Inc. wants self driving cars on the road sooner rather than later.
It knows its autonomous vehicles work – engineers have already put its fleet of self-driving vehicles through 250,000 miles of testing. And they’re planning to put another 750,000 testing miles on their .
Now, executives are approaching car makers about building the self-driving vehicles, according to The Detroit News.
“From giving the technology away to licensing it to working with Tier 1s, Tier 2s, working with the OEMs, building a car with them, everything is open and we’re trying to figure out which paths make the most sense,” said Google project manager Anthony Levandowski last week at the . “We’re talking to basically every car company to see what their level of excitement is and how do we work with them.”
A Google spokesperson later added, “We’re talking with lots of auto companies about a variety of topics, but we haven’t decided how we may make our technology available to consumers. As Anthony said at the SAE conference in Detroit, ‘all options are open.’”
Levandowski says Google is racing forward to get self-driving vehicles on the road as soon as possible. It has begun talking to insurance companies to figure out how much it might cost to insure a self-driving car, according to . One of the sticky issues: If a self-driving vehicle causes an accident, is the driver responsible or the company that made the vehicle?
Google officials say they expect to mathematically prove that computer-driven vehicles are safer than those operated by humans, thus insurance prices should be lower. No word yet if that logic will fly, but insurance companies do love math, algorithms and actuary tables…
If you’ve gotten used to being centered around two model lines – and – based on the same platform, get ready to broaden your horizons as the Modenese automaker does the same. Maserati has a vast array of new products in the pipeline, including a pair of new sedans and a new SUV set to be built in Detroit, plus production of the 4C sportscar for sister-company Alfa Romeo. And now reports are emerging that its long-rumored plans to take on the with a new sportscar are coming to fruition.
According to the reports from Italy fueled by comments attributed to Maserati CEO Harald J. Wester, the model could revive the GranSport – a name last used on the ultimate iteration of the 4200 GT coupe that preceded the current GranTurismo. Only this time, it would be a mid-engined V8 supercar similar in approach to the .
If that sounds suspiciously close to the , the rumors suggest that it would undercut its big brother’s price at under $200k. After all, the sister brands didn’t seem to have any trouble bringing the Maserati GranCabrio and into the same arena, or to turning the Enzo into the MC12 – pictured above – the last mid-engined supercar the Trident marque produced. Which gives us hope that this particular product of the rumormill could amount to something. And when we’re talking about mid-engined supercars from Italy, that could be a very good thing indeed.
There are plenty of reasons to steer clear of a cruise. We typically shy away from the idea of cramming ourselves onto a vessel filled to capacity with overweight American tourists, all waiting to descend on some unsuspecting port of call like a scourge of consumerist locusts. Now, we have another reason to pass on the big boats.
WFTV discovered a parking lot owner in Cocoa, Florida was taking customer vehicles out for little joy rides. The news crew promptly set up a little sting by renting a red ChevroletCorvette Convertible and installing a GPS tracker. The car wasn’t on the lot for six hours before Jay Nieves, the owner of Premier Parking Spot hopped in.
The news crew filmed Nieves thrashing the car on a dirt road, parking it at his home overnight, doing sizeable burnouts on the street, transporting lumber and leaving the car with the top down and driver’s door wide open for extended periods of time. All told, Nieves clocked 60 miles on what he thought was a customer’s car before the news crew confronted him about the situation. Nieves promptly denied everything. for the full newscast.
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between green and red cells is almost at a draw, you might think that April 2012 was a step backwards in terms of sales momentum for the auto industry. That column, however, is practically irrelevant this month.
Shift your head a little to the right and read the DSR (Daily Sales Rate) column. That’s the important column this month. People usually ignore this column because they don’t understand its purpose or because its data looks so similar to the left column, but this month it means everything.
Why? Because there were 24 selling days for the auto industry last month, versus 27 selling days in April 2011. Usually there’s only a single-day variance between months or no variance at all, but three selling days is a chasm to overcome and means that if you’re only comparing raw numbers like the left column does, the entire industry was at a three-day disadvantage last month compared to the same month one year ago.
The DSR column, on the other hand, shows the change in average number of vehicles sold per day during April of this year and last. This is the more accurate representation of how each automaker performed in April, and as you can see, nearly all continued their momentum of increased sales with the usual suspects occupying those bottom red cells.
Check out how the entire auto industry did in the monthly sales chart below, and visit our By the Numbers section to see all past months.
*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 24 selling days in April 2012 versus 27 selling days in April 2011, so there will be a difference between monthly sales volume and the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company. Also, brands are combined and reported as companies only if their sales figures are released jointly.
The rich have all the fun, don’t they? With your bank account, you get, what, free checks? Overdraft protection? A toaster maybe?
If you had a cool million sitting around, just taking up space, you could get yourself a free . Not just a base either.
Open a five-year CD of at least $1 million at (formerly Community Bank) and you’ll have your choice of a 2012 , , or an . And, as a further bonus, your new car will come with tags, title, license and taxes all paid.
Small print? Oh, you betcha. First, you’re limited to two vehicles per household. Second, unlike most CDs, at the end of its five-year life, you will cash out for exactly what you put in. Basically, you’re letting the bank hang on to your $1 million for five years in return for that $60k-ish Mercedes you’re driving. Instead of 1.2-percent APR you would normally collect at the end of the CD’s life, you’re getting a car up front.
