Google’s robotic spinoff launches ride-hailing serviceSan Francisco – Google’s self-driving car spinoff is finally ready to try to profit from its nearly decade-old technology.
Waymo is introducing a small-scale ride-hailing service in the Phoenix area that will include a human behind the wheel in case the robotic vehicles malfunction.
The service debuting Wednesday marks a significant milestone for Waymo, a company that began as a secretive project within Google in 2009. Since then, its cars have robotically logged more 10 million miles on public roads in 25 cities in California, Arizona, Washington, Michigan and Georgia while getting into only a few accidents – mostly fender benders.
The company is initially operating the new service cautiously, underscoring the challenges still facing its autonomous vehicles as they navigate around vehicles with human drivers that don’t always follow the same rules as robots.
The service, dubbed Waymo One, at first will only be available to a couple hundred riders, all of whom had already been participating in a free pilot program that began in April 2017. It will be confined to a roughly 100-square-mile area in and around Phoenix, including the neighboring cities of Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, and Gilbert.
Although Waymo has been driving passengers without any humans behind the wheel in its free pilot program, it decided to be less daring with the new commercial service.
“Self-driving technology is new to many, so we’re proceeding carefully with the comfort and convenience of our riders in mind,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote in Wednesday blog post heralding the arrival of the new service.
The ride-hailing service is launching in the same area where a car using robotic technology from ride-hailing service Uber hit and killed a pedestrian crossing a darkened street in Tempe, Arizona seven months ago. That fatal collision attracted worldwide attention that cast a pall over the entire self-driving car industry as more people began to publicly question the safety of the vehicles.
“I suspect the Uber fatality has caused Waymo to slow down its pace a bit” and use human safety drivers in its ride-hailing service,” said Navigant Research analyst Sam Abuelsamid. “If people keep dying, there will be a bigger backlash against these vehicles.”
The Uber robotic car had a human safety driver behind the wheel, but that wasn’t enough to prevent its lethal accident in March.
Waymo’s self-driving vehicles are still susceptible to glitches, as an Associated Press reporter experienced during a mid-October ride in an autonomous minivan alongside Krafcik near company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.
The minivan performed smoothly, even stopping for a jaywalker, before abruptly pulling to the right side of the road. Ahead was a left-turning FedEx delivery truck. In a digital message to the two human backup drivers, the van said it “detected an issue” and it would connect to a rider support agent. Rider support didn’t respond, so they switched to manual mode and returned to Waymo headquarters.
At that time, Krafcik conceded to the AP that Waymo’s self-driving vehicles were still encountering occasional problems negotiating left-hand turns at complicated intersections.
“I think the things that humans have challenges with, we’re challenged with as well,” Krafcik said. “So sometimes unprotected lefts are super challenging for a human, sometimes they’re super challenging for us.”
Waymo eventually plans to open its new ride-hailing app to all comers in the Phoenix area, although it won’t say when. It also wants to expand its service to other cities, but isn’t saying where. When that happens, it could pose a threat to Uber and the second most popular U.S. ride-hailing service, Lyft, especially since it should be able charge lower prices without the need to share revenue with a human driver in control at all times.
General Motors also is gearing up to begin offering a ride-hailing service through its Cruise subsidiary under the management of a new CEO, Dan Ammann, who has been the Detroit automaker’s No. 2 executive. Cruise plans to start its ride-hailing service at some point next year in at least one U.S. city. Another self-driving car company, Drive.ai, has been giving short-distance rides to all comers within Frisco, Texas and Arlington, Texas since the summer.
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AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.
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Author: Detroit News Online
VW says combustion cars will fade away after 2026
VW says combustion cars will fade away after 2026Volkswagen AG expects the era of the combustion car to fade away after it rolls out its next-generation gasoline and diesel cars beginning in 2026.
Traditional automakers are under increasing pressure from regulators to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to combat climate change, prompting Volkswagen to pursue a radical shift to electric vehicles.
“Our colleagues are working on the last platform for vehicles that aren’t CO2 neutral,” Michael Jost, strategy chief for Volkswagen’s namesake brand, said Tuesday at an industry conference near the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. “We’re gradually fading out combustion engines to the absolute minimum.”
