News

PRETORIA, South Africa, 29 July, 2013 - Team Ford Racing has confirmed it will enter two South African-built Ford Rangers in the gruelling 2014 Dakar, taking place from 05 – 18 January 2014 in South America.

The design team responsible for bringing Ford’s Dakar contender to fruition includes a mix of South African and global minds. The purpose-built Ford Rangers are being prepared by Pietermaritzburg-based Neil Woolridge Motorsport while logistics will be handled by German-based South Racing. Similarly the driver line-up is made up of both international and local contenders including South American native Lucio Alvarez and South African Chris Visser.

DEARBORN, Mich., July 30, 2013 – The life and achievements of Henry Ford continue to inspire people 150 years after his birth. Dr. Aziz Inan, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland, assembled several numeric oddities and coincidences based on the life of the founder of Ford Motor Company.

Dr. Inan consecutively assigned every letter of the alphabet a number, beginning with A equaling one, to show that the numbers corresponding to the letters of Ford Motor Company add up to 211; 43 (Ford) plus 81 (Motor) plus 87 (Company) equals 211. Henry Ford was born on July 30th which was the 211th day of 1863. What a coincidence!

DEARBORN, Mich., July 26, 2013 – An important part of the total gaming experience for hardcore video gamers is getting physical feedback through the controller as they keep their eyes on the screen. It’s called haptic feedback. For drivers of performance cars like Ford Mustang, feedback is just as important to understanding how the car is behaving.

Rookie Ford engineer Zach Nelson has harnessed the power of open-source hardware and software, 3D printing, wireless connectivity and Microsoft™ Xbox 360® to bring haptic feedback to a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 through a manual shift knob that vibrates at the optimal time to change gears.

July 29, 2013 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - Chrysler Group LLC and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) will host an interactive health and wellness pavilion at the association’s national convention in Kissimmee, Fla., August 1-3, 2013. More than 1,500 journalists are expected to attend the convention.

The purpose of the pavilion is to raise awareness to the need for better health and wellness education in multicultural communities in order to address health disparities faced by these communities. The goal is to raise awareness of achievable best practices among journalists who are often key influencers in these communities. 

Chrysler Group LLC posted a net profit of $507 million for the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 16 percent from the $436 million the company reported a year ago.

That helped boost parent company Fiat SpA’s second-quarter net profit to 435 million euros, or about $577 million — an 82 percent increase. But without Chrysler, the Italian automaker would have lost 247 million euros, or nearly $328 million.

Automakers are turning up spending and creativity as they move to more nontraditional advertising, videos and social media campaigns to reach customers who aren’t spending much time in front of the TV.

Companies such as Ford Motor Co. say they are spending more money and dedicating more resources in the digital advertising space. Think banner ads on websites, messages that pop up on smartphones while using apps such as Pandora, and sponsorship of Web-based video series.

Internet advertising revenue jumped 15.2 percent in the U.S. last year to $36.6 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Automotive advertising was a big part of that, growing to $4.39 billion last year, up from $3.49 billion in 2011, says the group that represents more than 500 media and tech companies selling a majority of online U.S. ads.

DEARBORN, Mich., July 26, 2013 – Mike Kluzner’s experience is considered only somewhat unusual among the ranks of Ford’s in-house software engineers. Kluzner got his start designing laser weapon systems capable of disabling the navigation systems of enemy satellites.

His employer? The former Soviet Union.

Today, Kluzner designs software for onboard fuel system diagnostics on Ford vehicles sold worldwide. Kluzner holds more than 20 patents on onboard diagnostics.

DEARBORN, Mich. – Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford — who was born 150 years ago this Tuesday — is being celebrated with a party at his suburban Detroit estate.

DETROIT – For a second year in a row, Chevrolet has three segment award recipients - more than any other brand - in the 2013 J.D. Power Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study. The Chevrolet Volt ranks highest in its segment three years in a row, along with Sonic and Avalanche which both received awards for the second consecutive time.

Together with the Buick Encore, which ranks highest in its segment in its launch year, GM received four segment awards. In addition to the award recipients, a total of seven General Motors’ models placed in the top three of their respective segments.