auto parts: August 2013

Diesels: Good MPG, Less So Carbon

I have heard man advocates of small diesels moan that we "just don't get it" here in the U.S. and we need to be more European, and somehow encourage light duty diesels.

What the compression ignition lovers don't realize is that the U.S. policy is very much now based around global warming and carbon reduction, whereas it used to be about reducing oil consumption for geopolitical reasons (OPEC etc.)

So, let's look at carbon emissions:

1 gallon of gasoline when burned will emit approximately 19.64 pounds of CO2.

1 gallon of diesel will emit approximately 22.38 pounds of CO2.

Diesel is about 14% more carbon emitting than gasoline.

But, a diesel engine is about 30% more fuel efficient than a similarly sized gasoline engine. So if we do the math, a similarly sized diesel powered car will emit about 14% less CO2 than a similar diesel car. Not bad, but not huge.

Meanwhile, diesel fuel offers no advantage in the U.S. in cost (it is more expensive than gasoline by about 30%), and the vehicles cost more due to the diesel hardware premium.

Garmin taps QNX technology to create K2 infotainment platform

Complete digital cockpit delivers navigation, diagnostics, streaming media, smartphone integration, and voice recognition

Paul Leroux

This just in: Garmin International has selected the QNX CAR platform to power the Garmin K2, a next-generation infotainment solution for automakers.

Most people are familiar with Garmin's many portable GPS devices, from sports watches to action cameras to PNDs. But the K2 is a different animal altogether — a complete “digital cockpit” that comprises multiple digital displays, on- and off-board voice recognition, smartphone integration, and optional embedded 4G connectivity.

The K2 is designed to give drivers simple, intuitive access to navigation, vehicle diagnostics, streaming media, and realtime Web information. It's also designed with scalability in mind, so automakers can use it to address diverse market requirements and cost targets.

According to Matt Munn, managing director of Garmin’s automotive OEM group, “the QNX CAR platform has played a major role in helping us to achieve our goal of providing both world-class software reliability and flexible access to emerging consumer applications. From the proven stability and performance of the QNX architecture to the company’s worldwide industry recognition, QNX was the logical choice.”

Other key features of the K2 include a 3D-enhanced city model, a predictive services calendar, and remote personalization and control via a web portal or smartphone.

Here's the K2 at a glance:

Source: Garmin

And here's a demo of the system, filmed by Engadget at 2013 CES:

For more information on this announcement, read the press release. And for more on the K2 itself, visit the Garmin blog.

QNX, AutoNavi collaborate to provide in-car navigation for automakers in China

Map database offers 20 million points of interest

Paul Leroux

This just in: QNX has announced that it is partnering with AutoNavi, a leading provider of digital map content and navigation solutions in China, to integrate AutoNavi’s technology into the QNX CAR platform.

AutoNavi offers a digital map database that covers approximately 3.6 million kilometers of roadway and over 20 million points of interest across China. By supporting this database, the QNX CAR platform will enable automotive companies to create navigation systems optimized for the Chinese market and users.

Said Yongqi Yang, executive vice president of automotive business, AutoNavi, “as a leading global provider of vehicle infotainment software platforms, QNX is not only a technology leader, but also a design concept innovator in enhancing vehicle flexibility — infotainment designs based on the QNX CAR Platform can be quickly customized.”

For more information on this partnership, read the press release. And to learn more about AutoNavi, visit their website.

Leading infotainment supplier in China makes the shift to QNX CAR platform

Paul Leroux

This just in: Foryou General Electronics, a global supplier of in-car infotainment systems, has chosen the QNX CAR platform to develop infotainment and navigation systems for automakers in China.

Said Steven Chen, CTO of Foryou General Electronics, ”we appreciate the modular, pre-integrated approach that the QNX CAR platform offers because it allows us to develop highly reliable, differentiated infotainment solutions for entry-level to high-end vehicles.”

A Foryou infotainment and navigation
system. Source: Foryou

Foryou chose the QNX CAR platform after comprehensive testing of competing infotainment platforms, including open source solutions.