The world’s largest automaker has started to introduce its first wave of electric cars, including next year’s Porsche Taycan. The rollout across its stable of 12 automotive brands is forecast to comprise about 15 million vehicles, as the company earmarks $50 billion over the next five years to spend on its transformation to self-driving, electric cars.
Production of the VW brand’s I.D. Neo hatchback will start in 12 months in Germany, followed by other models from the I.D. line assembled at two sites in China as of 2020. VW plans to launch fully or partly electric versions across its lineup of more than 300 cars, vans, trucks and motorbikes by 2030.
Fully committed
VW will continue to modify its combustion engine technology after the new platform is introduced next decade. After 2050, there may still be some gasoline and diesel models in regions where there is insufficient charging infrastructure, according to Jost.
Problems with diesel pollution in cities can be resolved with cleaner engines, but the much bigger threat in the long run is CO2 emissions, which contribute to global warming, the VW executive said.
The German manufacturer is “fully committed” to the goals outlined in the Paris climate accord, which calls for accelerating the rollout of vehicles that lower or eliminate harmful emissions, he said at an industry conference organized by daily Handelsblatt.
The gradual exit of combustion engines marks a sea change for Volkswagen, which became the poster child of car pollution after it admitted to cheating on emissions tests in a scandal involving 11 million vehicles worldwide.
“Yes, we have a clear responsibility here,” Jost said. “We made mistakes.”
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Fiat Chrysler to spend $5.7B to revamp Italy car plants
Fiat Chrysler to spend $5.7B to revamp Italy car plantsFiat Chrysler Automobiles NV will spend 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) through 2022 on the carmaker’s factories in Italy, stepping up the pace on making more in-demand sport utility vehicles and electric cars, people familiar with the plans said.
The increased outlay will finance Fiat’s plan to build a compact Alfa Romeo SUV at the Pomigliano plant, hometown of Italy Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, and a battery-powered Fiat 500 in Turin’s Mirafiori factory, the people said, declining to be named because the information isn’t public. The manufacturer’s Italian sites for years have struggled to run at full capacity, raising costs.
In addition, a second model under the Jeep brand will be manufactured in southern Italy to tap into burgeoning demand for SUVs. The investment will allocate more than 11 percent of Fiat’s average 8.7 billion-euro global expenditure through 2022 on product overhauls and electric cars to Italy.
A spokesman for Fiat declined to comment.
The Italian-American carmaker’s plans for Italy, set to be officially announced later Thursday, comes as the company grapples with an increasingly lopsided business that saw North America account for some 97 percent of profit during the third quarter. Earlier this week, General Motors Co. said it’s shuttering seven factories globally and shedding more than 14,000 jobs to cut unprofitable models and juggle unprecedented spending on new technologies with an uncertain payoff.
Fiat will keep all Italian factories open, the people said earlier. A third pillar of Fiat’s plan adds the compact Jeep Compass SUV to be made alongside the Renegade and the Fiat 500X in Melfi, southern Italy, they said. Deliveries for the brand surged 61 percent in the year through October in Europe, contrasting with a decline of 2 percent for the group.
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Tesla’s Autopilot racks up 1B miles driven
Tesla’s Autopilot racks up 1B miles drivenTesla Inc. says owners of its electric vehicles have driven 1 billion miles using the company’s Autopilot driver-assistance feature – a significant milestone for the automaker, which uses the collected data to improve the software as a competitive advantage.
Tesla, which announced the mark in a Tweet today, has installed Autopilot hardware on every car it’s produced since October 2014. Autopilot is designed for use on highways, but the vehicles are operating under diverse road and weather conditions around the world. The resulting trove of real-world miles acts as a feedback loop to the algorithms that are constantly training the fleet of Tesla vehicles on the road how to behave.
In the race toward full autonomy, not all miles are created equal. There are semi-autonomous as well as fully self-driving ones; real-world versus simulated; and those racked up on highways versus those in trickier urban environments. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has promised to demonstrate a fully self-driving cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York, but the timeline for when that may happen has continually slipped.
Tesla tells drivers they must keep their hands on the steering wheel and monitor the system at all times, but Autopilot has come under scrutiny from regulators and consumer advocacy groups, including after a fatal crash in March. In May, Musk dismissed the notion that Autopilot users involved in accidents have the mistaken belief that the system is capable of fully-autonomous driving.
