Vehicles: Page

Look Ma: No Hydraulics Electric steering systems move into the market

If steering system engineers have their way, you won't notice the significant changes about to unfold in the steering business.Next-generation light vehicles will feel the same to drivers behind the wheel, but a radical difference will be in place. New electrically-assisted steering (EAS) systems will be guiding an increasing number of high-volume production vehicles over the next 10 years, signaling

By ROB CLEVELAND • May 1, 1998

Big Auto vs. Big Oil Sulfur-in-fuel debate tests their clout

Not many months ago, suggesting that automakers lobby for cleaner fuels was about as likely as Al Gore declaring his affection for the internal combusion engine.Even regulators described talk of a next-generation fuel as "premature" and "potentially inflammatory."So why did the American Automobile Manufacturers' Association (AAMA) and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM)

By Jeff Green • May 1, 1998

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from WardsAuto

Automakers are evaluating their long-term strategies, revisiting their product mix, and approach to both retail and manufacturing approach along the way.

By WardsAuto staff

Delphi Sees Collision Avoidance Technology Catching on First Overseas

While the debate rages on in the U.S. over the threat of larger sport/utility vehicles devastating smaller passenger cars, Delphi Automotive Systems' array of collision-avoidance technology is more likely to find a market first in Europe and Japan, says Robert Schumacher, Delphi's director of advanced engineering."Our research shows that between 37% and 74% of rear-end collisions are preventable by

April 1, 1998

Walbro’s debt rating downgraded

Standard & Poor's drops its outlook to negative from stable for Walbro Corp., the Cass City, MI-based fuel-system components supplier. Walbro's board suspends its dividend in March. The company has faced delays on new product launches, is grappling with excess capacity and has not yet recouped heavy investments in plastic fuel-tank technology.

April 1, 1998

Make Way for the Oil Burners The diesel renaissance finally has arrived

In the year since we warned that the oft-berated, appreciated-only-by-the-Europeans diesel engine was amassing a low-profile patronage in the U.S. (see WAW - April '97, p.49), another trend has continued, albeit much more conspicuously: the public's insistence on buying sport/utility vehicles (SUVs).Yes, utes continue to sell, indifferent to impassioned and unrelenting attacks from all quarters, including

By Bill Visnic • April 1, 1998

Fine-Tuning the Laws of Physics Issue of heavier vehicles hitting lighterones has engineers in a quandary

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is on the warpath over compatibility of heavy truck-based vehicles and lighter-weight passenger cars. The New York Times is demonizing the sport/utility vehicle (SUV) as the nation's foremost transportation menace.Like gun control advocates in the wake of a drive-by shooting, they inadvertently stimulate consumer interest in the subject of

By Greg Gardner and Drew Winter • April 1, 1998

High-tech Lighting Gets a Boost

Lighting systems almost always are a prominent feature at SAE, but interior and exterior systems shine especially bright this year. Visteon Automotive Systems wins the prize for the most futuristic, but Cooper Automotive, Osram-Sylvania Products Inc., and Hewlett Packard also make news on technology or business fronts.Visteon breaks new ground by showing off full taillamps lit by solid-state lasers.

April 1, 1998

DuPont Reduces Price of Fuel Cell Component

The push for lower-price fuel cells gets a big boost when DuPont announces it is chopping the price of its Nafion perfluorinated polymers, films and solutions, key components of membrane fuel cells. Nafion is used for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells and electrolyzers and NASA has used it commercially for fuel cell membranes since the 1960s. The pricing structure is based on material volumes

April 1, 1998

Amcast Targets Europe

Amcast Industrial Corp. is pumping more than $150 million into plant expansion and acquisitions to take advantage of the growing popularity of aluminum castings in Europe. Officials at SAE say they expect the company's purchase of Speedline SpA of Italy and the construction of four new manufacturing plants and expansion of six others to improve its ability to meet future demand from automakers in

April 1, 1998

Fuel Cells: They’ve Got Potential - But don’t go running down to thedealer, just yet

If director Mike Nichols were to write a sequel to his 1969 classic The Graduate, the career-counseling mantra offered to a present-day Benjamin Braddock might well be "fuel cells" instead of "plastics."In less than a year, this formerly esoteric technology used in the Gemini and Apollo space shots has emerged from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's closet to become a credible candidate

By GREG GARDNER • March 1, 1998

EV Enthusiasm Needs Recharging - You might say we’ve been jolted back toreality

We've been told, in not so many words, that EVs will be the savior of the 21st century, a virtual modern-day Messiah. Maybe we shouldn't be so ready to accept on blind faith.We've been told that in the battle to preserve the environment, all conscientious Americans should willingly want to trade in their trusty internal combustion engines for clean, quiet-running electric vehicles (EVs). A proliferation

By NATALIE NEFF • March 1, 1998

The Diesel Dilemma - There’s a tradeoff to trimming greenhouse gases

Call me a sucker, but I honestly came away from the North American International Auto Show believing some of the most talented minds in the industry are taking this Partnership for a New Generation Vehicle (PNGV) business quite seriously.General Motors Corp. is ready to put a second-generation nickel-metal-hydride battery in the EV1. Ford Motor Co. has taken enough weight out of the P2000 to reach

By GREG GARDNER • March 1, 1998

Diesel Hangs in There - Despite its dirty reputation, don’t count it out

It has been a long time since anyone had to settle for the retrofitted gasoline engines that General Motors Corp. passed off as diesels in the 1970s fuel crisis, but that image lingers.The technology has taken such a black eye from its dirty past that many now shun the word "diesel" for a more politically correct (and more obtuse) "compression ignition," in reference to the process of using pressure

By Jeff Green • March 1, 1998

The View is Worth the Climb - John Deere’s Ronald Leonard is new SAE chief

For Ronald K. Leonard, incoming president of the Society of Automotive Engineers 1998-1999, the view has been worth the climb. And climb he has. Mr. Leonard, a recent retiree from the John Deere Co. has been making the climb since 1956, shortly after graduating with a bachelor of science degree in agriculture from Iowa State University. He also has a master's of science from Michigan State University.Mr.

