OEMs – Page 4919 – I wish I had more to offer

VW Boss Predicts ‘Renaissance’ for Embattled Diesel Cars – Bloomberg

VW Boss Predicts ‘Renaissance’ for Embattled Diesel Cars Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. announced plans to drop diesel models from its European portfolio this year even as Volkswagen AG, which sparked the fury over the … Go to Source

‘We Didn’t Lie,’ Volkswagen CEO Says Of Emissions Scandal – NPR

Enlarge this image Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller speaks to the media Sunday in Detroit, apologizing for the scandal that has plunged the German auto giant into crisis. Paul Sancya/AP hide caption toggle caption Paul Sancya/AP The North American International Auto Show is a place where car industry gathers to celebrate — and in recent years… Continue reading ‘We Didn’t Lie,’ Volkswagen CEO Says Of Emissions Scandal – NPR

The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé campaign: Take life with a sporty approach in the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé:

07.

December 2018

Affalterbach

Fuel comsumption combined: 11.3l/100 km; CO2 emissions combined: 257g*
“Life track” can be seen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urqyyehBZ-I&t=1s
Affalterbach. The new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé is the youngest member of the AMG GT family. It shares both its DNA and its uncompromising racing spirit with the other members of the family. Yet there is one big difference: the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé offers more space and more potential uses and systematically extends the AMG GT family.
Mercedes-AMG is linking the market launch of the family sports car with a campaign in three phases:
The product phase began with the world premiere in March 2018 and positioned the vehicle in the competitive environment with the main message: “The GT 4-Door Coupé – the ideal of a 4-door GT sports car.” The portfolio phase of the campaign to mark sales release in July 2018 followed the message: “The GT 4-Door Coupé – a proud new member of the AMG GT family.” Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton took part in the social media activations. The image phase to conclude the campaign in December 2018 positions the vehicle as follows from the target group perspective: “The GT 4-Door Coupé – Life is a race.” More information can be found in the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé webspecial at: http://amg4.me/LifeisaRace
TV commercial: the central theme of the campaign is the TV ad “Life Track”. In fast-paced images it blends the best of both worlds: dynamic Racing Performance and a creative and multifaceted lifestyle. The film shows sequences alternating between sporty driving on a racetrack and snippets from the life of the main protagonist. His everyday life feels like a race to him, from the morning start through setbacks and overtaking manoeuvres to the finishing line with his partner at dinner. Both worlds blend symbolically in the film to form one world. The viewer delves ever deeper as he simultaneously experiences a racing sequence. The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé is an equal partner: they are both strong, confident and emotive at the same time. The four-door model demonstrates superior performance in every situation.
The main location for shooting the film production was the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain. The racetrack scenes were made at the private Circuito Ascari near Ronda and in Marbella.
The campaign: “Life is a race” is the first global Mercedes-AMG campaign produced by AMG headquarters and the two top markets of the USA and China, headed by the agencies STAUD STUDIOS, Merkley+Partners from New York and BBDO China. The focal points are Europe, the USA and China. The TV ad is flanked by extensive social media activities such as images, film sequences and editorials. The campaign is complemented by a web hub and a series of digital displays. In order to take into account the special regional factors a 360-degree toolbox was developed, enabling the markets to implement the campaign content flexibly to meet their needs.
Credits: STAUD STUDIOS in Leonberg was responsible for the idea, conception and implementation of the first two phases of the campaign. The US creative agency Merkley+Partners and STAUD STUDIOS were jointly responsible for creating and producing the imagery for the third phase. The web hub was implemented by SYZYGY from Frankfurt.
The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé: more space, more power, more goose bumps– the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé delivers driving experiences in new dimensions and extends the AMG model family. The new coupé is the first four-door sports car from Affalterbach and draws directly on the legendary SLS and AMG GT models of success. As another vehicle developed autonomously by Mercedes-AMG it combines unique design, high comfort and outstanding sports car engineering with an athletic, four-door fastback layout. So it offers more space and more potential uses. Systematic expansion of the AMG GT family to include the 4-door coupé opens up the sports car segment to those looking for a vehicle for day-to-day use, but unwilling to go without the unparalleled performance of Mercedes-AMG.
The new AMG GT 4-Door Coupé (Fuel consumption, combined 11.3 – 9.4 l/100 km, CO2 emissions, combined 257 – 215 g/km) delivers special driving experiences on all levels and with a top speed of up to 315 km/h and its driving dynamics it cuts an effortlessly superior figure wherever it goes. Powerful, up-to-date 6-cylinder in-line and V8 engines with outputs ranging from 320 kW (435 hp) to 470 kW (639 hp) allow completely new driving experiences and combine impressive performance with modern efficiency.
* The stated figures were determined in accordance with the prescribed measuring method. These are the “NEDC CO2 figures” according to Art. 2 No. 1 Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1153. The fuel consumption figures were calculated based on these figures. **Kerb weight according to DIN, not including driver; ***Kerb weight according to EC, including driver (75 kg)

