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MIT puts V2V technology on its 2015 Top Ten list

Of all the technologies swimming around the automotive world, it is vehicle-to-vehicle communication that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has fished out as one of its Ten Breakthrough Technologies of 2015. It joined emerging tech like brain organoids, supercharged photosynthesis, and Project Loon on the list, and got the nod over autonomous driving because, as the MIT Technology Review wrote, V2V communication "is likely to have a far bigger and more immediate effect on road safety." How so? Because actual cars transmitting data like their location, speed, steering angle, and state of braking to one another at least ten times per second provides a greater degree of awareness than sensor readings and algorithms. The US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have been working for years on standards and a regulatory schedule for introducing V2V to the marketplace, and Cadillac plans to incorporate V2V into at least one of its vehicles by 2017. Since we've begun the year with a number of stories of cars being hacked into, that got us wondering about the security of V2V communications. In a recent piece by our own Pete Bigelow on what motorists should know about getting their cars hacked into, he wrote that although cyber break-ins are extremely difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to do remotely, V2V is "one more conceivable avenue a hacker could use to impact multiple cars at a given time." So we spoke to Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Security Innovation about it. The automotive consultancy company has been working with the DOT since 2003 on V2V technology and the issues around it - namely security and privacy - and its chief scientist, William Whyte, is the technical editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1609.2 standard outlining its security protocols. Those protocols are expected to be finalized by the DOT toward the end of this year and then come into effect in 2016, and the company's Aerolink product is the security solution Cadillac will use. Whyte said, "If you hack into a car, V2V is the hardest place to start," and Pete Samson, the general manager of Security Innovation's automotive team, said "There are ten or 12 alternate attack surfaces" around the car that would make much easier targets.

GM to cut production at 5 plants in North America, kill several models

DETROIT/WASHINGTON — General Motors Co said on Monday it will cut production of slow-selling models and slash its North American workforce in the face of a stagnant market for traditional gas-powered sedans, shifting more investment to electric and autonomous vehicles. The announcement is the biggest restructuring in North America for the U.S. No. 1 carmaker since its bankruptcy a decade ago. GM said it will take pre-tax charges of $3 billion to $3.8 billion to pay for the cutbacks, but expects the actions to improve annual free cash flow by $6 billion by the end of 2020. GM plans to halt production next year at three assembly plants: Lordstown, Ohio, Hamtramck, Michigan, and Oshawa, Ontario. The company also plans to stop building several models now assembled at those plants, including the Chevrolet Cruze, the Cadillac CT6 and the Buick LaCrosse, the sources said. Sources said the Chevrolet Volt, Impala and Cadillac XTS would also be discontinued. Signs of the demise of six passenger-car models have been swirling since July. Plants in Baltimore, Maryland, and Warren, Michigan, that assemble powertrain components have no products assigned to them after 2019 and thus are at risk of closure, the company said. It will also close two factories outside North America, but did not identify those plants. The AP reported that 14,700 jobs would be affected. Some 8,100 of those would be white-collar jobs reduced through buyouts or layoffs. The No. 1 U.S. automaker signaled the latest belt-tightening in late October when it offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried employees in North America. The company also said it will cut executive ranks by 25 per cent to "streamline decision making." Some 6,000 factory workers could lose their jobs or be transferred to other plants. Its shares were last up 6.2 percent at $38.16. Tariff 'headwinds' and cost-cutting GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra told reporters on Monday the company can reduce annual capital spending by $1.5 billion and increase investment in electric and autonomous vehicles and connected vehicle technology because it has largely completed investing in new generations of trucks and sport utility vehicles. Some 75 percent of its global sales will come from just five vehicle architectures by early in the 2020s. It plans to reduce annual capital spending to $7 billion by 2020 from an average of $8.5 billion a year during the 2017-2019 period.

Our favorite mid-engine Corvette theories and rumors

The mid-engine Corvette! We just saw blurry photos through the foliage, and are hearts are all aflutter because it means that this car is real. And it's the most " never before" Corvette since 1984. Which leads us to all kinds of wacky theories and speculation. Everybody knows something or heard from a guy. None of those guys (or gals) from GM are talking to Autoblog, to be clear. But that won't stop us from stirring the pot. Let's go over a few point-by-point. The pushrod engine will be replaced by an overhead-cam V8 Car and Driver has repeatedly reported that an overhead-cam engine will come after the mid-engine Corvette's debut with an old-school pushrod. We've heard the same thing firsthand, albeit from a source with no connection to the development of the Corvette or powertrain. "At some point two valves can't pass future emissions regulations," said the guy we know. While the pushrod engine is compact, the design makes it difficult - if not impossible - for sophisticated variable valve timing (and lift) systems that control combustion with more precision. Hasty conclusion: The pushrod engine has a finite life in front of it. This one's a lock, it's a just a matter of when. Bowling Green's new paint shop is really the mid-engine assembly line Credit to Reddit for this one. Like we said, everybody knows a guy. But let's look deeper. The new paint facility costs $439 million dollars and adds 450,000 square feet, almost half the size of the existing plant. Plus GM announced another $290 million in upgrades at Bowling Green Assembly. That sure sounds like a lot of money, but you can actually spend that much on a paint booth. Porsche spent 500 million Euros (about $561 million dollars) to add the Macan assembly to its Leipzig, Germany plant in 2014. Chrysler shelled out $850 million for a paint shop in Sterling Heights, Michigan. GM spent $600 million for a new paint shop at the Fairfax (Kansas City) plant. Honda, on the other hand, is working on a thrifty $210 million project in Marysville, Ohio that includes a 300,000 square foot expansion, and the low-volume Acura NSX facility only cost $70 million. Hasty conclusion: The square footage and cost could easily mean a new assembly line instead of (or in addition to) a paint line. And if the NSX plant was really that cheap, GM could have hidden a similar sum in its existing announcements.