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Michigan ponders its automotive future in the connected age

Few people take cars more seriously than Michiganders. I've been to the home of BMW in Germany. I've been to Kia's HQ in Korea. I've seen Honda's goods in Japan. No one, from the factory worker to the executive in her pinstriped suit, is more obsessed with cars than Michigan Inc. That's why it was interesting this week to see the state have a moment of introspection four hours north of the Motor City on a scenic island called Mackinac. Ironically, cars are not allowed here. Normally a tourist trap, it played placed host to the Mackinac Public Policy conference this week. While politics took center stage ( I may be the only person here not considering a run for governor) the evolution of the industry through connectivity and data was a theme of the conference. If you're reading this in New York, Silicon Valley, or one of the automotive heartlands listed above, you do care about this. If Michigan rethinks its approach to the car business – and makes moves to become more competitive – that affects you the consumer and enthusiast. It's jobs. It's technology, and it's a competition to see who's going to be the leader. More than a century after Henry Ford made mass production a thing, more than 70 years after Detroit's Arsenal of Democracy helped win World War II, and nearly a decade after the historic bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, the car business is on solid footing again and looking to the future. What's next? Michigan is still home to thousands of auto workers, tech centers (including gleaming facilities built by Toyota and Hyundai), and the headquarters of the three American carmakers. Just because the economy is good doesn't mean it's a given connected cars and mobility advancements are going to come from this state. A lot of it's not. Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Faraday Future, and other transportation mediums have spouted up other places. Michigan leaders and Detroit's carmakers understand this reality. Reflecting on the past means admitting the future is not a given, a key undertone this week in Mackinac. It's about using existing resources, like skilled labor, to move forward. "We do have the number of technicians and technical expertise here in this state," says Stephen Polk," conference chair and former CEO of auto data firm R.L. Polk & Co. To that end, Ford is placing increased emphasis on a division called Smart Mobility, which is an in-house unit focusing on autonomy, connectivity, and forward-looking ideas.

Motorweek goes retro with '80s hot hatch shootout

Motorweek's decades of history on television make it the perfect medium to look back into the automotive past and see how things are different now. It recently added old road test videos to its YouTube channel of the Acura NSX and Toyota Supra, as well as the Ferrari F40. For one of its newest flashback clips, Motorweek has exhumed an affordable five-car challenge of 1986's premiere hot hatches.
By today's standards, this is an eclectic field that features fondly remembered classics like the Volkswagen GTI 16-valve and Acura Integra. However, it also throws in some nearly forgotten contenders like the Dodge Colt Turbo and Ford Escort GT. The angular Toyota Corolla FX16 GT-S rounds out the group.
It's fascinating to watch Motorweek run the quintet through the slalom, down the drag strip and on various roads. What's most striking in this clip is the difference in the definition of a performance car between then and now. With its 16-valve, 1.8-liter four-cylinder, the GTI is the burliest of the contenders with 123 horsepower, but it still takes 8.8 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour. By today's standards, that would make it a plain-jane economy car, and not even a particularly quick one.

Ford Smart Mobility plan moves forward with P2P car sharing

Back when 2015 was still just days old, Ford Motor Company outlined its Smart Mobility plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It consisted of 25 global experiments meant to test out various ideas, with a stated goal of learning how to better address future transportation needs and direct the company's efforts. Six months later, Ford is ready to take what it's learned and move to the next phase. During the keynote address at the 5th annual Further with Ford future trends event – this year held, significantly, in Palo Alto, California – CEO Mark Fields announced Smart Mobility is moving from experimentation to implementation. Mostly. On the more concrete action side of things, Ford Credit Company is working with partners in the US and London, England on a pilot peer-to-peer car-sharing program. Stateside, this will see it team up with Getaround, inviting some 14,000 people in six cities to sign up for pre-screened, short-term car rentals. Across the pond, Ford will work with easyCar Club, targeting 12,000 folks in a similar service. Smart Mobility will also bring the GoDrive one-way car sharing program under its umbrella, upgrading it from what it calls an experiment to an actual pilot program. Fields also revealed a new electric bike design called the MoDe:Flex. The sporty model joins its two previously announced brethren, the MoDe:Me and MoDe:Pro. MoDe:Link, the app that provides a variety of info and allows for eyes-free navigation using hand grips that give haptic feedback to parlay direction changes has been extended to run on an Android smart watch. There, the app can process a rider's biofeedback signals to alter output. For instance, in "no sweat" mode, the bike will pick up more of the workload as your heart rate increases, keeping you from overexerting yourself. None of the bikes are being offered for sale, or for use as part of any sort of sharing program. At least, not for now. Instead, they remain in the realm of multimodal mobility experimentation. Check out the video above for a closer look at Ford's P2P car sharing plans or move down for a look at its latest ebike. You can find lots of detail about the shift in the Smart Mobility plan in the official press release, which is also below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.