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BMW, Ferrari, VW cars use tungsten mined by terrorists

Bloomberg Markets is reporting that BMW, Volkswagen and Ferrari have been using tungsten ore sourced from Columbia's FARC rebel terrorists. The extensive story focuses on Columbia's illegal mining trade and calls into question the provenance of the rare ore that is used not only in crankshaft parts production, but is also found in the world's computing and telecommunications industry for use in screens.
The ore is mined by the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army), and exported to Pennsylvania, where it is refined. The refined ore is then sent over to Austria, where a company called Plansee turns it into a finished product. Now, it's important to note that we aren't talking about the world's supply of tungsten here. In 2012, Plansee's American refinery purchased 93.2 metric tons of tungsten, valued at $1.8 million. That's peanuts, with the entire Colombian tungsten mining industry producing just one percent of the world's supplies.
That doesn't make indirectly supporting FARC any more acceptable, though. BMW, VW and Ferrari are all committed to not accepting mineral supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is also in the grips of a guerrilla insurrection funded, in part, by illegal mining. The same commitment would figure to extend to Colombian mining, but as BMW points out, it's difficult for a multi-national manufacturer to know where every item in its supply chain comes from. A company spokesperson says as much, telling Bloomberg, "These few grams out of the billions of tons of raw materials passing through the BMW supply chain are of no practical relevance."

Ferrari LaFerrari is beautifully redundant

The successor the Ferrari Enzo has officially bowed. Ferrari pulled the sheets back on the oddly named LaFerrari at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, calling the machine the "maximum expression" of what defines the automaker. In this case, that includes a 6.3-liter V12 engine with 789 horsepower married to a 160-hp electric motor. The combination is good for a full 949 hp and 663 pound-feet of torque, and Ferrari says the LaFerrari can punch to 62 miles per hour in under three seconds. Keep your foot planted and 124 mph will click by in a scant seven seconds, while top speed sits at a lofty 205 mph.
Engineers turned to a total of four different types of hand-laminatated carbon fiber to create a chassis that's both stiffer and lighter than would have otherwise been possible. With a 41/59 weight distribution, carbon-ceramic brakes and ultra-light calipers, the LaFerrari is unlike anything we've seen from the company to date. The automaker says its creation is the fastest in its long history. You can take a look at the in-depth press release below for more information, and be sure to check out the model's new site here.

Ferrari, BMW lend expertise to Olympic bobsled, skeleton, luge

LONDON — There are plenty of reasons why the sport of bobsleigh is sometimes referred to as Formula One on ice, but few as obvious as Italy's World Cup sleds. Resplendent in Ferrari red, and with a set of team sponsor Pirelli's P-Zero tyres painted on the sides, they are even liveried to look like racing cars. Ferrari, Formula One's most glamorous and successful team, have worked with the Italian federation, whose sleds run without sponsor branding at the Olympics, since 2010 and in the run-up to next month's Pyeongchang Winter Games. Former rival BMW, title sponsor of the World Cup, has long partnered the U.S. bobsleigh team, while McLaren teamed up with Britain's bob and skeleton athletes for the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia. "There's always the link between the Formula One companies, or any motor company, and skeleton and bobsleigh," says Rachel Blackburn, the engineer who has been involved in Britain's skeleton program since 2006 and who used to work for McLaren. "There's the Ferrari sleds and the BMW sleds ... when we were at McLaren it kind of made a good story," she told Reuters by telephone from her home in Dubai. That somewhat manufactured rivalry has died down in the years since Sochi, with McLaren no longer involved and Ferrari's presence low key. But the worlds of grand prix motor racing and sliding sports still have plenty in common. Bobsled, luge and skeleton are among the fastest of Olympic sports, with bobsleds reaching speeds over 90 mph. Drivers are subjected to gut-wrenching G-forces, and crashes can be fatal. And then there is the ongoing debate about cost controls, the direction of future rules, preserving a level playing field and obsessive secrecy — all endlessly recurring themes in Formula One. 80 mph on a tea tray Blackburn said skeleton, where riders hit 80 mph on what has glibly been compared to an oversized tea-tray, sits somewhere between Americas Cup yachts and Formula One cars in terms of speed and aerodynamics. "Applied engineering is far more interesting than the pure stuff, so when its applied to something that's fun and exciting it does make it a lot easier to solve problems," she said. "There is the Americas Cup, sailing, Formula One and the high speed ice sports as well. It's the same concept.