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Watch Ken Block's scary Rally America crash from inside the cockpit

Ken Block became famous for his series of Gymkhana videos, but he's a real racer in his own right. Block has competed many rounds in the FIA World Rally Championship and also rallied in the 2013 Rally America series. He nearly won that latter title last year - if not for a massive crash in the final event of the season.
Block and his co-driver Alex Gelsomino went into the Lake Superior Performance Rally needing a win to take the championship. However, missing a clump of dirt on the side of the road and one little word in the pace notes was all it took to catapult Block's Fiesta off the road and into a tumbling accident. Block says his initial reaction was anger because the crash came out of nowhere.
For 2014, Block is joining the FIA World Rallycross Championship for at least three rounds. He'll drive a Ford Fiesta for the Hoonigan Racing Division at the Norwegian, French and Turkish events of the 12-round championship. Former Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve will also compete in the series.

Stocks down as automakers, Boeing lead China's hit list in trade spat

Shares in U.S. exporters of everything from planes to tractors fell on Wednesday after China retaliated against the Trump administration's tariff plans by proposing duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, beef and chemicals. U.S. automakers' products are prominent on China's list of tariff targets, yet shares of automakers ended higher on Wednesday as Wall Street stocks changed course in the afternoon when investors' trade fears subsided. Tesla shares closed 7.3 percent higher at $286.94, Ford shares gained 1.6 percent to close at $11.33, and GM shares were up 3 percent at $38.03. Aircraft maker Boeing closed down 1 percent, weighing the most on the Dow Jones Industrial Average as documents from China's Ministry of Commerce and the U.S. manufacturer showed the move would affect some older Boeing narrowbody models. It was not immediately clear how much the tariffs would impact its newer aircraft. Boeing said it was assessing the situation while analysts from JP Morgan said the proposals from China looked to have been calibrated carefully to avoid a major impact on the planemaker. Fellow Dow component 3M lost as much as 2.4 percent. And farming equipment maker Deere lost nearly $10 per share at its lowest. The company urged the two countries to work toward a resolution to "limit uncertainty for farmers and avoid meaningful disruptions to agricultural trade." The speed with which the trade spat between Washington and Beijing is ratcheting up — the Chinese government took less than 11 hours to respond with its own measures — led to a sharp selloff in global stock markets and commodities. China was hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods with similar tariffs on U.S. goods even as Trump said the country is "not in a trade war with China." "Everybody knew they were going to retaliate. The question was how strong of a retaliation. Today's move clearly shows that they mean business," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York. China levied 25 percent additional tariffs on U.S. goods, but unlike Washington's list that covers many obscure industrial items, Beijing's covers 106 key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals. Trump denied that the tit-for-tat moves amounted to a trade war between the world's two economic superpowers.

Bill Ford op-ed argues we can't just build and sell more of the same cars

It's hardly a secret that the auto industry is undergoing an enormous, tectonic shift in the way it thinks, builds cars and does business. Between alternative forms of energy, a renewed focus on low curb weights and aerodynamic bodies, the advent of driverless and autonomous cars and the need to reduce the our impact on the environment, it's very likely that the car that's built 10 years down the line will be scarcely recognizable when parked next to the car from 10 years ago.
Few people are as able to explain the industry's many upcoming changes and challenges as clearly as William Clay Ford, Jr., better known as Bill Ford. The 57-year-old currently sits as the executive chairman of the company his great-grandfather, Henry Ford, founded over 110 years ago.
In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Ford explains that the role of automakers is, necessarily, going to change to suit the needs of the future world. That means changing the view of not just the automobile, but the automaker. As Ford explains it, automakers will "move from being just car and truck manufacturers to become personal-mobility companies."