Free Republic

Bishop Curry looks for ways to fix the world. For an 11-year-old boy, he's unusually curious about big-picture problems, his dad says — from natural disasters to civil rights. And he's always loved to tinker. That's why it wasn't a surprise when Bishop, after seeing an upsetting local news report about a 6-month-old who died when left in a hot car, resolved to make sure something like that never happened again.

Street workers were gathered at the parking space, a tipoff that something was amiss. That's when Westerberg, 25, found the vehicle in the gaping hole — about 20 feet (6 meters) deep and 8 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) across — that took up the entire southbound lane of the street, next to a vacant building expected to feature apartments, office space and retail. No injuries were reported.

BMW Chairman Harald Krueger said Monday during a Start of Communications event for the company’s third generation X3 in Spartanburg County BMW will continue investing in its “people” and “business” in the U.S. German automaker BMW Group on Monday, June 26, said it plans to invest $600 million to expand its Spartanburg County plant and create 1,000 jobs during the next five years. BMW’s Chairman Harald Krueger made the announcement during the company’s Start of Communications event, or unveiling, of its next-generation X3 at BMW Manufacturing Co. near Greer. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Krueger said the company would invest $200 million solely for...

California and other states would be barred from setting their own rules governing design and testing of self-driving cars, while federal regulators would be blocked from demanding pre-market approval for autonomous vehicle technology, according to a U.S. House Republican proposal reviewed by Reuters on Thursday. The draft legislation, while far from becoming law, still represents a victory for General Motors Co, Alphabet Inc, Tesla Inc and other automakers and technology companies seeking to persuade Congress and the Trump administration to pre-empt rules under consideration in California, New York and other states that could limit deployment of self-driving vehicles.....

The Arlington facility will consist of two manufacturing and warehouse buildings spanning more than 1.2 million square feet. General Motors has outlined plans to build a new supplier park to help support its Arlington Assembly plant in Texas. The facility will consist of two manufacturing and warehouse buildings, spanning more than 1.2 million square feet. The company expects the park to house up to 1,250 employees and bring 850 new jobs to Arlington. "GM estimates nearly 600 of the new manufacturing and professional jobs created in these facilities will replace work previously done outside of the US," the company says....

Eliminating the Problem How difficult is it to test autonomous vehicles (AVs) on public roads? Uber can probably tell you all about it. Much of the difficulty in obtaining the permits necessary for such tests comes from fear. Because self-driving technology is new, because the systems have been involved in incidents in the past, and so on, people aren’t quite ready to trust the tech. The governor of Washington state, however, has a different perspective. Governor Jay Inslee signed an order on Wednesday that would allow for autonomous vehicle tests without a human driver behind the wheel. According to the...

Tesla made headlines recently when its market capitalization nosed past both General Motors’ and Ford’s to make it the most valuable U.S. automaker. Overall U . S . auto sales are down after last year’s highs, and the Big Three (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) automakers have been turning in lackluster numbers lately. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s company is on track to sell 100,000 cars this year, after delivering almost 80,000 last year. So is Tesla poised to dominate Detroit’s Big Three? I seriously doubt it. Tesla is an amazing company. Its cars have improved suspensions, new top speeds, and autonomous driving—the...

Automotive supplier Continental plans to invest more than $40 million and create 160 new jobs over the next five years at its brake systems manufacturing facility in the western North Carolina town of Morganton. Continental, a German company whose North American headquarters is in Auburn Hills, Mich., is eligible to receive up to $1.6 million in state Job Development Investment Grant incentives if it meets its job and investment targets, according to the office of Gov. Roy Cooper. “Thanks to the generous support of the state and local officials, we are pleased to make an investment that plans to expand...

Four people who worked for the House of Representatives have a history of massive debts and bankruptcy, a fondness for fast cars and real estate, and unusually complicated webs of intertwined finances. The three brothers and a wife of one of them are under criminal investigation into sensitive congressional information security. Chiefs of staff for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who employed the four were informed last week that a criminal probe was underway into their use of congressional information technology systems, including the existence of an external server to which House data was being funneled, and into the theft of...

Customers on the waiting list for the Tesla Model 3 sedan may have been bumped up in line a bit. Electric car blog Electrek reports that at least a few people have said they are cancelling their orders for the yet-to-be-released car over Elon Musk's collaboration with President Donald Trump's administration....