By KATHI JACKSON • March 1, 1998

Ballard Battling to Break Through With Daimler and Ford behind it,Vancouver firm sets fuel cell agenda

BURNABY, BC - Shortly after being hired to run Ballard Power Systems in 1989, white-haired Firoz Rasul delivered a harsh message to the company's small research staff. "If you guys are looking for a Nobel Prize," announced Mr. Rasul, "you are in the wrong place. If you are looking to make a lot of money, you are in the right place."That statement heralded an important cultural shift at Ballard. No

By Donald W. Nauss • March 1, 1998

Fading Optimism - Engineers vent over cost pressures, ‘whipsawing’

The relentless push in the auto industry for better, faster, cheaper, lighter, is taking its toll on the engineering ranks.Nearly half of the 400-some engineers polled in the Ward's Auto World 20th annual engineering survey report their frustration level is higher than it was a year ago, and about the same number would not encourage their children to pursue a career in automotive engineering.And about

By Tom Murphy • March 1, 1998

Global Growing Pains - GM Powertrain reshuffles responsibilities

First it was small-car platforms, then Buicks in Shanghai; small cars and pickups in Brazil; a Cadillac for every continent. More recently powertrain development is revamped around four centers in the United States, Europe and Japan.By the time this reaches your desk, stamping operations may follow suit.General Motors Corp.'s march to globalization continues undeterred by Asia's financial flu or cultural

By GREG GARDNER • March 1, 1998

Let’s Call Them ‘HYVES’ Hybrid car/truck designs are the next big thing

Ten years ago American Motors Corp. stopped selling an enigmatic 4-wheel drive wagon called the Eagle with a 4.2L inline-6 engine. Not just a station wagon with better traction, it had a macho, truck-like stance and several more inches of ground clearance than a regular car.You still see them around once in a while. We spotted three in the Detroit area just in the last few weeks. The people driving

By Drew Winter, Gardner, Greg • Feb. 1, 1998

Quotations from Vice Chairman Lutz

With less than a year left before he steps into retirement, Vice Chairman Robert A. Lutz reflects on his four-decade career and offers a range of wry observations during an informal chat with Ward's Auto World at the North American International Auto Show.On the prospects of light-weight electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles:"None of this technology is ever going to be bought by anybody unless we

Feb. 1, 1998

EnGAUGEing Design Gauges and dials are becoming design elements

Attention to details. It's a revived design theme that will separate new interiors from those of the past several decades. It has been cropping up in concept cars and a few production models for the past few years, and now is creeping into production models in two very different aesthetic approaches, one retro and the other high-tech.The retro approach uses little touches of sculpture and design details

By Drew Winter , Bill Visnic • Jan. 1, 1998

The 10 Best Engines of 1998

What you won't find in Ward's Best Engines of 1998 competition: anything about fuel cells, batteries, or we think you'll be delighted to learn global warming.What you will find: the 10 best internal-combustion engines currently available for sale in the U.S. Of course we're aware that all the talk these days is about alternatives to internal combustion, but we're gambling that we'll have cause to

By Bill Visnic • Jan. 1, 1998

>From Sublime to Conspicuous Hybrids and hotrods mingle at Tokyo auto show

TOKYO - This year's Tokyo auto show proves to be a strange contradiction.At one end are the Japanese domestic automakers, all showing advanced technology geared toward realizing more ecologically friendly production cars. Foreign automakers, meanwhile, seem bent on stealing the show with enormous, swoopy concept cars and high-horsepower engines. The two camps could not have been more diametrically

By DAVE SMITH • Dec. 1, 1997

Really, I Voted for Your Part Some complain, but SPE awards are great forengineers

I hear Ford won big" someone muttered as we walked into the Society of Plastics Engineers annual automotive awards dinner. That was news to me, even though I was one of nine judges of the annual competition for most innovative use of plastics. I also was surprised attendees were so knowledgeable about the winners - because judging is supposed to be secret. But that's another story.For about 13 years

By Drew Winter • Dec. 1, 1997

Interiors Become Extroverts After years of playing second fiddle, interiorsmove to the forefront

For years automakers and designers have given lip service to the idea that how a vehicle looked inside was just as important as the exterior. But deep down, everybody knew it was beautiful sheetmetal that lured buyers into showrooms and fattened the bottom line. The interior only got singled out when the car wasn't selling well. Then the seating fabric would be blamed, or the design of the instrument

By Drew Winter • Nov. 1, 1997

The Best Darn Diesel We’ll Never Drive GM’s new Ecotec diesels aremarvelous. Why won’t it bring them Stateside?

General Motors Corp. and its Adam Opel AG division were kind enough to recently jet a few U.S. motoring journalists to Germany. The reason? To test engines the States won't get.The engines are GM's all-new Ecotec turbodiesels, in 4-cyl. 2L and 2.2L flavors. The Ecotec range, claims GM, are the first production diesels to exploit both direct (in-cylinder) fuel injection (DI) and 4-valve-per-cylinder

By Bill Visnic • Nov. 1, 1997