1996 Ford Mustang Svt Cobra Convertible 2-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

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Ford faces class-action lawsuit for selling vehicles without brake override systems

A total of 20 Ford customers are suing the automaker in a class-action lawsuit for selling vehicles "vulnerable to unintended acceleration." According to Reuters, the suit names 30 models built between 2002 and 2010 with electronic throttle control systems but without a brake override system. Those include the 2004-2012 F-Series pickups and the 2005-2009 Lincoln Town Car. Adam Levitt, a partner with the law firm of Grant & Eisenhofer says the plaintiffs in the case want "to be compensated for their economic losses by having overpaid for cars that contained defects." Levitt contends that the plaintiffs would not have bought their vehicles or paid less for them had they known there was no brake override system in place.
Ford began installing brake override systems in its vehicles beginning in 2010. In response to the lawsuit, Ford has pointed to research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that indicated that unintended acceleration is mostly caused by driver error, saying in a statement that, "NHTSA's work is far more scientific and trustworthy than work done by personal injury lawyers and their paid experts."
Belville et al v. Ford Motor Co. will be heard in US District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia.

Hybrid, electric campers take center stage at Germany's motorhome trade show

Car companies from all over the automotive spectrum will make international headlines next week by presenting hybrid and electric cars at the biennial Frankfurt auto show. Camper van and motorhome manufacturers got a head start on the rest of the industry by presenting their green solutions at the Dusseldorf Caravan Salon. The show confirms electrification is present in the leisure segment, too. German camper experts Dethleffs introduced a plug-in hybrid, pop-top camper based on the full-size Ford Transit van. Called Globevan e.Hybrid, it relies on a 126-horsepower drivetrain built around a turbocharged, 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine. The system can power the camper on electricity alone for up to 31 miles. Adventurers who leave with a full tank and a full charge enjoy 310 miles of driving range, which is an impressive figure for the camper van segment. Charging the battery pack takes 5.5 hours when using a regular household outlet, according to the manufacturer, or three hours when hooking it up to a quick-charging station. Globevan production is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2020, and pricing starts at 75,000 euros, a sum that represents approximately $83,000. EFA-S took electrification a step further. Starting with a Fiat Ducato, a van known as the Ram Promaster in the United States, it yanked out the turbodiesel engine and replaced it with a 140-kilowatt electric motor fed by an 86-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. The company pegs the camper's driving range at up to 186 miles, a relatively low figure which hardly reflects how most vacationers use their van. The pack takes four hours to charge, Auto Motor und Sport learned. While sustainable, zero-emissions tourism is difficult to argue against, the Ducato-based camper suffers from two serious setbacks. First, the battery pack makes it so heavy that it can't be driven with a regular license. It's considered a heavy commercial vehicle. Second, its 160,000-euro (about $177,000) price tag makes it twice as expensive as a diesel-burning model, and puts it in the same price range as much bigger, more powerful, and more luxurious models. EFA-S will nonetheless move forward with production in 2020, though it plans to build no more than 30 units. The caravan Salon is not only about hybrids and electric cars, however.

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.