Wal-Mart has partnered with online car retailer, CarSaver to start selling cars at Supercenter locations in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix and Oklahoma City. Beginning April 1, Carsaver staff will be in 25 Wal-Mart Supercenters helping customers select a new, used or certified pre-owned vehicle and apply for financing and auto insurance on kiosks. Customers will be directed to make an appointment with a local certified dealer for final sale. Sixteen AutoNation stores in Houston, Dallas and Phoenix have already lined up to participate in the program. The model was first tested in Florida last year with nearly 80 percent of dealership...

VILLA DE REYES, Mexico (AP) -- Word spread quickly through cellphone messages and shouts between co-workers that Ford Motor Co. had canceled its new $1.6 billion car plant at its sprawling 700-acre high desert site in north-central Mexico. "When I saw it on the phone, (I thought), 'Well, no, it can't be,'" said Higinio Salazar, a security guard who spent the past five months logging traffic into and out of the site and hoped to have steady work for months to come. "It was on orders of Mr. Trump," he said bitterly....

Bjorn Nyland has just posted a glowing review of the Hyundai Ioniq Electric. Bjorn is a video blogger who has made an international reputation by creating videos about road trips he has taken in his Tesla Model S and Model X. In fact, creating content for this YouTube channel has become nearly a full time job for him. Earlier this year, he won a Tesla Model X in a Tesla referral contest by generating more Model S referrals than anyone else in the European area. Nyland is committed to the electric car lifestyle and is now branching out to cover...

When you spend a lot of time thinking about emerging technology, you begin to notice certain things that are naturally just assumed to be true about the future, as if everyone just knows them. These ideas are so widespread and infrequently challenged that they come to seem inevitable. These are also things that a lot of people really want to be true. What a coincidence. So we take for granted that electric cars are the future, and the internal combustion engine is on the way out. That we're going to power everything with renewable energy, especially solar, and oil is...

Much has been said about the ways we expect our oncoming fleet of driverless cars to change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads. They will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It's a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation. [Snip] It's not difficult to do the math on how driverless cars could change the equation. An estimated 94 percent of motor-vehicle...

The four mega-trends shaping the global auto industry over the next 15-odd years are undoubtedly vehicles with lower emissions, new powertrain technologies, autonomous automobiles and vehicle digitalization. Reflecting these mega-trends, one can anticipate more developments in lightweighting, drivetrain optimization, car computerization, infotainment and driverless transportation in 2017. Here PlasticsToday gives its take on some of the key developments expected in 2017. Staying connected, and entertained Rather than being interested in the size of the engine and the shape of the car, consumers are now more interested in “infotainment” systems, being connected, autonomous driving and diverse mobility, notes consultant McKinsey. Traditionally,...

Despite the fact that Ford Motors is under fire from President-elect Donald Trump for importing cars from Mexico, the company will soon become the first US automaker to import vehicles from India. According to a report in CNN Money, the company has said that EcoSport compact crossover, introduced for the US market at the Los Angeles auto show, will be shipped to US from India starting 2018. The report says that the EcoSport, Ford’s smallest SUV, has been built at its assembly plant in Chennai for more than 100 markets around the world since 2013. About 15 per cent of...

[The] US car industry history...suddenly appears to be bombarded with a barrage of bad news: starting with Ford's disastrous August sales when the company admitted "sales have reached a plateau"...one would almost think that a respite from the bad news was in order. One would be wrong. As a result of slowing demand and declining US auto sales coupled with growing inventory, Ford Motor is halting one of two plants that builds its top-selling F-150 pickup as it idles four factories this month amid slowing U.S. auto sales. Ford is shutting its Louisville, Kentucky, factory building the Escape and Lincoln...

Is the electric car the inevitable wave of the future? Is the internal combustion engine finished, through, a relic of the 20th century—as many are now saying? I have argued before that electric cars are overhyped. I calculated that the Tesla, for example, is still a really bad deal when you compare its substantial extra costs against the cost of operating a similar gasoline-powered car over five or ten years. But what if I'm wrong? For example, how much of that calculation is due to the inflated cost of a Tesla, which uses all of the positive publicity lavished on...

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars face an uphill battle toward mass adoption. Both cars and fueling infrastructure need to be made widely available before large numbers of consumers can seriously consider switching from gasoline to hydrogen. But under certain circumstances, hydrogen could prove very attractive to consumers for one simple reason. When produced using renewable energy, hydrogen could cost nearly the equivalent of 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline, according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). That will only happen if "the stars align" and several factors work in hydrogen's favor, notes industry trade journal WardsAuto noted in a June report on...