Fed up with all of the cars parked along the street in her quiet neighborhood, an 89-year-old grandmother in Germany started slashing their tires. Altogether some 50 tires were vandalized before a neighbor spotted and reported the nefarious nana. The granny, Heidi Kohl, eventually confessed and was fined, but the story doesn't end there. When she told authorities she wouldn't be able to pay, they decided to have her work off her debt. They instead sentenced her to hard time knitting sweaters for her victims. We don't know how sweaters work for traction, but if the German officials are satisfied who are we to question their judgment? Prosecutors added that they don't fear any further actions by the sassy senior, pointing out that she has since moved to a retirement home.
As part of the ongoing numbers game between the Detroit 3, their workers and the UAW, General Motors has plans to offer more early retirement packages to some 9,000 of its white collar (non-unionized and salaried, that is) workers. For those who like to keep track of such things, that number represents about a third of the 27,000 white-collar, non-union workers who call the General their employer. If GM gets its wish, around half of those offered packages will accept and have plenty of time to keep those white collars clean and pressed for their next job interview. Employees offered the package will have 45-days to decide whether or not to accept. Although no real details of the care package have been released, rumor has it that GM has sweetened the pot a bit as compared to previous rounds of attrition by increasing the pension payments for younger workers.
Pirelli has announced a further innovation in the ongoing quest to remove the driving from driving. Sensors have been stashed in tires already for the hasty implementation of TPMS, but Pirelli has taken it a step further, putting a sensor package on the tire carcass itself. One implementation of the "Cyber Tire" is the "Lean," which harnesses power from the vibrations of the vehicle and beams information including tire pressure, temperature, and load to the vehicle's computer. Cyber Tire Lean is setting things rolling for the eventual trotting out of full-blown Cyber Tire, which will be built into the tire. The high tech rubber will be more sophisticated and capable of communicating directly with stability control and anti-lock brakes to improve the effectiveness of dynamic safety systems. Cyber Tire will also carry a three-axis accelerometer that will facilitate real-time calculations of friction coefficients, contact force, and load. Pirelli is most proud of the edge the Cyber Tire will give the nanny systems to catch and correct idiotic driving faster than ever before.
Trevor Creed has decided that being the capo di designi capo for such programs as the Chrysler 300, PT Cruiser, Dodge Challenger, Viper, and Ram, among others, is a satisfactory way to cap a career in design. Creed has spent the past 23 years at Chrysler, and his departure as Vice President of Design on August 31st opens up the slot for Ralph Gillies to step up. Gillies will start his new role as Design Veep September 1st, and he'll answer to Frank Klegon, Executive VP of Product Development. Hey Frank, get rid of focus grouping, give Ralph a bit more leash to manage a staff that can design a car that actually looks good. As Design Vice President, Gillies will now oversee the Product Design Office, so one imagines that, given the opportunity, there may be a glimmer of hope for righting the horrid wrongs of the Sebring, as long as some of that 2009 Ram mojo is still around. Once Gillies and team work sheetmetal magic, Andreas Schnell is the newly appointed Vice President of Electrical/Electronics Engineering Core, the people that come up with the electronics that not only run the vehicle, but entertain and delight, as well. Schnell will also be responsible for "voice of the customer" efforts, and the voice of the customer should be heard loud and clear saying "please build better cars."
With excursions in light aircraft, aerobatic planes, commercial jets, and helicopters already under our belt, we jumped on Goodyear's invite to take a flight in one of its three blimps stationed (or should we say tethered) in North America. The world's largest tire company has been flying blimps for more than 80 years. Used as a stable camera platform, or simply for advertising, the giant silver balloons have safely carried countless passengers over the decades. Follow the jump to read Autoblog's first review from the gondola of a lighter-than-air dirigible.
Remember in the first Crocodile Dundee movie when he gets mugged in New York City and Sue says "He's got a knife," and Dundee says, "That's not a knife, this is a knife," and then he pulls out a beast-killing monstrosity of a blade? Well, that's what the folks at Titan Tire are saying right now about every other -- smaller -- tire in the world.
Titan has made a 63-inch rubber behemoth for use on trucks in Canada's oil sands. The stats on these rubber donuts is impressive: the 59/80R63 is the biggest production tire in the world, standing over fourteen feet tall and weighing 12,500 pounds with a load rating of 101 metric tons. It makes Titan a very appropriate name for the company, as we learned from another movie, Remember the Titans, that in Greek mythology the Titans were greater even than the gods. Now we can only hope this development will make the price of oil drop another ten dollars...
