livery to everything it produces – and many things produced by others. But there was a time when the original Esprit was a mechanical wonder to behold, and the JPS livery was championed by arguably the greatest driver who ever lived.
That driver, of course, was Ayrton Senna. And to mark the 18th anniversary of his death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a German outfit called has created this special edition in his honor. Instead of starting with the original four-cylinder Esprit, though, Cam Shaft went with the later turbo V8 and laid over its black paint a series of gold decals evocative of the iconic livery which Senna sported on his 1985 Lotus 97T, including a reproduction of his signature on the panel in front of the door.
The German firm didn’t stop there, however. They gave the Esprit new turbos, an intercooler and cats to drive output up from 354 horsepower (stock) to 492 hp, drop the 4.9-second 0-62 time down to 4.3 seconds and increase the top speed from 282 km/h to 305. They also fitted it with a new six-speed gearbox to replace the old five-gear unit, upgraded the brakes with AP Racing four-pot calipers on 330mm cross-drilled discs and fitted it with a chassis control switch similar to a manettino.
A fitting tribute to the legendary pilot? We’d say so, and you can see for yourself in the high-res image gallery above and the press release .
may seek to reposition in the wake of slower sales, according to Automotive News. It’s been 10 years since the Japanese automaker unveiled its youth-oriented brand, and Toyota recognizes that the original target demographic has officially grown up. After concluding a nine-month review of the Scion brand, the parent company has decided to move away from quirkiness and toward more mainstream creations.
Models like the and serve more traditional buyers than the nameplate’s best-selling , though Jack Hollis, Scion vice president, says the future of the boxy five-door remains uncertain. While speaking with Autmotive News, Hollis said the company may not replace the model with a “one-for-one” interpretation of the box as buyers are less and less interested in funky exterior designs.
Scion suffered dearly during the sales downturn of 2008 and 2009. By 2011, the company’s numbers had fallen to within 25 percent of its 2006 volume. With consumer credit tightening by the day, recent college graduates have reportedly found it difficult to finance a brand-new Scion. Hollis says sales are on the mend, and the company is cautiously optimistic. In the meantime, expect to see Scion show off more mainstream marketing aimed at a wider consumer audience.
Even tires considered basic are the results of massive engineering and financial investments – a single tire can include up to 20 different kinds of rubber compounds and their constructions and build techniques are so mysterious that it’s easier to get a tour of the White House than a tire factory. A new tire being worked on by a team of German engineers at the University of Leipzig, however, would be a Buck Rodgers-like leap in tire tech by incorporating changeable elements to alter the shape of the tire as you drive.
The includes “flexible actuators, piezo-ceramic actuators, shape memory alloys and ’smart materials’” that gather and process information on the road surface and weather conditions. That info would then be used to reshape the tread to optimize performance on the fly, which can mean altering groove patters and expanding and raising tread blocks. As the , “The driver no longer has to think about adapting their tires. The tire itself ‘thinks’ too.”
For millions of drivers, a world in which the single word “tire” automatically means “all-terrain, all-season, high-performance tire” would be a good one. The engineers have patented their work and are showing a prototype at the Hanover Fair in Germany, yet it should come as no surprise that such a world is a long, long way off.
Sponsoring most events is pretty straightforward for any company: fork over the right sum of cash and you’re the new official automaker/timekeeper/jelly donut of whatever the event is. But for , its status as Official Automotive Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is a bit more complicated.
Even to fork over a massive fleet with 4,000 vehicles to the organizing committee wasn’t enough for the German automaker to secure its status. BMW also had to meet the committee’s stringent emissions requirements: while the average emissions of vehicles in the UK comes in at 138 grams of CO2 per kilometer, the automaker supplying these Olympic games had to come in below 120 g/km – which BMW did at 116 g/km.
To get there, a portion of the cars BMW is supplying are electric vehicles: 160 units of the and 40 of the Mini E, with another 40 of the . The rest of the fleet is comprised of the (1,550 vehicles), (700), (17), (10) and (200 vehicles), plus another 25 R1200 RT motorcycles and 400 BMW Streetcruiser bicycles.
Wondering what they’ll be doing with all those cars? They’ll be used for everything from shuttling around the athletes, officials, medics and journalists to hauling boats out of the water. for the full details.