Established in September 2002, Foryou General Electronics is a subsidiary of Foryou Group Ltd., one of the top 100 electronic information enterprises of China. Its products are sold in more than 80 countries and regions worldwide; company sales were more than US$300 million in 2012.

For more information on this announcement, read the press release.

Tesla's Extra 0.4 Star

Tesla is trumpeting the Model S' excellent performance in NHTSA's safety tests. Tesla says that the model S has achieved a combined rating of "5.4 stars":

Palo Alto, CA — Independent testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has awarded the Tesla Model S a 5-star safety rating, not just overall, but in every subcategory without exception. Approximately one percent of all cars tested by the federal government achieve 5 stars across the board. NHTSA does not publish a star rating above 5, however safety levels better than 5 stars are captured in the overall Vehicle Safety Score (VSS) provided to manufacturers, where the Model S achieved a new combined record of 5.4 stars.

This is very odd publicity, to me. NHTSA awards star ratings as integers, and 5 stars is the most you can get. A 5 star rating means that you have less than a 10% chance of serious injury in a serious accident, according to NHTSA's statistical model.

You can't get more than 5 stars, awarded by NHTSA.

Tesla is just trying too hard, here, I think. A 5-star result is excellent, and they should proudly publicize it.

SOLD - JZX 90 - Mark 2 - Half Cut

SOLD To Local Customer
This Half Cut Model Is JZX 90 - Mark 2 - Engine 1JZ-GTE-Manual, Selling Together With All The Parts Shown In The Photos.

Selling As Is Where Is Basis

To View Engine Revving, Click Video Below:-

General View Of The Half Cut

General View Of The Speedometer

Mileage Reading :- 112,789 Kilometers Or 70,083 Miles

Engine Tag Information

Chassis Number

General View Of The Engine Bay

Inner Part Of The Engine

Front Turbo

Rear Turbo

General View Of The Engine Bay

General View Of The Gearbox

Front Bumper With Spotlight And Lip - Good Condition

Driver Side - Headlamp With Signal Lamp - Good Condition

Driver Side - Brake Caliper With Rotor

Driver Side - Fender - Dented

Bonnet - Dented

Passenger Side - Headlamp With Signal Lamp - Good Condition

Passenger Side - Brake Caliper With Rotor

Passenger Side - Fender - Dented

One Set - Tail Lamps And Console Box

Long Shaft

Rear Axle With Complete Frame

Ford's C-Max Debacle Explained

Ford yesterday announced that it was re-stating the fuel economy label of the C-Max hybrid, from 47 city / 47 highway /47 combined to a still very good but not as impressive 45city / 40highway / 43combined. Note the large decline in the highway number.

So what happened? Did Ford cheat the test? Not really.

What happened was that Ford used the Fusion Hybrid test results to certify the C-Max, which they are allowed to do according to EPA regulations. The EPA regs allow manufacturers to certify vehicles as a group if they are in the same weight class and share powertrains.

Here is the EPA's short report on the matter. An excerpt:

Ford based the 2013 Ford C-Max label on testing of the related Ford Fusion hybrid, which has the same engine, transmission and test weight as allowed under EPA regulations. For the vast majority of vehicles this approach would have yielded an appropriate label value for the car, but these new vehicles are more sensitive to small design differences than conventional vehicles because advanced highly efficient vehicles use so little fuel.

In this case, EPA's evaluation found that the C-Max's aerodynamic characteristics resulted in a significant difference in fuel economy from the Fusion hybrid.

Was this intentional, a case of Ford using the higher number for marketing purposes? Or was it a case of simply not knowing that the C-Max would test out so much differently? I have no idea. But I think in the future, Ford and other carmakers are going to be more careful about publishing fuel economy numbers based on assumptions, after this PR disaster.

Tesla Quality Checking

An interesting insight into Tesla's assembly and delivery process over at Wired, here.

