Last minute Gift Cards @ Best Buy.This promo video looks more like a video game as professional skateboarders Pat Duffy and Jake Brown take on a 2010 Mustang. The car (with the help of professional drivers and CGI) lands ollies, 360s, and kickflips.
Yesterday's clip was all about some blazing hot custom made Ford Mustangs making their presence felt at the 2009 SEMA Show last week in Las Vegas. Chevrolet reportedly also got in on the act with pimpin' out Camaros a plenty for SEMA insiders and car enthusiasts alike. Well, if you're thinking Dodge didn't have something similar up their sleeves, then like Judas Priest says "you've got another thing coming."
Today's Web video features Edward Loh from Motortrend.com gushing over some flashy custom 2009 Dodge Challengers, and with damn good reason. These Challengers are spectacular to look at, and a hot green convertible in particular is given a lot of camera time for its blingtastic wheels and 560HP V-8 engine. Roughly half way through the video, we get to scope a red Challenger that's been infused with a Viper V-10 engine and all sorts of custom options built in. Anyone who thinks that modern American muscle cars aren't something to get excited about should probably think again.
Earlier this week, we took a quick glance at a few of the many production and concept cars making their debuts at the 2009 SEMA Show last week at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Well, today's video needs little explanation, simply because I don't have much extra information to give you. This Web clip shows off four nice customized Ford Mustangs that were exhibited at the most recent SEMA Show in Vegas, and really, this video is just a lot of nice eye candy for Mustang enthusiasts. Observe...
This video is more or less a commercial for Stage 3 Motorsports and TheMustangNews.com. Stage 3 Motorsports specializes in building custom Ford Mustangs and is also a supplier of Mustang engines and components. TheMustangNews.com boasts that it is "the Web authority for Mustang and Ford News," and its home page has profiles and reviews of several different Mustangs and Ford products that were on display at the 2009 SEMA Show. It's not the most intellectually stimulating Web clip you'll ever see, but if you just enjoy seeing some pimped-out custom Mustangs, then you will be more than satisfied.
In January, Nissan Motor will steer what has been mainly a luxury-car feature--the navigation screen--into new territory when it offers the standalone option in the Sentra compact for $400.
The color screen, supplied by Robert Bosch, provides navigation but also can be connected to an iPod or MP3 player and a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone.
The nav screen has become like the iPhone for cars--a gold mine for suppliers striving to provide applications such as traffic reports, parking-assist systems, and backup cameras.
This year automakers will install about 1.4 million navigation systems worth $2.6 billion in vehicles sold in North America, according to iSuppli, a Los Angeles consulting firm that tracks sales of consumer electronics. That's up from 890,000 systems worth $1.8 billion installed in 2004.
"By 2016, one in three cars will have a navigation system of some sort," says Phil Magney, vice president of iSuppli's automotive practice. If that prediction pans out, nav screens could be standard equipment in about 5.4 million vehicles sold annually in North America, he says.
| Lots of action |
|---|
| Functions are proliferating on navigation screens. |
| • Active parking assist on Ford and Toyota vehicles |
| • Telephone controls |
| • Traffic and points-of-interest information |
| • Controls for the radio and air conditioner |
| • Route guidance |
| • Fuel economy performance information for hybrids |
| • Live video from backup camera |
| • TV programs |
One year after the spectacular meltdown of the domestic auto industry and three years after becoming Ford Motor CEO, Alan Mulally's turnaround efforts are gaining traction.
Ford reported a surprise $1 billion profit last week, and Mulally credited the improvement to better products, prices, and market share. Mulally, 64, was interviewed by Associate Publisher Peter Brown, Editor Jason Stein, and Staff Reporter Amy Wilson just before the earnings announcement.
A year ago you were part of a three-man team from Detroit in front of Congress asking for help, and now you're kind of on your own. How would you assess how Detroit and Ford have weathered the past year?
In Ford's case, we have made tremendous progress. We were really there to support GM and Chrysler getting temporary help with their situation approaching bankruptcy and [because of] suppliers. They could have taken the entire industry down and taken a recession into a depression.
... Read moreThis last week saw yet another big auto show in the form of the 2009 SEMA Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show ran from November 2 to Friday November 6, and boy, was there a ton of eye candy for us car enthusiasts. However, the SEMA Show was not open to the public--only auto industry insiders were allowed inside these doors full of what SEMA refers to as "automotive specialty products." This video is a teaser of some of the many automotive delights that were on display at this year's event.
