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GM design boss Welburn says Lincoln isn't a Cadillac rival [w/poll]

General Motors Vice President of Global Design, Ed Welburn, had some dismissive words for a certain cross-town luxury brand during an interview with Car and Driver. When asked about his thoughts on Lincoln, Welburn deflected, before saying, "I don't consider Lincoln to be a competitor for Cadillac."
"They're not a global luxury brand. I don't consider them a competitor. Are they a competitor for Buick? Quite possibly. But not for Cadillac," GM's head designer explained. Welburn, who's been at the helm of GM Design North America since 2003 and is the first to hold the position of VP of Global Design, has been instrumental in the styling renaissance at GM, so predictably, Car and Driver's interview with him focused on the design aspect of cars.
During the interview, Welburn explicitly denied plans for a reborn Cadillac XLR, even as a new Chevrolet Corvette is hitting the market and strides are being made with Cadillac's V-Series performance arm saying, "We have a lot of cars that we're working on for the Cadillac brand. The XLR is not one of them right now."

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.

Why an independent rear suspension for GM's new, full-sized SUVs wasn't easy

A Motor Trend report last month laid out how Cadillac's 4.2-lier twin-turbo Blackwing V8 could be an orphan due to cost concerns in the GM empire. Last-minute chassis changes to Cadillac's new sedans and XT6 crossover led to engine bays that couldn't fit the Blackwing. On the SUV side, according to the report, the new independent rear suspension for big people haulers cost so much to implement that GM ruled out reworking the Escalade to accept the Blackwing. At least one commenter rightly asked how could a suspension swallow that much money. A new piece in Motor Trend has the answer. The excellent Alissa Priddle spoke to Tim Herrick, GM's executive chief engineer for full-size trucks, about why the clean-sheet IRS cost "multimillions of dollars."  First, GM would need to build a new body shop at the Arlington, Texas plant that assembles the automaker's big SUVs to stamp the numerous wholly new parts and panels accommodating an IRS. Then GM would need to design and pay for a new assembly process. On top of those up-front costs, there was the incremental cost of the four-link IRS components being more expensive than those in the trucks' former leaf-sprung solid axles. Herrick endured so many rejections for so long that he remembers the date and time when he got approval for the new unit. He said it came down to a meeting where he told a higher-up, "I'll make you a deal: If we get to the reveal, or if we launch this and you think this was a dumb idea, I'll hand you my badge and let you walk me out." Head to Motor Trend to read the full story. Based on Herrick being on stage to help present the new SUVs to the press, and on our First Ride in the new Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban at GM's Milford Proving Grounds, it appears this will have a happy ending for all involved. Furthermore, since Herrick worked on the T1 platform that supports the big SUVs as well as the light- and heavy-duty pickups, he understood the demands on the commercial side, too. That could be why when Roadshow asked Tim Asoklis, chief engineer of the Tahoe and Suburban, if the new IRS could endure life in the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, Asoklis answered, "Oh, absolutely." Related Video: