Monthly Archives: February 2015

*Memories from my first post-college job for #throwbackthrusday * 1

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In album 1990 Lotus Esprit X180R

*Memories from my first post-college job for #throwbackthrusday *

Back in 1990, I took my freshly minted engineering degree and went to work for Delco Moraine NDH at the General Motors? Milford Proving Ground. Somehow I got really lucky and got assigned to work on the ABS programs for the Lotus M100 Elan and the Esprit X180R racer. During the spring and summer of 1991, we had one of the prototype X180Rs at Milford and my colleague Arnie Spieker and I would take it out to Black Lake several evenings a week where we set up a cone course and work on modified calibrations to work better with the racing tires. I was lucky enough to spend some quality time lead driver Doc Bundy and the rest of the team including Lotus engineer John Miles. ?

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2015 Mazda3 s Grand Touring – It’s great fun

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars Mazda reviews and tagged 2015 car review car reviews manual transmission mazda mazda3 review on by (updated 3154 days ago)
2015 Mazda3 s GT 01

2015 Mazda3 s Grand Touring

As someone that is terribly fond of driving, especially in fun cars, I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of human-driven cars becoming obsolete some day. Then again, I’m old enough and there are enough technical, legal and ethical problems to overcome that the fully autonomous car may not arrive in my lifetime. Alternatively, if all cars were as enjoyable as the 2015 Mazda3 s Grand Touring, there might not be any customer desire for cars that handle the driving.

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Why an Apple EV Might be the End of Tesla

This entry was posted in Apple Carmakers technology Tesla the business and tagged apple apple car apple ev cars electric vehicle electricvehicles EV tesla on by (updated 3154 days ago)

no_tesla

Over the last couple of days I’ve been having some further discussions with people about what sort of car Apple might create if indeed they are developing one. As I said in my first post on the topic the other day, if Apple is going to build a vehicle, it will almost certainly be a premium EV in direct competition with the Tesla Model S and Model X. For any company getting into building cars for the first time today, this is probably the only rational course.

See all of my Apple car articles

A major component of the investment in developing a vehicle is the powertrain and for internal combustion engines, that is a huge differentiator with different manufacturers having decidedly different characters. In its existing businesses, Apple contracts with other companies like Foxconn and Samsung to do all the actual production and they likely would for a car which I’ll come back to. For most of the important parts that are actual product differentiators like processors and fingerprint sensors, Apple does the design work in-house and only them manufactured to their specifications. They generally don’t like to licence these components.

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This Kia SportSpace concept portends very well for the next generation Optima, but… 1

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In album Kia SportSpace concet

This Kia SportSpace concept portends very well for the next generation Optima, but I say please bring this awesome looking wagon to the US market

+Kia Motors America. this wagon with the 1.6-liter GTDI and 7-spd DCT, might just find a home in my garage?


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AndroidCentral chief +Phil Nickinson shares some thoughts on "bloatware"…

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AndroidCentral chief +Phil Nickinson shares some thoughts on "bloatware" on new phones

As Phil says, the definition of "bloatware" is ultimately subjective since everyone has their own preferences about what apps to use. However, it's not really pre-loading that's the problem. It's the inability to unload the apps that you opt not to use. All apps that aren't part of the core operating system should be loaded into the user partition where they can be uninstalled. I would be ok with having one non-uninstallable app containing links to re-download the pre-loaded apps if a user dumps one by accident. However, as manufacturers increasingly release phones without MicroSD support, they should provide users with a way to maximize the available storage. ?

There’s bloatware, and then there’s bloatware
There’s been a lot of talk about “bloatware” of late. Some of our doing, some not. And the latest round has started to reach inconceivable proportions. But just like Wallace Shawn’s Vizzini, we keep using that word. Bloatware. And perhaps it does not mean what we think it means. So what is “bloatware,” exactly? Here’s how I defined it some time ago in our long-in-need-of-an-update…

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I spent part of the the weekend thinking about the prospects for an Apple car

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I spent part of the the weekend thinking about the prospects for an Apple car

It seems everyone is thrilled about the prospect of bringing Apple's reputation for great user experience to the road. However, if we do eventually get to a world of self-driving cars, will that UX matter at all? Whether we get to self-driving cars or not, if Apple comes into the car business, +Tesla Motors may be screwed.?

Can an Apple User Experience Be Enough to Succeed in Cars? | Sam’s Thoughts


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Can an Apple User Experience Be Enough to Succeed in Cars?

This entry was posted in Apple Carmakers cars technology Tesla the business and tagged apple apple car autonomous autonomous vehicle cars electric car electric vehicle EV self-driving tesla on by (updated 3154 days ago)

carplay

In recent days, the speculation that Apple, Inc. has embarked on an effort to develop and produce cars has blown up all over the internet. If indeed Apple is doing this, they come at this market segment as the industry may be entering the most transformational period in its near 130 year history. I believe Apple can do some very interesting things in this field in the near term, but it’s not at all clear if the company behind the Mac and iPhone has the traits to succeed in the long run. Even if Apple does succeed in the near-term, Tesla is likely to be the first automaker to feel the pain.

See all of my Apple car articles

The auto industry is scrambling right now to develop future cars capable of driving themselves, taking the humans completely out of the loop. As I’ve discussed previously, there are still a great many technical issues to resolve before we can turn over full control of our mobility needs to sensors, actuators and algorithms. It may in fact be decades before we have fully autonomous general purpose vehicles that can go anywhere.

The era of personal vehicle ownership may be coming to an end

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