Truck 4.6l V8 Standard Cab Bed Liner Rwd on 2040-cars

Auto blog

New autonomous testing ground in Michigan will help battle bad weather

If one of the big weaknesses of autonomous vehicles is their ability to navigate in the snow, consider this a trial by fire. The American Center for Mobility says it has opened its $110 million driverless car testing facility on the site of a former General Motors assembly plant in Michigan, with Toyota and auto supplier Visteon the first to begin testing this week. The ACM proving ground is a 500-acre site at historic Willow Run in Ypsilanti Township, near Ann Arbor. It's one of 10 sites designated by the U.S. Department of Transportation as pilot proving ground sites to test AV technologies. It features a variety of simulated environments to test driverless cars, including a 2.5-mile highway loop, two double overpasses, intersections, roundabouts and a 700-foot curved tunnel. It also opens just as the region experiences a series of snowstorms and the first frigid temperatures of the season. That ability to test autonomous vehicles in a wide variety of weather conditions is important, as autonomous vehicle sensors have struggled to handle cold, wet and snowy conditions. Google parent Alphabet in October said its Waymo division was expanding its winter testing operations to Michigan, making it the sixth state where it's testing its driverless car systems. In a Medium blog post, Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote that "This type of testing will give us the opportunity to assess the way our sensors perform in wet, cold conditions. And it will also build on the advanced driving skills we've developed over the last eight years by teaching our cars how to handle things like skidding on icy, unplowed roads." Waymo also opened a development center in suburban Detroit in 2016, working with Fiat Chrysler to integrate its autonomous technology into Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans. Visteon began testing and validating its DriveCore autonomous driving platform to evaluate algorithms, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology and other systems. Toyota used the facility Wednesday to begin orientation and driver training. ACM has so far secured $110 million to construct the first two phases from founders Ford, Hyundai America Technical Center, Toyota and Visteon, and says it expects to announce more investment soon.

Ford finds flex-fuel engine design plays big role in emissions output

How bad is ethanol for your engine? There's been a lot of debate on this issue as the US considers upping the biofuel content in the national gasoline supply from 10 percent (E10) to 15 percent (E15). The ethanol industry and some scientists say higher ethanol blends show no "meaningful differences" in new engines while the oil industry says ethanol creates health risks. Researchers working at the Ford Research and Innovation Center decided to take a closer look at how a wide range of gas-ethanol blends - E0, E10, E20, E30, E40, E55 and E80 - affected the emissions coming out of a flex-fuel 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis. To see the full report, printed in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, requires payment, but there is an abstract and Green Car Congress has some more details. The gist is that, "with increasing ethanol content in the fuel, the tailpipe emissions of ethanol, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, methane, and ammonia increased." At least NOx and NMHC emissions decreased. The researchers say that the effects are due to the fuel and "are expected for all FFVs," but that the way that a manufacturer calibrates the engine will affect NOx, THC, and NMOG emissions. It's this last bit that's important, since the researchers found, "Higher ethanol content in gasoline affects several fundamental fuel properties that can impact emissions. ... These changes can have positive or negative effects that can depend on engine design, hardware, and control strategy. In addition to direct emissions impacts, higher ethanol content fuel can also provide more efficient combustion and overall engine operation under part-load conditions and under knock-limited higher-load conditions." So, as we head towards more ethanol in our fuel supply (maybe), manufacturers are going to need to learn how to burn it most efficiently.

Big electric trucks won't save the planet, says the NYT

When The New York Times decides that an issue is an issue, be prepared to read about it at length. Rarely will a week passes these days when the esteemed news organization doesn’t examine the realities, myths and alleged benefits and drawbacks of electric vehicles, and even The Atlantic joins in sometimes. That revolution, marked by changes in manufacturing, consumer habits and social “consciousness,” may in fact be upon us. Or it may not. Nonetheless, the newspaper appears committed to presenting to the public these pros and cons. In this recently published article titled, “Just How Good for the Planet Is That Big Electric Pickup Truck?”—wow, thatÂ’s a mouthful — the Times focuses on the “bigness” of the current and pending crop of EVs, and how that impacts or will impact the environment and road safety. This is not what news organizations these days are fond of calling “breaking news.” In October, we pointed to an essay in The Atlantic that covered pretty much the same ground, and focused on the Hummer as one particular villain, In the paper and online on Feb. 18, the Times' Elana Shao observes how “swapping a gas pickup truck for a similar electric one can produce significant emissions savings.” She goes on: “Take the Ford F-150 pickup truck compared with the electric F-150 Lightning. The electric versions are responsible for up to 50 percent less greenhouse gas emissions per mile.” But she right away flips the argument, noting the heavier electric pickup trucks “often require bigger batteries and more electricity to charge, so they end up being responsible for more emissions than other smaller EVs. Taking into consideration the life cycle emissions per mile, they end up just as polluting as some smaller gas-burning cars.” Certainly, itÂ’s been drummed into our heads that electric cars donÂ’t run on air and water but on electricity that costs money, and that the public will be dealing with “the shift toward electric SUVs, pickup trucks and crossover vehicles, with some analysts estimating that SUVs, pickup trucks and vans could make up 78 percent of vehicle sales by 2025." No-brainer alert: Big vehicles cost more to charge. And then thereÂ’s the safety question, which was cogently addressed in the Atlantic story. Here Shao reiterates data documenting the increased risks of injuries and deaths caused by larger, heavier vehicles.