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Audi e-tron GT concept
Audi e-tron GT conceptRobert Downey Jr. (L) and Head of Design of Audi AG, Marc Lichte attend the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
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Robert Downey Jr. (L) and Head of Design of Audi AG, Marc Lichte attend the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
Head of Design of Audi AG, Marc Lichte attends the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
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Head of Design of Audi AG, Marc Lichte attends the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
Robert Downey Jr. attends the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
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Robert Downey Jr. attends the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe will have a range of over 400 kilometers (248.5 mi). The 90kWh lithium-ion battery takes up the entire underfloor area between the front and rear axle with its flat design.
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe will have a range of over 400 kilometers (248.5 mi). The 90kWh lithium-ion battery takes up the entire underfloor area between the front and rear axle with its flat design.
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe will have a range of over 400 kilometers (248.5 mi). The 90kWh lithium-ion battery takes up the entire underfloor area between the front and rear axle with its flat design.
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe will have a range of over 400 kilometers (248.5 mi). The 90kWh lithium-ion battery takes up the entire underfloor area between the front and rear axle with its flat design.
The roof section is made from carbon along with numerous aluminum components and supporting elements made from high-strength steel.
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The roof section is made from carbon along with numerous aluminum components and supporting elements made from high-strength steel.
The battery in the Audi e-tron GT concept can be charged using a cable which is connected behind the flap in the left front wing, or by means of contactless induction with Audi Wireless Charging.
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The battery in the Audi e-tron GT concept can be charged using a cable which is connected behind the flap in the left front wing, or by means of contactless induction with Audi Wireless Charging.
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe.
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe.
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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The electric powered Audi e-tron GT concept four-door coupe
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Robert Downey Jr. (L) and Head of Design of Audi AG, Marc Lichte attend the global reveal of the Audi e-tron GT concept in Los Angeles on Monday, November 26th, 2018.
Ford to shuffle hourly workers to meet SUV demand
Ford to shuffle hourly workers to meet SUV demandEven as General Motors Co. is planning to idle four U.S. plants affecting 3,300 hourly jobs, rival Ford Motor Co. is moving to trim car production without idling a plant.
The automaker plans to move 500 hourly employees from its Flat Rock Assembly Plant where it builds cars to its Livonia plant to build transmissions for in-demand trucks and SUVs. Ford said Wednesday its Flat Rock plant, where it builds the Ford Mustang and Lincoln Continental sedan, will go down to a one-shift schedule in the spring. That will displace 650 full-time hourly employees.
Five hundred of those people will be moved to Ford's Livonia Transmission. The remaining 150 will be offered jobs at other Ford plants, spokeswoman Kelli Felker said Wednesday. The automaker also will shift 500 people to its Kentucky Truck Plant to build full-size SUVs and trucks.
“We have been informed by Ford that due to sales, there will be scheduled work reductions at the Flat Rock, MI and Louisville, KY plants,” UAW Vice President Rory Gamble, head of the union's Ford department, said in a statement. “Our collectively bargained contract provides for the placement of all members displaced by the shift reduction and, after working with Ford, we are confident that all impacted employees will have the opportunity to work at nearby facilities. The UAW will be working with our members to ensure they have continuous work and help minimize, as much as possible, any hardship on members and their families.”
The news comes two days after crosstown-rival GM announced its on-going restructuring would idle three plants that make sedans, a transmission plant in Warren and one of two assembly plants in Oshawa, Ont. The Detroit automaker also plans to eliminate 8,000 salaried workers to reduce costs.
Ford is deep in a restructuring expected to cost the automaker $11 billion, including cuts to the global salaried workforce. According to an internal memo from UAW Local 3000 Chairman Larry Stewart, the UAW expects about 50 positions to open up at Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant, where the automaker builds the F-150.
“Basically everybody who has a job will keep a job,” Felker said.
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, in a statement said she was “deeply disturbed” that Ford is eliminating a shift in Flat Rock, but praised the automaker's move to retain jobs.
“Ford’s announcement today continues to be a warning about the strength of the auto industry in this country,” said Dingell. “We all must pay attention to what this means for workers, the industry, and the whole economy.”