Press Contact

Artur Demirci

Manager Lifestyle-, Brand- and Social Media Communications

artur.demirci@daimler.com

Tel: +49 (0) 711 17-77368

Fax: –

Stefanie Lüssenheide

Lifestyle and Brand Communications

stefanie.luessenheide@daimler.com

Tel: +49 (0) 711 17 77369

Fax: +49 (0)711 17 79093799

Birgit Zaiser

Manager Communications Mercedes-AMG

birgit.zaiser@daimler.com

Tel: +49 7144 302-581

Fax: –

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Regarding violation of Japan Financial Instruments and Exchange Act involving Nissan

YOKOHAMA, Japan – Today, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.’s former Representative Director and Chairman Carlos Ghosn and former Representative Director Greg Kelly were indicted for violating the Japan Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, namely making false disclosures in annual securities reports. Nissan, as a legal entity, was also indicted for the same violation. Nissan takes this… Continue reading Regarding violation of Japan Financial Instruments and Exchange Act involving Nissan

Something like driving pleasure

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Data could be what Ford sells next as it looks for new revenue – Detroit Free Press

CLOSE Ford reveals rendering of Detroit train station’s future Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Co. buys Spin, an electric scooter company, for more than $40 million. (Photo: Ford Motor Co.) As Ford Motor Co. works to navigate a global reorganization effort that is certain to include significant job reductions, one way forward could lie in… Continue reading Data could be what Ford sells next as it looks for new revenue – Detroit Free Press

McLaren Automotive lights up the supercar class with new 720S Spider

8 Dec 2018 New 720S Spider the most accomplished convertible supercar ever from McLaren, combining the thrill of open-air driving with unparalleled Super Series dynamic performance and sophistication Light, stiff and extremely strong Monocage II-S carbon fibre core features integrated rollover protection structure (ROPS); needs no additional strengthening over Coupé, ensuring a convertible without compromise… Continue reading McLaren Automotive lights up the supercar class with new 720S Spider

Millionaire on a big foot

Elon Axios Interview: How Model 3 Production Ramp Almost Killed Tesla, The Massive AI Threat, & Moving To Mars

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Published on November 26th, 2018 |

by Steve Hanley

Elon Axios Interview: How Model 3 Production Ramp Almost Killed Tesla, The Massive AI Threat, & Moving To Mars

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November 26th, 2018 by Steve Hanley

On Sunday night, an Axios interview with Elon Musk aired on HBO. If you don’t have an HBO subscription, you might want to get one. It is, as the expression goes, “appointment TV.” That is, it offers programs too good to miss. But in case you did, here are three takeaways from the program.

How The Model 3 Almost Killed Tesla
Earlier this year, as Tesla began ramping up production of the Model 3, Musk told Axios the company came within a few weeks of going out of business. Tesla “faced a severe threat of death. Essentially, the company was bleeding money like crazy and just … if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them.” Asked how close the company came to actually shutting down, Musk replied, “I would say within single-digit weeks.”

Musk’s notes about living, sleeping, and eating at the factory during that stressful time have become a bit of a joke on the internet, but Musk says it was no joke for him personally. “I was in the paint shop, body shop … end of [the] line where we do final check out of vehicles,” he said. “I personally redesigned the whole battery pack production line and ran it for three weeks. Pretty intense.”

“I think what a lot of people don’t understand is that I’m like the chief engineer like that. I actually do lead engineering of the rockets and lead the engineering of the vehicles and production. Ninety percent of my day is spent on engineering and production.

“No one should put this many hours into your work. This is not good. People should not work this hard. This is very painful. It hurts, it hurts my brain and my heart. It hurts. … There were times when I was working literally 120 hours. This is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn’t do it, then [there was a] good chance Tesla would die.”

The Existential Threat From Artificial Intelligence
When the topic turned to artificial intelligence, Musk’s remarks took on a somber tone. “My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year. But I’m still pro-humanity. We’re like children in a playground. … We’re not paying attention. We worry more about … what name somebody called someone else than whether AI will destroy humanity. That’s insane.”