Here we go with another quality highlight video from the folks at Inside Line courtesy of Edmunds.com. This highlight reel features Camaros galore, plenty of Ford mods, and the stateside debut of the $375,000 Lexus LFA. Other notable vehicles include the Hyundai Genesis (with the midcar engine), Kia's first foray into racecars, and the Brooks & Dunn sponsored Toyota Tundra with an onboard barbecue grill--yummy.
Ford's inflatable seat belts are designed for the rear seat.
(Credit: Ford)Ford announced a new seat belt innovation on Thursday: seat belts that inflate during a collision. Designed for rear-seat passengers, Ford claims the new seat belts spread collision force over five times the area of a traditional seat belt when inflated. In a crash, the seat belts limit head and neck movement, which should reduce injury.
Ford also says the extra bulk of these seat belts gives them a padded feeling, making them more comfortable, so rear-seat passengers are more likely to wear them. Current usage statistics show that 82 percent of front seat occupants wear seat belts, but only 61 percent of rear seat passengers wear them.
These inflatable seat belts will be included in the next update to the Ford Explorer, with other Ford vehicles following.
Automatic parking systems are becoming more common, and some automakers are offering several 2010 models with the convenience feature.
Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are leaders in the commercial introduction of automatic parking systems, which allow vehicles to identify and steer themselves into parking spaces.
VW offers the system in six Volkswagen models and the Audi A3. Ford's 2010 Lincoln MKT crossover and MKS sedan have it as well. Both worked with Valeo SA to develop their own ultrasonic-based systems. The Valeo technology, called Park 4U, won a 2008 Automotive News PACE Award.
Toyota's Advanced Parking Guidance System will be an option on 2010 versions of the Lexus LS 460, LS 460 L and hybrid LS 600hL and the Toyota Prius hybrid.
The Toyota version, from Aisin Seiki Co., started in 2003 as a camera-aided visual system on the Japanese-market Prius. But Toyota and Aisin Seiki have added ultrasonic sensors from Denso Corp. to develop the system into a more sophisticated feature that also allows the vehicle to back itself into perpendicular parking spaces.
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Want to tweet with Ford's Sync? There's an app for that.
(Credit: CNET)Editors' note: Ford has clarified that its open platform is still in the prealpha testing stages. The article has been updated to reflect this information.
When Ford and Microsoft opened up their joint Sync platform for its own applications and updates, we wondered when the day would come that third-party developers would be given a crack at the in-vehicle infomatics interface. Well, that day may be on the horizon. Ford announced that it is testing an open-source platform to could be used in the future to develop applications that make use of Sync to connect to social networks in the cloud.
Ford's representatives said the system is built on a Robotics Studio platform by Microsoft that has been layered with an open-source cloud-computing platform developed by Ford that will allow rich--and hopefully seamless--interactions with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
So what's the point? How can social network interactions be useful and safe in 2,000-plus pounds of steel moving at 70mph? Ford's Venkatesh Prasad, group and technical leader of vehicle design and infotainment, posed the following scenarios:
The Ford Fiesta will be the test vehicle used in the University of Michigan's Ford open platform competition.
(Credit: Ford)Imagine you're on a cross-country road trip and you decide to stop in a new city for something to eat. Now, you don't know this new city very well, so you ask Sync to grab some dining and sightseeing suggestions. The application could then fire out a tweet, update your Facebook status, or query Yelp on your behalf and when the responses roll in, it could format them in an easy to understand way, for example as a custom points-of-interest menu.
Another possible application is a Green Car Challenge, where you compete with your friends to see who can average the highest fuel economy while suggesting the greenest driving routes to one another.
This all sounds pretty cool on paper; we'll have to wait a bit longer to know exactly how effective these apps will actually be. We expect that it will really depend on the size, make up, and responsiveness of your social network. I shudder to think of all of the Twitter-bots that currently follow me supplying any sort of advice.
The first test of Ford's open-application SDK will be in conjunction with a competition at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Students will compete to develop the best Sync application that makes use of the cloud. The winning team will have their app installed in Ford's first test mule, a Ford Fiesta, and will take a road trip from Ann Arbor to San Francisco to participate in the 2010 San Mateo Maker's Faire.
Ford currently has no road map for when we can expect to see the Sync open platform in production vehicles, as it is still in the prealpha testing phases.
Researchers at Ford Motor have some high-tech tools to help them understand driver distraction and to improve safety behind the wheel. One of those tools is the "Distraction Lab," a full-motion-based driving simulator.
The Virttex (Virtual Test Track Experiment) simulator has been in operation since 2001. It looks like an egg-shaped alien spacecraft on legs. The Virttex simulator has helped Ford develop new products, such as SYNC, and continues to help researchers understand driver distractions.