Tesla is testing every car they build with a battery of tests which takes a whopping 5 hours to complete. This compares with the end-of-line testing of a true high volume mass production auto plant, which takes typically several minutes. At the end of the assembly line, the completed car is run on a rolls machine (chassis dyno) which takes the car through an automated test sequence which spot checks the engine, brakes, transmission, and other systems. There are also final visual inspections.

And that's it. In a modern plant, the quality checks and reliability are built into the assembly process and design itself. Most cars fire up at the end of the line and are ready for a consumer to drive them 150,000 miles.

If Toyota, for example, took 5 hours to test and quality check each Lexus they built, they would not be able to produce many cars, and the plant would not make money.

Is Tesla's extensive end-of-line testing due to a lack of confidence in upstream processes and parts?

If Tesla hopes to be a major player, they will need to increase throughput and reduce in-plant time. They won't be able to check each car for 5 hours.

Panasonic goes global with QNX CAR platform

Paul Leroux

In the automotive market — or any market, for that matter — a product platform must be judged by its flexibility. After all, the whole point of a platform is to help you create multiple products or product lines, each with its own distinguishing features, while reusing as many components as possible. Done right, a platform lets you target multiple price points, multiple consumer segments, and multiple geographies, in the least time and at the least cost. If that doesn’t define flexibility, I don’t know what does.

Which brings me to Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America. They’re an international supplier of infotainment systems — Chevy MyLink and Chrysler Uconnect are just two of their products — and they need this kind of flexibility to deliver localized solutions to their OEM customers in North America, Europe, and Japan. To help achieve it, they use the QNX CAR platform.

Flexible by design: MyLink supports
a touchscreen, voice commands,
and steering-wheel buttons.

To quote Scott Kirchner, vice president and CTO of Panasonic Automotive Systems, “we wanted a platform that would let us quickly customize our infotainment systems for a variety of markets and customer requirements — the QNX CAR platform, with its modular architecture and support for mobile connectivity standards, provides the inherent flexibility we were looking for.”

That quote comes from a press release issued just a few minutes ago. To read the release in its entirety, visit the QNX website. But before you click, remember also to visit the Chevy website, where you can find out more about the MyLink system. And did I mention? MyLink has been building quite the trophy case, what with the Best of CES 2013 Award it won in January and the CTIA Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Award it won in May.

Chevy MyLink system.
Images: Chevrolet

From Hollerith to HTML5: the inevitable rise of the programmable car

Paul Leroux

Some people are crazy good at predicting the future. Case in point: Nicola Tesla. In 1909 he proclaimed that "everyone in the world" would one day communicate with wireless handheld devices. At the time, people must have thought he was, well, crazy. But look around you: when's the last time you weren't surrounded by people using wireless handhelds?

Over the years, the auto industry has produced many technology visionaries who share this talent for prognostication. Mind you, visionary is probably the wrong word. Many of these people didn’t simply envision the future; they tried to build it. All too often, however, the technology needed to make their ideas work was still in its infancy — or simply didn't exist yet.

For evidence, consider the ITER AVTO. Introduced in 1930, this dash-mounted navigation system used maps printed on rolls of paper. These maps were connected by a cable to the speedometer and would scroll forward in proportion to the car’s speed. It was all pretty cool, provided you didn’t make a turn — otherwise, quick, change rolls! Basically, a great idea hampered by the tech of its time:

Source: Dieselpunks

For another example, consider these “alarming” glasses, which made their debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1951. The concept was simple: monitor eye movements to determine whether the driver is falling asleep; if so, sound an alarm. Just one problem: to detect eye movement, the glasses used a thin steel wire pressed against the driver’s eyelids. It was another great idea that needed yet-to-be invented technology — in this case, inexpensive (and non-invasive) eye-tracking cameras — to work.

Source: Modern Mechanix blog

And then there’s the 1969 Buick Century Cruiser, an autonomous concept car that used punch cards to program the car’s destination. The driver would insert a card encoded with a destination, and an electronic highway center (whatever that was) would then take over and guide the car to where it was programmed to go.

Source: Car Styling 2.0

The car was never intended to be sold, of course. To be commercially viable, it would have required technologies that simply weren't available in 1969.

