2002 Chrysler Concorde Limited Sedan 4-door 3.5l on 2040-cars

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Chrysler patents smarter minivan folding seats

It's frightening to think of how quickly the mice would have overtaken us if we hadn't stayed one step ahead of them with better mousetraps. We'll never have to worry about that in our relentlessly re-engineered world, though. Case in point: Chrysler has been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office for an improved design of the already wondrous Stow 'n' Go seating found in the automaker's Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans.
Introduced in 2005, the Stow 'n' Go was improved in 2008, and based on the drawings of this third-generation improvement, the new design appears to allow stowage of the second row of seats without having to move the front-row seats forward as much. It look like it also involves fewer operations and moving parts, with a portion of the seatback being incorporated into the flat floor when the seats are stowed, as opposed to having a completely separate cover.
It's possible that the innovation may appear on the next-generation minivans expected in 2015, but Chrysler isn't commenting on the patent.

Chrysler and Google launch virtual 200 factory tour [w/video]

Google is no stranger to showing off some of the most interesting automotive destinations in the world, like the museums for Lamborghini and Ducati, or even a Tesla showroom. However, it's taking that technology even further with a new, in-depth look of the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant where the Chrysler 200 is made. Unlike these earlier online excursions, the new Chrysler factory tour is a fully guided experience that includes several 360-degree videos explaining many parts of the production process.
"Just as we pioneered a completely new Chrysler 200, we are pioneering a new way for consumers to research a vehicle. The Factory Tour is an opportunity for us to prove to consumers that the all-new 2015 Chrysler 200 is not one ever built before," said Olivier Francois, Chrysler's chief marketing officer, in the company's release.
Chrysler was already pretty proud of its nearly $1 billion in recent updates to the Sterling Heights factory having released a look at the 200's assembly process earlier this year. However, the new Google tour goes far deeper by including 12 videos, and between highlighted stops, viewers can swing the camera all over to get a full view of the action. The whole thing is an intriguing way to show the way a modern car gets built.

Wish you had a world-famous auto exec give your commencement speech? Watch this

We've seen some pretty great commencement speeches over the years. There was Steve Jobs' incredibly inspiring Stanford address in 2005, John Stewart's insightful speech to the graduating class of William and Mary in 2004 and Steven Colbert's hilarious 2011 address at Northwestern, but automotive executives aren't strangers to honorary degrees. Former General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner spoke at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011, and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne recently gave the keynote at Walsh College's 100th Commencement Ceremony. The executive knows a thing or two about success and following one's beliefs to fulfillment.
"I constantly encourage my co-workers at Fiat and Chrysler to go beyond the cliche and the conventional to try new approaches and change perspective each and every day," Marchionne said. "I exhort them not to repeat the same things, the same approaches, and I remind them they are indeed free. The freedom I am talking about is something inside you. It is determined by how open minded you remain, how receptive you are to the new and to the different, to the infinite possibilities that present themselves even if you don't go looking for them or could never have imagined. Being free means that you have the strength not to be conditioned by what others want you to do or by what may seem to be the easiest choice."
Amen to that. You can check out the brief press release on the address below as well as a video of a few highlights from the speech.