Free Republic

Last week, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made a pledge to legalize millions of vehicles being illegally imported from the United States. While it sounds like a phenomenal way to help the nation to contend with product shortages that are driving up vehicle prices around the globe, all of the cars had been smuggled previously and many were presumed to have been stolen. This has created a lot of tension. Despite there being evidence that these vehicles frequently end up becoming workhorses for criminal cartels, illegally imported beaters also provide a cheap alternative to poorer residents right when automotive...

I live in Manassas, Virginia and have an RV, which I took to the Camping World dealer where I purchased it for some service. My brother gave me a ride back to my home and on the drive he remarked that the dealerships did not have new vehciles in their showrooms and lots. As we passed several dealerships on the way to my place, I looked over at the lots and showrooms. Sure enough, while there were many used vehicles, where new vehicles should be on the lots and in the showrooms, it was sparse to empty. The big lie...

Grandson stationed at Ft. Bragg needs car

The official SUV, produced by General Motors (GM), of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) annual “March Madness” tournament is made in China. Last week, Buick — a division of GM — announced its 2021 Buick Envision is the official SUV of March Madness. The Buick Envision is built in China and imported to the U.S. market to sell. GM Authority reported in May 2020: The 2021 Buick Envision debuted just yesterday, dropping in with an all-new second generation for the nameplate. Now, GM Authority has confirmed that the next-gen model will continue to be built in China. [Emphasis added]...

Graphene hybrid made from metal organic frameworks (MOF) and graphenic acid make an excellent positive electrode for supercapacitors, which thus achieve an energy density similar to that of nickel-metal hydride batteries. Credit: Prof. Dr. J. Kolleboyina / IITJ ==================================================================== A team working with Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient supercapacitor. The basis of the energy storage device is a novel, powerful and also sustainable graphene hybrid material that has comparable performance data to currently utilized batteries. Usually, energy storage is associated with batteries and accumulators that provide...

I'm working family genealogy and found a photo of my great grandparents and family. That's my grandfather at upper right. The little girl between great grandma and great grandpa was born January 1924 and she appears about 4 or 5 years old here, so I'm guessing the photo was taken in the summer of 1928 or 1929. Can you help me figure out what their automobile is? I'm guessing it is a 1928 - 1931 Ford Model A Slant Windshield because of the three windows on the side and the suicide door hinges. Here's somebody's 1931 Ford Model A Slant...

Schematic depiction of the asymmetric supercapacitor with the porous COF as the negative electrode shown on the left. Credit: KAUST, Osama Shekhah ========================================================================= Carefully designed covalent organic frameworks could make supercapacitor electrodes that have a greater ability to store electric charge. A porous organic material created at KAUST could significantly improve energy storage and delivery by supercapacitors, which are devices that are able to deliver quick and powerful bursts of energy. Supercapacitors use technology that is significantly different from the reversible chemical reactions used in rechargeable batteries. They store electrical energy by building up a separation of positive and electric...

Two people are in fair condition after gunshots were exchanged between an armed attacker and a concealed carry holder in the River North neighborhood overnight, according to Chicago police. Citing preliminary information, CPD said a 22-year-old man was driving a 21-year-old woman eastbound in the 100 block of West Superior when two white sedans boxed them in around 2:55 a.m. Friday. An armed man got out of one of the sedans and began shooting at the victims’ car, striking the woman in her leg and arm, police said. A 23-year-old man was then shot in the leg when the woman’s...

San Leandro Chrysler Dodge is open for business after one of the largest auto theft sprees in memory. "Pisses you off man. You walk in it's like a war zone," said dealership owner Carlos Hidalgo. Cell phone video reveals some of what happened Sunday night at the dealership on Marina Boulevard. It shows new dodge cars and trucks screeching out of the lot and onto the street. By the time it was over 74 vehicles were gone. Hidalgo said as a precaution against thefts he had parked cars at all the lot exits. It didn't matter. "They started ramming, ramming...

Former NFL quarterback Tarvaris Jackson has died in a one-car crash outside Montgomery, Ala., authorities said Monday, April 13, 2020. He was 36. The 2012 Chevrolet Camaro that Jackson was driving went off the road, struck a tree and overturned at 8:50 p.m. Sunday, Trooper Benjamin “Michael” Carswell, an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency spokesman, said in a news release. Jackson was pronounced dead at a hospital. Former Seahawks quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, whose toughness as a starter to play through injury in 2011 and willingness to adapt to a backup role when the team won the Super Bowl in the 2013...