The car-buying public has put its collective foot down and demanded fuel-efficient vehicles, and automakers are likely to do anything to answer customer demand. That may include reinventing the wheel, as more automakers look into incorporating low rolling resistance tires into non-hybrid vehicles. The high-pressure rubber can return fuel economy improvements of 1-2 mpg in most instances, giving automakers that use them a leg up on the competition when comparing EPA data. The new four-cylinder 2009 Ford Escape eked out an additional 1 mpg with the new tires, giving the CUV 21 mpg in the city and 27 mpg on the highway. Michelin estimates that low rolling resistance tires can save $300 in fuel costs at $4 per gallon over the life of tire, which is fairly substantial.
There are drawbacks to low-rolling resistance tires, too. They're more expensive than standard rubber, the ride isn't quite as comfortable, and the tires cause longer braking distances. In fact, Consumer Reports gave the Escape a lower rating because it had such poor stop times. The bottom line is that customers are looking for improved economy at all costs. Since low rolling resistance tires improve fuel economy, the cars that have them and achieve superior fuel economy as a result will be more attractive to mpg-conscious buyers.
Sure, they'll say it's for safety, driving on excessively worn tires is dangerous, but something more sinister is afoot. German firm ProContour has developed a tire tread depth measuring system that beams a laser at the wheels of passing vehicles and takes 430 million measurements per second to develop a three-dimensional profile of that tire. Tread depth and pattern are then calculated, and if there's less than .06 inches of tread or the pattern is clearly inappropriate (studded snows in the summer, for example), a citation is automagically issued. While we're admittedly being cynical, the safety aspect of what ProContour has developed is pretty impressive. The ability to scan the tires of vehicles as they pass at speeds in excess of 50 km/h takes some doing, and we've seen horrid things posing as tires, so kudos, but a fine strikes us as a bit hardcore. Of course, financial pain might have a Pavlovian effect and cause those bitten by the Tire Ticket Fairy to keep a closer eye on their tires. It'd be a joke to assume that everyone already inspects their tires for condition and inflation on a regular basis, but that's how it should be, but then, there'd be no business model for ProContour. None of ProContour's big-brother rigs have been installed yet, but the company is shopping it around to local governments eager for yet another way to stick it to the citizens. The safety idea is laudable, but we're skeptical how a challenge to the seemingly infallible computer might go, should the system go all HAL9000 on us.
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Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada's largest in the private sector, will step down earlier than anticipated. Hargrove wasn't expected to retire until he reached the CAW's mandatory age of 65 next year. It's tough to resist the allure of cuddling with Yorkies, Bingo every Monday night, and shuffleboard to fill in those long, wistful hours recalling the glory days of torquing valve covers in Windsor, so Hargrove has accelerated his departure to mid-September. No replacement candidate has been named yet, though an endorsee will be announced later today. Come this fall, keep an eye out on the golf courses of Florida for a relaxed looking guy drinking a Molson, eh?
The end of an era. That's what we called it when rumors began intensifying just a couple of days ago that David Coulthard might retire from Formula One racing. Those rumors were confirmed today – at the Silverstone track, one day before the start of his home race – when the elder statesman of grand prix racing announced his retirement.
To get an idea of just how long Coulthard has been racing, remember that his first race was to fill the late Ayrton Senna's seat at Williams after the famed Brazilian's fatal crash 14 years ago. Since that fateful start, Coulthard has competed in 236 grands prix to date, winning 13 of them, taking pole position 12 times and setting the fastest lap 18 times. DC spent nine seasons with McLaren, and was instrumental in brokering the purchase of the defunct Jaguar team from Ford by Red Bull, with whom he has raced for the past few seasons, scoring the team's first point and first podium. This weekend's British Grand Prix will be David's last home race, having won the event twice in his career.
So what's next for the flying Scotsman? For starters, he will remain as a consultant to Red Bull Racing, pitching in for development driving, much like his contemporaries Schumacher and Hakkinen still do for Ferrari and McLaren respectively. Despite earlier assertions, however, Coulthard says he will remain open-minded about racing in other leagues, and we could very well see him back in the race seat for the Race of Champions at London's Wembley Stadium in December, however it remains to be seen if Coulthard will try his hand at Le Mans, DTM or some other form of motor racing or rallying. Meanwhile, the vacation of his seat at Red Bull leaves the door open for Sebastian Vettel's promotion from the Toro Rosso B-squad, so sit tight for that announcement. In the meantime we wish David all the best of luck for the remainder of his last season and for life after F1.