Pull your money out early, and you’ll get back what you put in, minus the cost of the car and a $3,000 early withdrawal fee.
Still, if you can spare a million for five years, and were about to buy a Mercedes anyway, it could be a good deal.
For details (and more small print) check out the press release by .
Lists. Readers love ‘em, so everyone’s got one. (Heck, our show is even called .) And this is the Playboy list, packed with two-seat sports cars, muscle cars, obvious choices and even the original Beetle.
Before we get to the full 25, however, hear out our view. While you can always register your personal displeasure when, say, the MG TC (#14) or (#19) gets included, but not a single Alfa Romeo or classic Mopar muscle machine makes the cut, you should judge a list such as this based more on how it reflects the personality of the publication. Which is why “25 Greatest Rides” feels so, well, generic.
While we’re not suggesting that every one of the Playboy cars should be sporting Dagmars or have fully reclining seats like Nash models of the early ’50s, this list just seems a little light on the sex. Not that the GTO (#1) and E-Type (#4) aren’t voluptuous enough to act as stand-ins for the Playmate of the Month, but cars like the 2002 (#24) and GTO (#20), though legitimate performance cars, aren’t likely to inspire any backseat antics anytime soon.
Scroll down to read the full press release and then tell us in the comments which cars you think should get excised from the list, and what you’d replace them with.
From the headlines-we-never-expected-to-see file: “Stick shifts popular again…” Yes, we thought , what with every carmaker bemoaning low take rates and reports that has decided to in both its sports car and throughout the range of models. But lo and behold, it seems that manuals accounted for 6.5 percent of new vehicle sales during the first quarter this year, the highest take rate since 2006, according to Edmunds.com numbers cited by USA Today.
This surge in popularity comes despite a 10-percent drop in the percentage of new models offering stick shifts in the past five years, according to the report. The change in consumer behavior has surprised some automakers, including , who told the newspaper that demand for a manual in the is nearly 10 percent, more than double the automaker’s original forecast.
Of course before we get too excited – or give credit to the Car and Driver – let’s keep in mind that a decade ago, when we first started to hear the groundswell against the manual from automakers, the take rate for manuals was still running above 8 percent. And we’re still faced with an inevitable demographic shift as Millennials, born after automatic transmissions became dominant, grow up. The best we can hope for is to teach those willing to learn and hope to keep the manual tranny around as long as possible.
is looking toward the future. A new Japanese ad for the company has made its way to YouTube featuring some of the most important models in the automaker’s past. From lowly bicycles and small-displacement motorcycles to the ever-sexy 1965 RA272 F1 car and perfectly proportioned S800, the ghosts of yesterday are all lined up behind the new Acura NSX Concept. The spot spends plenty of time talking about the power of dreams and determination before finally ending on the rally cry of “Let’s surpass yesterday’s Honda!” The simple spot is titled “We won’t be beaten.”
At least that’s according to the subtitles. The announcer could be reading us his grocery list for all we know. If the translation is accurate, though, it sounds like Honda is tacitly acknowledging that it needs to pull itself up by its bootstraps and get back into fighting shape. Let’s hope they figure it out. to watch the video for yourself.
We keep track of every idea that for . Of the hundreds we get after each episode airs, one is without question at the top of everyone’s list: drive 200 miles per hour.
Despite the first production car eclipsing 200 mph back in the mid-’80s, we thankfully aren’t yet jaded by the feat. Unlike back then, however, more than a handful of today’s cars can beat two bills if given enough runway.
That’s exactly where Jessi and Patrick found themselves on the day we asked them to do the deed: the runways of the near Mojave, CA. Eagle-eyed Autoblog readers will remember that this is one of the locations used by to conduct their . We should know; we’ve gone after the elusive two hundred twice now, but at this very location (check out the gallery from that experience below).
We enrolled Jessi and Patrick for a day’s worth of double-hundy attempts in vehicles like the and new . Each took their own shot at 200-mph glory, and one even discovered that reaching 200 mph is the easy part.
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.
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.
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.
“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 .
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has taken dead aim at stamping out distracted driving and with good reason. Last year, inattentive drivers caused around 950,000 accidents. But according to a new study by the Society of Automotive Engineers, there’s another issue causing even more accidents across the country: turn signal neglect. According to their research, drivers neglect their turn signals, either by failing to turn when their signal is activated or not activating the signal at all, an astonishing 750 billion times a year. What’s more, neglecting the signals may be responsible for as many as two million accidents per year.
SAE says the solution lies in the implementation of so-called “Smart Turn Signals,” which use sensors to shut off turn signals before they become a safety hazard. What’s more, engineers can integrate a “Turn Signal Assist” feature, which uses a vehicle information display to alert the driver if they fail to use turn signals on a regular basis or don’t shut them off in a timely manner. The report says that since the system uses sensors already integrated into the stability control module, there would be no cost added to the vehicle’s bottom line.
This is our skeptical face. We’re major proponents of proper and consistent turn signal use, but we’re bigger fans of creating smarter drivers through education than we are of building smarter cars. for the full press release.
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between 
