ford

It is amazing how much difference an engine can make to a car. With the 2011 Mustang GT, Ford redesigned its V-8, modernizing it with an aluminum block, double overhead cams, and variable valve timing. The result is a big power gain over the previous V-8 and EPA fuel economy numbers of 17/26.

You might be able to get in the EPA range with the Mustang, if you keep the tachometer pointing around 1,500 rpm. But if you want to enjoy the exhaust note, which sounds something like a thousand wrench jockeys clearing their throats in harmony, expect … Read more

On a cloudy San Francisco day, a Ford Explorer followed two Ford Fiestas. The lead Fiesta slammed on its brakes, and before the second Fiesta reacted, warning lights went off in the Explorer, alerting the driver to the situation ahead.

The Explorer's apparent precognition was born of technology, a combination of Wi-Fi and GPS. The lead Fiesta used this technology to tell the Explorer that its driver had slammed on the brakes. The Explorer received this information before the driver of the second Fiesta in the lineup could react, and dutifully used warning lights and sounds to tell its … Read more

DETROIT--Ford Motor is applying Hollywood-inspired animation technology to its new manufacturing facilities in Asia, Africa, and other regions.

The goal is to create a less physically stressful workplace and improve the quality of vehicles. The technology also helps Ford trim costs by not having to replace unworkable parts.

Ford has been using the animation technology, known as motion capture, since 2005 in North America.

"We're very pleased with our results," said Allison Stephens, Ford's ergonomics specialist with vehicle operations manufacturing engineering.

The motion-capture technology digitally captures movement, making nonhuman characters appear more lifelike. It's similar … Read more

Ford wants the action of plugging in a new Ford EV to have an intuitive feel. The automaker today announced it has standardized the location of charge points on the Focus Electric and C-MAX Energi to the left front fender.

"After benchmarking multiple competitive vehicles, we found there wasn't much consistency in charge port location," said Susan Curry, Ford Electrified Vehicle Technology Integration supervisor. "We wanted to give customers a location that made the most sense for them and would seem as simple as filling up at the gas station."

According to Ford, EV owners … Read more

Think you're safer in that Chevy Suburban than in a Honda Civic? Think again. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released its latest round of Top Safety Picks, and in the small car category, six newly tested cars achieved top marks in all the tests.

The six new winners in the small car category are the 2012 Honda Civic and Ford Focus and the 2011 models of the Hyundai Elantra, Lexus CT 200h, Nissan Juke, and Toyota Prius. They join a group of 14 previously tested Top Safety Pick winners in the small car category, including the Nissan Leaf … Read more

Someday, your car may be keeping an eye on your heart health.

Ford announced today it has developed a driver's seat that can monitor the occupant's heart function with the help of six embedded sensors on the backrest that detect "electrical impulses generated by the heart" without actually contacting the skin.

The technology was developed at the Ford European Research and Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany, with the help of researchers at the RWTH Aachen University.

Ford said it can envision sending data to "remote medical services" and providing "alerts of imminent cardiovascular issues such as a heart attack."

"As always in medicine, the earlier a condition is detected, the easier it is to treat, and this technology even has the potential to be instrumental in diagnosing conditions drivers were previously unaware they had," Dr. Achim Lindner, medical officer at the Ford research center, said in a statement.

Although not all companies are necessarily jumping on the health-and-wellness bandwagon, the use of driver assistance systems in vehicles is on the rise. Such systems deliver everything from assisted breaking to adaptive cruise control that speeds up or slows down the car based on road conditions. Regardless, they all have the same goal in mind as Ford's heart-monitor offering: improving safety.… Read more

A few students in Atlanta Public Schools will soon be driven to school in a the nation's first hydraulic hybrid conversion of a traditional school bus.

Financed by a $50,000 grant from The Ford Motor Company Fund and converted by students at Georgia Institute of Technology, the bus will run on recycled biofuel.

There are more than 480,000 iconic yellow school buses in the United States, but this 16-passenger school bus is being painted green by students at Mary Lin Elementary School in Atlanta, Ga.

The students at Mary Lin have also organized a drive for used … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

$20/month Chrome laptops?

Ford and Google teaming up

More on Music Beta by Google

Hungry for some Ice Cream Sandwich news?

Facebook apps had leaked info the whole time

Apple and Google testify before Congress

To take the guesswork out of efficient driving, Ford may employ Google's Prediction API to do the energy-saving calculations for commuters.

Google's Predictive API is already used by Web sites to recommend products to users and by mail programs to decide which missives are spam. But Ford is also exploring ways the pattern-matching program could be used to program vehicles to run more efficiently based on driving patterns and styles, according to an article in PC World.

At the Google I/O conference yesterday, Ford presented a use case for the predictive engine that analyzed previous trips to … Read more