The Livonia plant currently builds transmissions for Ford F-150s, Rangers, Navigators and other trucks and SUVs. The automaker is also shifting 500 jobs to its Kentucky Truck Plant from Louisville Assembly Plant in effort to increase Expedition and Lincoln Navigator production by 20 percent.
The Louisville plant, which builds Escape and the Lincoln MKC, will move to a two-shift schedule in the spring.
ithibodeau@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Ian_Thibodeau
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Salaried-worker layoffs will cut deep at GM
Salaried-worker layoffs will cut deep at GMGeneral Motors Co. will likely have to lay off nearly 6,000 salaried workers after roughly 2,250 employees requested to take the buyout the Detroit automaker offered to North American salaried employees and global executives last month.
The number of employees who asked to take the buyout was outlined in a portion of a memo to employees from CEO Mary Barra, obtained by The Detroit News. GM said Monday it was targeting 8,000 jobs with the buyouts, a benchmark the company will now have to meet with about 5,750 layoffs.
Managers from each department were given cost-cutting goals to meet by the end of the year, which could be met by addressing discretionary spending or leveraging buyouts. The managers still have to approve the buyout requests from their employees before GM knows exactly how many employees it needs to lay off.
The automaker offered buyouts to 18,000 salaried workers on Halloween, and the deadline to accept the offer was last week.
Under GM's buyout offer, eligible employees could receive six months' pay and six months' health care coverage starting in February, though on a case-by-case basis some employees could leave before the end of the year to effectively get eight months' compensation.
The expected layoffs come as GM is also planning to stop production at five plants next year, including Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly and Warren Transmission, affecting about 14,300 jobs across the company.
The buyouts and layoffs among GM's salaried workers are part of what the automaker has called a transformation of its workforce. At the same time GM executes some 6,000 layoffs among salaried workers, it is hiring aggressively in emerging automotive disciplines like software development, batter and fuel cell technology and autonomous vehicle development.
GM Cruise LLC, the automaker's self-driving vehicle development arm based in San Francisco, recently surpassing 1,000 workers. A new office in Seattle opening early next year will also add up to 200 new workers.
“We are going to continue to hire,” Barra told reporters Monday. She says GM is focusing harder on the “skillsets of the future”
“You will see us having new employees join the company as others are leaving,” she said. “We still need many technical resources across the company.”
Staff Writer Ian Thibodeau contributed to this report
nnaughton@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @NoraNaughton
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Ford recalls nearly 40,000 SUVs and trucks
Four separate Ford recalls include faulty seat tracks, air bag modules, fuel sensors and transmissions
VW to invest $50B in electric and autonomous tech
VW to invest $50B in electric and autonomous techFrankfurt, Germany – Volkswagen AG, which is negotiating investments and tie-ups with Ford Motor Co., intends to invest 44 billion euros ($50 billion) in the electric and autonomous car technologies expected to reshape the industry. The German carmaker also said it would make battery-powered vehicles more accessible to mass-market auto buyers by selling its new I.D. compact for about what a Golf diesel costs.
The investment plans for the next five years aim to make Volkswagen “a worldwide supplier of sustainable mobility,” Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said Friday. He added that the company is in talks with Ford Motor Co. about possible cooperation in making light commercial vehicles.
The Detroit News has previously reported on those talks on global partnerships between Volkswagen and Ford, as well as negotiations with Volkswagen to invest potentially more than $1 billion in Argo AI, the robotics and technology company majority-owned by Ford. Volkswagen also is considering a separate investment in Ford’s in-house autonomous vehicle business.
Established automakers as well as several U.S. startups are rolling out electric models to compete with Tesla , currently the market leader. Auto companies need electrics to meet new environmental standards in many countries.
In Europe, manufacturers need to sell more battery-powered cars to meet tougher EU limits on carbon dioxide emissions that come into force 2021 and aim to fight global warming. Automakers like Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW risk penalties of thousands of euros per vehicle if they can’t meet requirements for lower average emissions.
Authorities in China, where Volkswagen gets much of its profit, have also mandated a bigger share of electrics and hybrids.
Yet right now, such vehicles remain a niche market due to higher price and lack of places to charge. Battery-only vehicles were only 0.6 percent of the market in the European Union last year. They are running from 1 to 2 percent of U.S. new-vehicle sales so far this year.
