Latest Briefs and News
Top Stories
INSIDERAerospace
Are Boeing 737 Rudder Control Systems at Risk of Malfunctioning?
NewsPropulsion
Off-Highway Hybrids Are Entering Prime Time
INSIDERDefense
Is the Department of Defense Stockpiling Enough Critical Materials?
INSIDERSensors/Data Acquisition
Designing Next-Generation Carbon Dioxide Removal Technology for Better Life in...
INSIDERRF & Microwave Electronics
Barracuda: Anduril's New Software-Defined Autonomous Air Vehicles
NewsTransportation
Latest Stories
Editorial Power
Hybrids Are Having a Moment
Manufacturers at the forefront of sustainability efforts and intent on electrifying commercial trucks and off-highway machines still see the necessity to include internal combustion engines in their future...
Editorial Power
Tesla Semi “Crushes” SuperTruck 2 in Real-World Efficiency
Usually hosted in Southern California, the Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo moved about 265 miles (425 km) north and east for its latest edition, taking place in Las...
Editorial Transportation
Charging Infrastructure Coming – at a Cost
It’s no secret that insufficient battery charging infrastructure is an impediment to commercial-vehicle fleets’ electrification efforts. To provide direction and some certainty for...
Editorial Manufacturing & Prototyping
EV Confidence
EVs are not for everyone. Not yet, anyway. But despite the headlines, there’s no reason to lose confidence in the overall EV trajectory that’s been underway for the last dozen years or so.
Editorial Software
Change? Sure, Sometimes.
SAE’s Automotive Engineering magazine is not immune to the constant beat of changes happening across the automotive industry. In case you’re curious what that means, the byline and picture accompanying this...
Editorial AR/AI
Automated Driving’s Journey: One Step Forward…
The AV sector was stunned by the late-October headline that the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended robotaxi developer Cruise’s permits for deployment and testing of...
Editorial Power
Smart Engineering for Sustainability
Sustainability extends beyond just decarbonization. A term popping up more and more in executive and engineering-focused presentations is “circular economy,” referring to a closed-loop production...
Editorial Test & Measurement
Of Moose and Artificial Intelligence
I know nothing more about artificial intelligence (AI) than what I read and what learned people tell me. I know it’s supposed to bring new sophistication to all manner of processes and technologies,...
Editorial Imaging
Deere’s Ingredients for Innovation
At John Deere’s inaugural Tech Summit this past spring in Austin, Texas – the location of one of the company’s micro-technology hubs and a recently purchased farm on which to conduct R&D...
Editorial Power
A Diversified Path for Sustainable Fleets
More than 12,000 people attended the 2023 Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo in Anaheim, Calif., in May. Attendees heard a multitude of viewpoints offered by experts from commercial-vehicle...
Editorial Power
The Gas Station Paradigm for EV Charging
One evening earlier this year, I found myself at a convenience-store gas station with eight pumps and one EV fast-charger. I’d been vectored there by the charge provider’s phone app. As I exited...
Editorial Transportation
Engineering the ‘Sustainability Thing’
Sustainable and sustainability are words that are fast becoming industry vernacular. They’re woven into executive speeches, press releases, marketing, and engineers’ messaging.
Editorial Motion Control
Sunset for the American V8
Technologies transition from dominance to nearly dead at different speeds and for various reasons. That’s particularly true for motive power. Pistons, cams and valves are giving way to anodes, cathodes and...
Editorial Manned Systems
Autonomous Trucking Hits Rocky Road
Within a four-week stretch – from roughly mid-February to mid-March – a steady stream of autonomous-trucking news hit. A quick summary: As several startups in the autonomous-truck development space...
Editorial Manufacturing & Prototyping
The Ford We Didn’t Know
Ford CEO Jim Farley exposed significant product-development lapses during his company’s fourth-quarter-2022 earnings call on February 2. Ford’s 4Q profit performance was no-excuses dismal. Its causes, he...
Editorial Manned Systems
Engineering ‘Electron Guzzlers’
Apparently, ‘gas guzzler’ now encompasses any vehicle that burns hydrocarbon fuels, no matter how efficient. Anything with an exhaust pipe.
Editorial Energy
Response to More-Rigid NOx and GHG Regs
The new low-NOx standards are part of the EPA’s Clean Trucks Plan that also includes “Phase 3” greenhouse gas standards for HD vehicles beginning in MY 2027.
Editorial Energy
The Haters Go After Toyota
Want your company to be the target of haters? Here’s a sure way to do it, as proven in 2022.
Editorial Energy
Zeroing in on Zero-Carbon Fuels
COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference that took place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, over a two-week span in November, helped bring global attention to the need for significant reductions of...
Editorial Regulations/Standards
Engineering Sustainability
Watching a junked school bus being fed into a mammoth hammer mill, which loudly pummeled the bus into fragments of metal, rubber, and plastic, was a sight I’ll never forget. I was visiting Huron Valley Metals,...
Editorial Unmanned Systems
COMVEC 2022: Hiring Talent to Meet High-Tech Demands
There’s always been competition for engineering talent. But with embedded software becoming ever more critical for subsystems in commercial vehicles and off-highway equipment, nowadays...
Editorial Connectivity
Platooning Still Promising for Trucking
There is “no business case” for platooning, or the electronic coupling of two or more trucks in close formation. That was the assessment of Daimler Trucks in 2019 when it decided to pause its...
Editorial Test & Measurement
Unreliable Electronics Are the New Prince of Darkness
Younger engineers may be unfamiliar with Joseph Lucas Ltd., the infamous Tier-1 supplier of British automotive electrical and electronic woes. Lucas helped institutionalize, fairly or...
Editorial Energy
EV, Give Me Heat!
Cabin heating and cooling, and their negative impact on vehicle efficiency and range, are among the challenges still to be solved in battery-electric vehicles. For drivers and passengers, interior comfort — being warm...
Editorial Energy
Alternative Fuels, Propulsion Poised for Growth in U.S. Fleets
Fuel prices are soaring. Not breaking news, I know, yet the almost-daily alerts citing new record highs for gasoline and diesel prices are still unsettling. Consumers and...
Editorial Power
Reconsidering Hybrids
After conversations I had with powertrain engineering executives during the 2022 SAE WCX World Congress, and in reading our reports on the panel discussions, I can conclude two things. First, mobility-industry...
Editorial Power
Engine Technology a Decade Later
A securities analyst from New York called me recently, to ask about the future of powertrain. Specifically, she wanted my prediction for a timeframe for the demise of both gasoline and diesel IC engines....
Editorial Manned Systems
Maintaining EV Chargers Yet Another Challenge
Industry experts have trumpeted ad nauseam the need to expand electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure for the past half-decade or more. Those calls continued at the recent Green Truck...
Editorial Aerospace
Geopolitics: The Other Existential Threat
As I write this on Valentine’s Day, 105 Russian army battalions backed by over 500 tactical aircraft and 40 warships are poised for a blitzkrieg-style invasion of Ukraine. I don’t think it’s...
Webcasts
RF & Microwave Electronics
The Benefits and Challenges of Enabling Direct-RF Sampling
Test & Measurement
The Testing Equipment You Need to Keep Pace with Evolving EV...
Automotive
Advances in Zinc Die Casting Driving Quality, Performance, and...
Transportation
Fueling the Future: Hydrogen Solutions for Commercial Vehicle...
Aerospace
Maximize Asset Availability in the Aerospace and Defense Industry
