Latest Briefs and News

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Green Design & Manufacturing
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Regulations/Standards

Latest Stories

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Unmanned Systems

Inner Visions

Evolving market realities have OEMs and automated-driving developers adjusting once-aggressive timelines for deploying high-level driving automation. But new materials and safety technology for vehicle interiors continue...

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Editorial
Mechanical & Fluid Systems

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.

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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...

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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...

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Editorial
Design

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,...

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Editorial
Unmanned Systems

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...

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Editorial
Software

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...

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Mechanical & Fluid Systems

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...

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Editorial
Connectivity

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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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News
Manned Systems

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...

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Manned Systems

Optimizing EV Platforms for Pickup Trucks

Pickups are the industry’s most popular and profitable product because they offer individualized vehicles for nearly every customer and use case. American pickups wrote the book on mass...

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Electronics & Computers

Combustion Engines Carry on in Construction

A recent virtual panel discussion reminded me that we ought not forget the propulsion workhorse of our industries: the good ol’ diesel engine. It’s sometimes easy to forget in the...

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Editorial
Unmanned Systems

Safety, Standards Crucial to AVs’ Advance

The details and cost of the Biden Administration’s $1.2-trillion ($555 billion in new spending) federal infra- structure bill may have been exhaustively debated by the time it was passed last November, but few could argue that substantial investment in the nation’s systems wasn’t long overdue.

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Editorial
Automotive

Ford C2 Is Model for EV Scale, Lower Costs

Has the auto industry ever seen a more dynamic and outright crazy time than today’s second coming of the electric vehicle? Those of us who visited Rivian Automotive’s L.A. auto show display...

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Editorial
Design

Time to End the Madness of EV Sales Subsidies

Electric vehicles have proven that they can sell themselves.

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News
Software

Autonomous Timeline: Following the Money

Acquisitions, mergers and outright departures from the sector serve as almost weekly reminders not just that significant consolidation of autonomous-vehicle (AV) development is underway. Right in...

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Editorial
Materials

Waging a War for EV Materials Security

Conflict over natural resources and human history are inseparable. Wars waged directly or indirectly over control of commodities, trade routes, water, food sources and arable soil have been the...

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Green Design & Manufacturing

Mega Push for Heavy-Duty EV Charging

The number of zero-emission (ZE) heavy-duty trucks in the U.S., Canada, China and Europe is expected to increase nearly 80% between 2020 and 2023, from 40 available or announced models to 71....

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Editorial
Unmanned Systems

Making Safety Standard

I’m not sure who claims to have coined the often-repeated phrase, “Safety comes standard.” But that tagline came to mind as authorities in Texas and officials with the National Transportation Safety Board...

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Editorial
Data Acquisition

State of the Industry: Ubiquitous Broadband Is Key

Bipartisanship and infrastructure: More of the former will (hopefully) help secure more of the latter. That sums up a recurrent theme during the Association of Equipment...

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Transportation

Zeroing in on Zero Emissions

Electrification is inevitable for commercial vehicles. That is the takeaway from a quick succession of zero-emission commercial vehicle (ZECV) initiatives announced by various groups since the summer...

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Manned Systems

Clean Is the New Safety Paradigm for AV Development

Privately-owned vehicles were never so safe as they are today. Nor have they made so much sense. That thought hit me between the nostrils recently, as I sprayed a pungent disinfectant...

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Packaging & Sterilization

ConExpo Excels amid COVID-19

Las Vegas seemed to be in a bubble from March 10-13, the week of ConExpo-Con/Agg & IFPE 2020. Tens of thousands of attendees crowded the halls inside the Las Vegas Convention Center and outside on the...

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News
Motion Control

ConExpo & IFPE 2020: Go Big or Go Home

My inbox has been inundated with notifications of press conferences and exciting new construction equipment, power systems, and other advanced technologies to be revealed at the rapidly approaching...

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News
Communications

SAE Publishes On-Route Mechanized Conductive EV Charging Systems Recommended Practices

SAE International published SAE J-3105 Electric Vehicle Power Transfer System Using Conductive Automated Connection Devices Recommended Practice in...

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Editorial
Manned Systems

Bigger Barrier to CBEVs: Batteries or Infrastructure?

Batteries have long been considered the main barrier to deployment of commercial battery-electric vehicles (CBEVs), but many industry insiders now believe charging infrastructure is a...

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