He worries that AI will soon outstrip human intelligence, rendering humans subservient to digital masters. AI is “just digital intelligence,” he summarizes. “And as the algorithms and the hardware improve, that digital intelligence will exceed biological intelligence by a substantial margin. It’s obvious.”

“When a species of primate, homo sapiens, became much smarter than other primates, it pushed all the other ones into a very small habitat,” Musk said. “So there are very few mountain gorillas and orangutans and chimpanzees — monkeys in general. They occupy small corners of the world — cages, zoos. Even the jungles that they’re in are narrowly defined so they were sort of like big cages. So, you know, that’s one possible outcome for us.”

Musk has founded Neuralink, a company that is working on finding ways to interface the human brain with computers, which he sees as a way of preventing pure AI from dominating the human race. Neuralink is comprised of about 85 of the “the highest per capita intelligence” engineers ever assembled. “The long term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence. To achieve a sort of democratization of intelligence, such that it is not monopolistically held in a purely digital form by governments and large corporations.”

What is he talking about, exactly? An “electrode-to-neuron interface at a micro level — a chip and a bunch of tiny wires implanted in your skull. I believe this can be done — It’s probably on the order of a decade.”

In a way, we are already halfway to such a reality, Musk says. “And by the way, you kind of have this already in a weird way. You have a digital tertiary layer in the form of your phone, your computers, your watch. You basically have these computing devices that form a tertiary layer on your cognition already.”

One of the first applications for the technology could be helping people with spinal cord injuries. “We already know how to do this. Implant electrodes into the motor cortex of the brain, then bypass the severed section of the spine and have effectively local micro controllers near the muscle groups. It could restore full limb functionality. As people get older, they lose their memory — incredibly sad to have a mother forget her children, and that can be solved too.”

Then the conversation turned darker. “You could make a swarm of assassin drones for very little money. By just taking the face I.D. chip that’s used in cell phones, and having a small explosive charge and a standard drone, and just have it do a grid sweep of the building until they find the person they’re looking for, ram into them and explode. You could do that right now. No new technology is needed.”

Even scarier to Musk is the ability of AI to impact the electoral process, something America should be wary of as the revelations about Facebook and the 2016 presidential election continue to emerge. He warns us about the power of AI to create “incredibly effective propaganda … influence the direction of society … influence elections.” It can hone a message by watching online feedback and reacting to news, then making the message “slightly better within milliseconds.”

The government is largely blind to the threat, Musk says, and hopelessly behind in its feeble attempts to control AI. “The way in which regulation is put in place is slow and linear. And we are facing an exponential threat. If you have a linear response to an exponential threat, it’s quite likely the exponential threat will win. That, in a nutshell, is the issue.”

Is Mars An Escape Hatch For The Rich?
Musk told Axios there is a 70% chance he will be one of the people who travels to Mars aboard a SpaceX rocket in the future. He thinks the first trip could happen within 7 years. A ticket to Mars could cost as little as “a couple hundred thousand dollars,” a sum some suggest will make Mars an “escape hatch” for wealthy people as the Earth warms to the point where it can no longer sustain human life.

Musk scoffs at that idea. “Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than earth. Really, the ad for going to Mars would be like Shackleton’s ad for going to the Antarctic. It’s gonna be hard. There’s a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space.”

Once someone arrives there, it will not be a life of leisure, reclining by the pool and eating bonbons. “You’ll be working nonstop to build the base. So, you know, not much time for leisure. And even after doing all this, it’s a very harsh environment. So there’s a good chance you die there. We think you can come back, but we’re not sure. Now, does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people?”

So, why go? “There’s lots of people who climb mountains. People die on Mount Everest all the time. They like doing it for the challenge.”

It is fair to say that Elon Musk is not risk averse. Indeed, he seems to thrive on risk, feed off it, and then actively seek out more. That appetite for skating up to and sometimes over the edge is what separates him from normal mortals. And it may be the factor that allows Musk to save us from ourselves, although there is no guarantee anything can keep people from sowing the seeds of their own destruction and reveling in the process.

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About the Author

Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may take him. His muse is Charles Kuralt — “I see the road ahead is turning. I wonder what's around the bend?”

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Bloodhound land speed project officially axed – Autocar

Bloodhound, the 1000mph land speed record project founded in 2007 by previous record holder Richard Noble and current holder Andy Green, has been shut down after administrators failed to find the cash needed to keep it running. The bold project entered administration in October, citing a shortage of funds since running the car at 200mph on… Continue reading Bloodhound land speed project officially axed – Autocar