Major new models unveiled in recent weeks from Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen’s Audi brand have been expensive SUVs; Audi’s e-tron starts at a German price of 80,000 euros. The starting price for Tesla’s Model X is around $80,700 while the Model S starts around $74,500.
VW’s upcoming I.D. compact could take mass-market buyers from Tesla’s Model 3, a mass-market car with a base price of $35,000 before tax credits. In reality, though, you can’t order one yet for less than $46,000.
Poetsch said the I.D. compact would be about the cost of a Golf diesel today, which is priced at 23,875 euros in Germany, according to Volkswagen’s website, and goes up as options are added. The next model up the scale starts at 30,625 euros.
General Motors, Nissan and Mitsubishi already are selling mass-market electric vehicles, but they’re still more costly than cars with gasoline engines, and they haven’t sold in great numbers.
Higher cost is one reason consumers are not yet buying purely electric vehicles in large numbers. The lack of charging points is another, leaving many owners of electric vehicles to use them mainly in cities or for shorter trips. Volkswagen and other automakers are working together on building a freeway network of fast-charging stations to enable longer trips with battery powered cars.
Chinese automakers as well as U.S. startup companies also are getting into the electric car market. Rivian, a Detroit-area company, plans to unveil a high-end electric pickup and SUV later this month, to go on sale in late 2020. Lucid Motors, a Newark, California, startup whose leadership includes six former Tesla executives, plans to deliver its first cars in 2020 as well.
The shift to electric cars is a big one for a company the size of Volkswagen, which has over 600,000 employees and makes about 10 million vehicles a year.
It is converting three of its German plants from internal combustion to battery car production as it pivots away from diesel vehicles in the wake of its emissions scandal. It says it will increase the number of electric models from six now to more than 50 by 2025.
Ian Thiboudeau of The Detroit News contributed.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Wrangler-flipper improves productivity at Jeep plant
Wrangler-flipper improves productivity at Jeep plantToledo — The rotisserie skillet at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV's Toledo North Assembly Plant isn't as appetizing as it sounds.
Moving platforms on an assembly line for the Jeep Wrangler JL are equipped with rotating “skillets” that flip partly built Jeeps 90 degrees onto their sides. That allows line workers to install components in the roof and underbody without raising their arms above their head or bending at the waist, movements that line operators say cause long-term repetitive stress injuries.
Other skillets in the industry often move up and down, but don't flip onto their sides like these. Fiat Chrysler says the technology isn't found anywhere else in the auto industry — one reason the automaker invited media to the Toledo plant Friday to tout its efficiencies and manufacturing processes in Jeep's historic hometown.
The Wrangler poses a particularly unique challenge for line operators at the roof and underbody installation stations, because the open roof and off-road capabilities under the car put components in harder-to-reach places. That spot on the assembly line was previously one of the least popular, said Tom Hall, a Toledo North worker who helped lead the assembly launch for the Wrangler JL.
“What would happen is … the harder areas would be lower-seniority employees,” he said. “Those would be the areas operators would want to (get out) of.”
When the Wrangler JL moved to the Toledo North plant, operators shared these concerns with the automaker's manufacturing and engineering teams, and worked together to come up with the rotisserie skillet.
“Every time an operator has to do an irregular movement — bend, stretch, turn — that’s not value added to the vehicle,” Hall said. “So what we tried to do is reduce the movement of the operator to be more efficient.”
Using the rotating skillet for the roof and underbody systems for the Wrangler JL eliminated 500 possible risks — situations where the line operator is in an awkward, uncomfortable or potentially unsafe position — to which operators otherwise would have been exposed.
And making the line safer also makes business sense. Fiat Chrysler says workers on the part of the line that uses the rotating skillet are 59 percent more efficient.
The workers “definitely love it,” Hall said. “Before, they were overhead-working all day long, head craned back. So this does make a difference.”
Workers who interact with the rotisserie skillet now stand in one location, with the parts and tools directly in front of them. They ride the moving platforms about 20 feet down the line until they are done installing and then move back to the station where they started.
Making those comfort improvements can attract more skilled workers to that part of the line, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research.
“If it's a job that no one wants to do — that's uncomfortable — you will get the least experienced people doing that job,” she said. “Making it a better job can eliminate that, and it can make the line more accessible to different body types.”
nnaughton@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @NoraNaughton
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