But you know what? I think the Century Cruiser represents a watershed concept: that you can use software to control or enhance a car's behavior. The Century Cruiser may have used Hollerith cards, but it presaged vehicles that, in a few short years, would use programming languages like C to control ECUs and anti-lock brakes. From there, it was only a matter of time before cars would use software technologies like HTML5 to deliver everything from weather reports to smartphone integration. The software path was set, even if no one realized it yet.

Controlled openness

Paul Leroux

The title of this post sounds like a contradiction in terms. But you know what? It captures the predicament faced by every automaker today.

On the one hand, automakers need to convince mobile developers that it's worthwhile to create apps for the car. They also need to make the process of creating and monetizing car apps as easy and open as possible. Otherwise, why would a developer spend time developing a car app when a phone app could reach many more customers? (About 60 million cars shipped in 2012, compared to more than 545 million smartphones — and most of those cars can't host apps.)

On the other hand, apps can't run willy-nilly in the car. For safety's sake, automakers must impose control on when specific apps can be used, and the apps themselves must be designed or modified to minimize distraction, possibly in accordance with government-mandated rules and guidelines. That may sound like an imposition on developers, but not really. After all, developers want to create apps that will prove popular with consumers, and consumers will be far more interested in apps that can be used while the car is moving — apps that, for safety reasons, can be used only when the car is stopped will hold less appeal.

But enough from me. Recently, my colleague Andy Gryc caught up with Thilo Koslowski, VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, and they discussed the notion of controlled openness for the car — along with how HTML5 fits into the picture. The cameras were rolling, so grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and check it out:

The Chicken Tax--Bad and Good

There is an interesting piece in the Detroit News today about the possible impact of the "Chicken Tax", the 25% import duty on foreign built (exa-NAFTA) pickup trucks. According to "analysts", pickup trucks in the U.S. may have a several thousand dollar premium compared to what they would cost without the protectionist tariff.

The average selling price of full-size pickups has grown at more than twice the rate of the overall industry — cars and trucks combined — since 2005. The average truck sells for more than $40,000, nearly $9,000 more than the average vehicle, according to automotive research firmEdmunds.com. Automakers in recent years have added more luxury items to pickup trucks — and cars, too — so it's difficult to pinpoint how much an uncompetitive market can be attributed to price.
But Jesse Toprak, an analyst for vehicle pricing website TrueCar.com, said in a telephone interview that weak competition in the truck segment results in a "couple-thousand-dollar premium" paid by consumers.

The Chicken Tax, like any other protection tariff, has both bad and good effects.

Bad Effects

Less consumer choice--
We can't have the globally built small/midsized pickups that are sold overseas because with a 25% tariff no one would buy them.
Higher prices--
local production is done in part by UAW labor, which is more expensive than overseas labor.
Foreign retaliation

Good Effects

Local production means more jobs, and more business in U.S (and NAFTA region). If you add up direct and indirect jobs, thousands of Americans (and Mexicans and Canadians) are employed because of local truck production. Some are unionized but many are not.
Higher quality pickup trucks. Due to the high cost of entry, only large established players like Toyota and Nissan have the means to set up a local plant to build trucks--so they have to bring high quality, high margin products. Cheap junk won't fly. Marginal brands like Mahindra or Great Wall have a hard time making a business case for low cost products, due to the high barriers of local labor costs and the regulatory environment.

Judging by the sales numbers (number one selling vehicle is F150, followed by Chevrolet Silverado) the higher prices do not seem to hurt pickup truck sales. Trucks have become a luxury good, as much as a work tool, and people are willing to pay $40,000 for a loaded pickup truck.

SOLD - Honda EK 9 - 2nd Gen - Half Cut

SOLD To Local Customer
This Half Cut Model Is Honda EK 9 - 2nd Gen - Year 1999 - Engine - B16B - Type R - Manual, Selling Together With All The Parts Shown In The Photos

Selling As Is Where Is Basis

To View Engine Revving, Click Video Below :-