We’re almost ready to record Episode #280 of the Autoblog Podcast, and you can check out the topics below, add your own to the and join us live via , as well, and we’ve embedded our UStream player Thanks for listening!
Discussion Topics for Autoblog Podcast Episode #280
A European group called wanted to showcase the dangers of texting while driving, and got ad agency Publicis to help them out. The result: a two-minute spot that put trainee drivers in Belgium with an instructor who said part of their driving test would be to avoid an obstacle while texting a random sentence that he’d dictate.
Since nothing beyond a cone or two was hurt in the making of this video, we’ll admit we laughed. That said, the message is clear.
to see it for yourself. And FYI, a driver training instructor in Belgium doesn’t need to wear a seat belt on a closed course… though maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
With the longest coastline in the world, Canada is bound to get all sorts of weird things washing up on its shores from every which direction. But a Harley-Davidsonmotorcycle? That’s what one Peter Mark found while riding his ATV on a secluded island off the Pacific coast of British Columbia. It’s origin? Japan.
The bike – enclosed along with other random items in what appears to be the compartment off a moving truck – appears to have traveled some 3,000 miles across the North Pacific from Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture to the Canadian province of British Columbia. That’s where Mark found it, rusted but recognizable inside the white cube that was apparently washed out to sea by the tsunami that struck the island nation one year ago.
The finder of the piece of iron driftwood left it where he found it and contacted the Japanese consulate in Vancouver which is trying to track down the original owner whose fate remains unknown. to watch the fascinating video report.
-Davidson lost in Japan’s tsunami washes up in Canada
is trying to make a name for itself on the safety and technology front, recently and outfitting new models with a suite of safety equipment that arguably puts it among the leaders in the industry. We got a chance to sample some of this last month, but we were also allowed to “drive” a semi-autonomous test mule equipped with what Cadillac is calling “Super Cruise.”
Nominally an improvement on adaptive cruise control, Super Cruise is actually a more sophisticated system that uses a camera communicating with the car’s GPS to “see” the road ahead. It goes one step further than currently available systems, however, automatically centering the vehicle in the lane using its electric power steering system. Unlike other active lane-departure systems that use a car’s brakes to help prevent it from veering off the road, the system General Motors is developing allows for precisely setting the vehicle’s position within the lane. The test mule we sampled had steering-wheel-mounted buttons that would allow you to “nudge” the car from side to side by a foot at a time without upsetting its course. Super Cruise also communicates with the vehicle’s other active safety systems to help prevent and mitigate crashes.
Super Cruise is designed only for use on the highway, to “ease the driver’s workload.”
Super Cruise is designed only for use on the highway, to “ease the driver’s workload,” with drivers still required to steer in city traffic and for more complicated maneuvers like passing. GM officials acknowledged the difficulty in deploying a system like this, a technology that if used improperly may encourage inattentive driving. Supposedly the system will only be functional under the specific circumstances for which it is designed, much like today’s in-car entertainment systems will not play video on the front screen unless a vehicle is in Park. Currently the system is somewhat limited by external factors, like weather and the need for distinct lane markings. If visibility is low or the road doesn’t have at least one clear lane demarcation, Super Cruise won’t function. However, GM says it will improve the vision abilities of the system as it readies the technology for the marketplace.
GM says that Super Cruise could be introduced into production vehicles in just a few years, “by mid-decade.” While on the one hand, its ability to help improve the safety of our roads is laudable, we can’t help but express our frustration at the march of technology headed inevitably towards removing the physical act of driving from the motoring equation.
to watch some video of us aboard the Super Cruise-equipped test mule and read the full press release.
Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. A stolen from celebrity chef Guy Fieri has been found a year after it first went missing. In case you need refreshing, the Lambo was pilfered by a thief who literally in order to get access to the Italian Stallion.
It seems the perpetrator had a thing for stealthy operations – the vehicle turned up during an investigation that began after a motorcyclist wearing all black fired a gun into a parked car. The gunman was a 17-year-old boy, and Fieri’s car was located in a storage container in Point Richmond, California, along with the boy’s motorcycle and apparent evidence linking him to the shooting.
Fieri, for his part, is happy to have his Lamborghini back:
“I would like to thank the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and the Mill Valley Police Department for their hard work and effort in the recovery of my car. I’m glad we can put this behind us, and feel better knowing that justice is being served.”
If absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, we’d be happy to have our back in one piece, too, especially considering it’s been over a year since its disappearance.
executive Dan Knott, considered an all-around great guy, took medical retirement on April 13 due to cancer, and he sadly passed away on April 29. His 24-year tenure with The Pentastar began in the role of senior engineer. By the time he took the job as head of procurement in 2009, he had helped create marquee SRT models including the , and .
Knott’s efforts to improve Chrysler’s relationships with suppliers has even . After just three years on the job, the head of the Original Equipment Supplier’s Association “more than any individual that I know of in the history of OEM/supplier relations” when it came turning around Chrysler’s dealings with suppliers.
On top of that , an Automotive News All-Star, an inductee into the Viper Club Hall of Fame, chairman of the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council, board member on a non-profit for people with disabilities, a key player in Chrysler’s sustainability drive, and he enforced reviews of the business that the Chrysler’s Tier 1 suppliers did with women- and minority-owned businesses. He will be missed.
We know rural Midwestern folks sometimes do things a little differently than their urban cousins. If you want to get a tan in the reedy areas of The Corn Belt you don’t need a booth, you just lie down in your own yard. One thing you don’t do when bronzing, however – even in the Midwest – is lie down in the street. That is what two unlucky girls did in Economy, Pennsylvania and when they fell asleep during their sunlight session they got run over by a car.
From what we can gather, after the girls had lain down on Donald Avenue they fell asleep, and did so not far from an intersection. When a car turned onto Donald Ave from the crossroad, it ran over the girls. Turns out that car contained three cousins of one of the injured girls, with one of them, a 19-year-old male, driving.
The good news is that the girls were airlifted to the hospital and are in stable condition. The bad news is what their parents have in store for them when they’re recovered and home. on WTAE Pittsburgh for the full report.
We record Episode #280 of the Autoblog Podcast tonight, and you can drop us your questions via our Q&A module below, and chime in to direct our conversation. Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast if you haven’t already done so, and if you want to take it all in live, tune in to our (audio only) channel at 10:00 PM Eastern tonight.
Discussion Topics for Autoblog Podcast Episode #280
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“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on television.” So went the script for countless television commercials of yore, featuring the stars of medical dramas capitalizing on their on-air personae to shill for pills, HMOs and what-have-you. But one television doctor didn’t hesitate to jump into action when duty called – medical training be damned.
That actor is one Patrick Dempsey, who most might recognize for his role as Dr. McDreamy on the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. He’s also a consummate race car driver – arguably today’s Steve McQueen or Paul Newman – competing in such events as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Baja 1000 rally raid. These seemingly disparate aspects of Dempsey’s life, however, converged when a kid flipped his in front of the actor’s house in Malibu last week.
Having rolled the three times, 17-year-old Weston Massett was trapped inside the wreckage when McDreamy came to the rescue, crowbar in hand, to get the kid out of the car, nursing him until the airlift arrived and following him to the hospital. Massett is expected to make a full recovery from the concussion and stretched optic nerve that were his only injuries to speak of. for the television report.
Edmunds has taken the time to sort through the March 2012 sales data to find which were the quickest selling models of the month. According to the site’s research, the took the top nod by sitting on dealer lots just eight days before whirring off to a new home. Manufacturers routinely use “days to turn” to evaluate consumer demand, though pesky variables like production capacity can easily tweak the number north or south. That’s likely why the took just 11 days to turn and its smaller sibling, the , took just 13. is having a hard time keeping production in pace with consumer demand.
Other stars of last month’s show include the . With an average of 14 days on dealer lots, the model finds itself tied with hardware like the and for being quick to turn. You can check out the full list of quickest-sellers by heading over to .
There could not be a more bland teaser for the upcoming all-electric “all new” EV than the one just released: silver sheetmetal with a badge that simply reads “Electric.” To see the rest of the vehicle, we will have to wait until the Electric Vehicle Symposium () gets started in Los Angeles next week. Luckily, we will be in LA with a camera or two and will bring you the full details from the show Monday, May 7. For now, all we know is what we’ve learned about the prototype that Toyota and have been showing for a while. For example, it will likely . .
Speaking of EVS, what’s kind of surprising is that this year is the 26th edition of the show. Yes, even as we’re just seeing the dawn of the modern EV era, some groups have been working on these vehicles for decades. It’s a long road to get off of gasoline.