For one fleeting moment, the Hélica—a plane without wings and an “unsteerable murder machine”—looked like the future of transportation. Good thing it wasn’t. ______________________________________________________________________________________ In 1909, Marcel Leyat, an engineer from the tiny mountain town of Die in southeastern France, designed and built his first airplane. Not long after, he ran out of money. The young engineer had trained in aeronautics, only to find his skillset obsolete in a market controlled by the military; bespoke airplanes were a dying business. Undaunted, Leyat turned his attention to the pursuit of his real dream: building what he called a “plane without wings.”...

KIST researchers developed cathode material of carbon-silicon complex by simply mixing and heating silicon mixed with oil with green ingredients corn and sweet potato starch. If batteries made of this material are installed in electric vehicles, the driving range will more than double. Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) _______________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Hun-Gi Jung and his research team at the Center for Energy Storage Research of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Lee Byung Gwon) have announced the development of silicon anode materials that can increase battery capacity four-fold in comparison to graphite anode materials and...

BigRep's Loci prototype was 3D-printed using the company's Pro, Studio G2 and One machines. BigRep =================================================================== Last year, Polymaker and XEV teamed up to launch what was claimed to be the first mass-producible 3D-printed electric car, the LSEV. Now Germany's BigRep has unveiled a design prototype of a sporty little number made up of 14 3D-printed parts, plus an electric powertrain and self-driving tech. Named Loci, the curvy four-wheeler has been designed by the company's NowLab consultancy – the same design studio responsible for the futuristic Nera motorcycle – as a last mile transport solution for urban areas, airports, for...

Skoltech researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics of RAS and the Ural Federal University have shown that high-capacity high-power batteries can be made from organic materials without using lithium or other rare elements. In addition, they demonstrated the impressive stability of cathode materials and record high energy density in fast charge/discharge potassium-based batteries. The results of their studies were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, and Chemical Communications. ============================================================= Lithium-ion batteries are indispensable in our daily life: they are widely used for energy storage, in particular,...

Reservations are open, but the first Mach-E models won't reach customers' hands until around a year from now. ============================================================== The new Ford Mustang Mach-E will start at $44,995 and range up to over $60,000. Several different configurations will be available including Select, Premium, California Route 1, GT, and GT Performance Edition. Reservations are open now for a $500 deposit. The first vehicles will start arriving in late 2020, with other models reaching customers throughout 2021. ===================================================================== Ford has already released pricing information for the 2021 Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, which starts at $44,995. The newest member of the Mustang family...

Switzerland’s Innolith says it has made a major battery breakthrough, but there’s reason to be skeptical Electric carmakers have long been clamoring for a battery breakthrough that will improve the range of their vehicles while also extending their lifespans. Innolith, a Swiss startup, says its new high-density lithium-ion batteries can do just that. The company claims to have made the world’s first 1,000 Wh/kg rechargeable battery. (Watt-hours per kilogram is a unit of measurement commonly used to describe the density of energy in batteries.) By comparison, the batteries that Tesla uses in its Model 3 — the so-called 2170 cells...

BMW announced this week that, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, it again leads America in automotive exports by sales value. This is thanks to the plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, BMW’s biggest global plant and the producer of most of its X crossovers and SUVs. BMW said the plant—which makes all the X3, X4, X5, X6, X7 models and their M and hybrid versions sold worldwide—exported 234,689 cars abroad in 2018, a value of more than $8.4 billion. BMW said 356,749 SUVs were made there in total.

Blue collar no more: Skilled auto technicians are in high demand The tight labor market can be a boon for blue-collar workers: They are more likely to find good-paying jobs and experience rapid wage growth. More employers are trying to tackle the aversion to manual labor jobs by offering workers higher salaries, tuition reimbursement and apprenticeship programs. Technology is also transforming blue-collar workplaces, making more advanced skills in demand.... Across the country there are more drivers on the road, and many of them hanging on to their vehicles longer than ever. That means workers like Michael Gerhart are in demand....

A fundamentally American freedom is under attack. The automobile defined the 20th century in the United States. Mass production made cars available to the nation's middle class and helped create the modern suburb, where most Americans now live. Driving became part of coming of age in America...Meanwhile, some cities have put their drivers on forced road diets. They are reducing lanes available to drivers on key arterial streets...The goal is to discourage driving by intentionally reducing capacity and creating traffic congestion by design...The bottom line is they want to force more residents to use alternative transportation by making driving as...

New York (CNN Business)Layoffs for about 4,000 salaried staff at General Motors are due to start Monday. The layoffs are part of a 15% reduction in white collar jobs in North America that the automaker first announced back in November. At the same time, it announced plans to close four US plants as well as a fifth in Canada. While those plants, which include about 6,000 hourly jobs, have yet to close, GM is moving ahead with the salaried staff reductions, a GM spokesman confirmed Friday. The timing of the layoffs was first reported by the Detroit News. The company...