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Technology Report
Power

Ford Amped for New Phase of Hybrid-Electric Offensive

With the persistent auto-industry question of how soon battery electric vehicles will become mainstream options, Ford is preparing to widely deploy its fourth-generation hybrid-electric...

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News
Materials

NASA High-Temp Materials, Coatings Enhance Commercial Products

NASA officials are announcing the availability of eight disruptive NASA materials and coatings technologies ready for commercialization.

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News
Unmanned Systems

Leading Vehicle Prognostics Toward the AV Future

Predicting a likely future failure in vehicle components and systems in advance of the occurrence is important today, and will be even more critical for autonomous vehicles, perhaps far from...

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News
Regulations/Standards

Automated Vehicles Not an 'If' but a 'When'

The automotive industry once questioned whether electric motors would replace the internal combustion engine (ICE) as the primary powertrain option for consumers. Today, the industry is facing a...

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News
Manned Systems

NASA Highlights Material and Coating Technology Ready for Commercial Applications

Innovations in materials and coatings have enabled countless NASA missions since the agency’s inception. The research that goes into developing these...

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News
Propulsion

Engine Researchers: 50% Gasoline-Engine Efficiency in Sight

Speaking at the SAE High-Efficiency IC Engine Symposium preceding this week’s WCX19 conference in Detroit, the lead researcher for a long-running, Delphi Technologies-directed...

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News
Sensors/Data Acquisition

Forward-Looking Lidar Can Revolutionize Driver-Assistance Systems

Part I of this multipart series cast a spotlight on vehicle crashes, a majority of which are forward-facing and result from driver error. Automakers are striving to develop...

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News
Power

Europe’s Blockchain-Based Smart E-Mobility Challenge Will Conclude This May in Germany

To advance development of Internet of things (IoT) mobility solutions like cryptography, distributed ledger technology (DLT) – also known as...

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News
Materials

EMBATT Technology Could Double the Driving Range of EVs

An in-development chassis-integrated sandwich structure of solid electrolytes is projected to deliver all-electric driving ranges that far out-distance today’s typical 200-mile (320...

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Articles
Defense

Supersonic Spy Drone

The D-21 was intended to answer a question that was driving U.S. national security officials mad: How was the Chinese military progressing in its effort to build and test nuclear weapons?

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Articles
Transportation

Can Autonomous Vehicles Make the Right ‘Decision?’

Experience would suggest we seek to incorporate many types of diversity into our designs. We need to understand the ethical issues, even if the Trolley Problem is merely a diversion away from seeking a design that makes the best decisions based on information available at the time.

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Articles
Transportation

First Smile, Last Smile

May Mobility is building a unique business model around AV shuttle services. The young Ann Arbor-based company’s shuttles currently are servicing routes in Detroit; Columbus, Ohio, and Providence, Rhode Island. A service in Grand Rapids, Michigan, launches this summer.

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Articles
Sensors/Data Acquisition

New Performance Metrics for Lidar

How do you measure the effectiveness of an intelligent, lidar-based perception system for autonomous vehicles? Conventional evaluation metrics favor frame rate and resolution as the ideal criteria. However, certain experts believe that these criteria are inadequate.

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Articles
AR/AI

Dining on Data

Every year, NVIDIA hosts its GPU Technology Conference, a multi-day news conference/ expo to highlight the advances the tech company has made in the past 12 months.

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Articles
Design

Designs to Dye for: Autonomy’s New-Materials Revolution

Evolving vehicle engineering constantly reshapes vehicle architectures. But along with electrified drive-trains and autonomous capabilities is the need for a mindset shift in materials, opening the way for new sustainable solutions in color, materials and finish (CMF).

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Q&A
Transportation

Returning Jeep to the Midsize-pickup Market

SAE editorial director Bill Visnic spoke with Elizabeth Krear, Gladiator Model Responsible - Jeep Engineering and Pete Milosavlevski, Chief Engineer, about the program’s development targets and priorities, the importance of the Gladiator’s connection to the iconic Wrangler.

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Articles
Software

Unlocking DfAM’s Potential

A new field-based design software is supporting more widespread use of Additive Manufacturing, for faster product development times with less rework and risk.

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Articles
Transportation

F1 Streamlines for Closer Racing

Ongoing aerodynamic development of Formula 1 racecars has the most obvious goals of increasing the cars’ downforce and reducing their drag to produce the fastest speeds and quickest lap times.

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Articles
Manufacturing & Prototyping

Aluminum: Toward 50% Body Content

As experts have noted, the mixed-materials trend is becoming an enduring one, as evidenced across the landscape of recent new-vehicle introductions.

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Articles
Transportation

A Step-change in the Cost of CFRP

A joke in the auto industry about CFRP is that the “C” stands for “costly.” So, any manufacturing process that solves this significant drawback of the ultra-lightweight material’s use outside of Formula One racing and exotic supercars, could change the vehicle-production game.

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Articles
Transportation

The Economics of Materials Selection

At the 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers’ ANTEC conference, Dr. Taub, formerly GM’s head of R&D, presented a review of the three major materials groups—steel, aluminum, and composites—that he expects will predominate in vehicle body structures going forward.

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Articles
Manufacturing & Prototyping

Steel Stands Tall

In 2014, just before Ford shook the industry with the introduction of its aluminum-intensive F-150, Ducker Worldwide released a study for the aluminum industry. The report predicted that the light metal would dominate the North American light-truck segment in the next new-model development cycle.

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What We’re Driving
Manufacturing & Prototyping

2019 Ford Ranger XL STX

America needs more midsized pickups. The case for the new Ford Ranger is made by increasingly strong sales of GM’s models and the perennial fan base of the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier. And now Jeep’s back in the game.

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News
Energy

Novelis Creates First Aluminum Sheet Battery Enclosure for Mass Electric Vehicle Production

Battery weight and power density is a major design consideration when it comes to electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. To reduce platform weight...

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Technology Report
Green Design & Manufacturing

Why JLR Is Giving Its Newest Range Rover Straight-6 Power

The market may have been surprised by Jaguar Land Rover’s decision to offer the latest Range Rover with an I-6 gasoline engine, but it’s been on the company’s development list...

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Technology Report
Power

Ford Demos Latest Digital Tools at Flagship Transmission Plant

Ford recently provided media with a look at some of its latest digital manufacturing tools, opening up the floor at one of the world’s largest transmission plants to showcase...

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Technology Report
Aerospace

For Bonding Dissimilar Materials, Adhesives Can Be a Sticking Point—or Lack of It

As the auto industry adopts an increasingly wide mix of materials in its pursuit of constantly tougher weight-saving and service-longevity targets, joining...

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News
Power

AAA Studies Thermal Effects on EV Range

It’s been a tough winter in much of the U.S. When the Midwest hasn’t been dealing with a Polar Vortex it been smacked by a “bombogenesis.” But even normally temperate seasonal regions like...

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News
Software

Waymo, GM and Ford Pegged as Autonomous “Leaders” by Latest Navigant Report

According to a new report from Navigant research, Waymo (Google), GM and Ford have earned the title of “leaders” in regards to their progress in developing...

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