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January 26, 2019 Today in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Trucks spokesperson Lena Larsson explains the environmental benefits of allowing both heavier and longer trucks. There is no indication that transport needs will decrease in future, which is why we need to work towards more efficient transport. Experimental activities show 20% of CO2 reductions. .

ABC News / January 27, 2019 Volunteer truck drivers have spent the weekend delivering donated hay to drought-stricken farmers in south-west Queensland. The Burrumbuttock Hay Runners loaded 180 trucks with donated hay, pet food, toys and first aid kits. A convoy of volunteers set off from Darlington Point in New South Wales to Quilpie in Queensland, arriving on Australia Day. Burrumbuttock Hay Runners founder Brendan Farrell said delivering the hay to farmers on Australia Day was fitting. "You can't be more Australian than helping someone you don't know," Mr Farrell said. Farmers in Quilpie, Thargomindah and Eulo were able to collect hay and fodder before attending a special Australia Day concert on Saturday night. The Burrumbuttock Hay Runners have been collecting donations of hay for 14 years and delivering it to the driest farming communities around NSW and Queensland. Mr Farrell said he was pleased that the convoy had a good, straight run to Quilpie. "We had a great day yesterday. A lot of trucks went out and there were a few going out this morning." "[The farmers] were over the moon, they were rapt," Mr Farrell said. More than 500 volunteers joined the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners convoy this year. Sandy Jones, from Leeton south-west NSW, uses her week of holidays from work to join the Hay Runners convoy. Mrs Jones and her husband have been involved for six years, donating a truck from their own business. "It's very addictive, once you do one you're in it forever," Mrs Jones said. Delivering hope as well as hay For volunteers of the Hay Run, the journey is not just about delivering supplies, but about looking after the mental health of struggling farmers. Mr Farrell said helping people that are in a lot of trouble is a very important part of the yearly hay run. "When [the truck drivers] came back last night there were a few teary-eyed truck drivers, it was very emotional for them," Mr Farrell said. Sandy Jones said volunteers keep in touch with struggling farmers that they have delivered supplies to. "Once you get home you drop them a call in a couple of weeks, or a letter or a postcard, to check that they're still doing ok," Mrs Jones said. "It's letting [farmers] know that someone is thinking about them." Mr Farrell said forming relationships between drought-stricken farmers and truck drivers could make a big difference to farmers' wellbeing. "It lifts them up for a long time. They can ring a truck driver in Bundaberg and have a chat to him and talk to somebody that's not in drought. Sometimes that's better than talking to your next-door neighbour that is in drought," Mr Farrell said. Mrs Jones said although the hay run could be emotional for volunteers and farmers, it was the small things that made it a happy journey. "You'll be out the back of Bourke and there will be little kids with homemade signs and balloons and they'll be waving. They've been sitting out there a couple of hours in the hot sun waiting for us to go past. It's fantastic," Mrs Jones said. 'We went to the moon' Volunteers on the convoy were confronted by endless stretches of dry farmland on their journey. "It's bad," Mrs Jones said of the conditions. "[Farmers] have been knocking over dead mulga trees for a few years now just so cattle can eat the tops of them." Mr Farrell described the farms as "barren dirt''. "I was talking to a truck driver last night and he said 'mate, we went to the moon'. There wasn't even a tree within two hours of the bloke's house in the middle of no-where." Mr Farrell said that the farmers were resilient, but they were doing it tough in hard conditions. "We've just got to remember that they're still out here, and not forget them." Hay from WA also reaches NSW on Australia Day Farmers in the Cobar region of central west NSW also received a hay delivery on Australia day. Forty-eight road trains, carrying more than 3,000 bales of hay and fodder set off from Western Australia earlier this week, organised by the not for profit group Farmers Across Borders, Hay From WA". The convoy hit a snag on day one when, as temperatures neared 50 degrees, a trailer full of hay and fodder caught alight and burnt to the ground near Madura on the Eyre Highway. Convoy organiser Sam Starcevich said the fire was a devastating loss, but she was determined to get the remainder of the stock feed to farmers who needed it. "If this does something to ease a little bit of pain for someone, then we've done what we wanted to achieve," she said. "I think we're going to help between 300 and 400 farmers once we get to Cobar." This is the second convoy of feed the group of volunteers and farmers have organised in recent years, many having experienced drought first-hand. "Emotionally, drought is something you never get over, personally," Mrs Starcevich said. "As soon as it doesn't rain you think 'oh my god is it going to happen again, is it not going to rain' so it's always something there in your mind." .

This is a United States congresswoman? The folks in Minnesota intentionally and overwhelmingly voted for.....her? The state of the union is dire.

Associated Press / January 26, 2019 Congressional freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., once asked a judge to show leniency toward a group of Minnesota men accused of trying to join the Islamic State terror group. “The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion," she wrote at the time. "We must alter our attitude and approach; if we truly want to effect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation." The nine Minnesota men were facing decades in prison after being accused in 2015 of making plans, including buying fake passports, in an effort to travel to Syria and fight for ISIS, which was at its peak level of activity and held territory in Syria and Iraq. Omar, who was then a Minnesota state representative, was part of a group that sent letters to Judge Michael Davis urging him to give shorter sentences, arguing that harsher penalties would only lead to more people joining the terror group. “Incarcerating 20-year-old men for 30 or 40 years is essentially a life sentence. Society will have no expectations of the to-be 50- or 60-year-old released prisoners; it will view them with distrust and revulsion,” read Omar’s letter to the judge. “Such punitive measures not only lack efficacy, they inevitably create an environment in which extremism can flourish, aligning with the presupposition of terrorist recruitment,” she added. Omar’s letter seeking more lenient sentences resurfaced on social media amid criticism over her attack on Sen. Lindsey Graham, Covington Catholic High School students, and the endorsement of socialist Venezuelan dictatorship. One of the men in particular, Abdirahman Yasin Daud, was facing over 30 years in prison for trying to join the terrorist group. He admitted in court that he wasn’t trying to enter Syria on humanitarian grounds, but rather to participate in the activities of ISIS. “I was not going there to pass out medical kits or food. I was going strictly to fight and kill on behalf of the Islamic State,” he said. But Omar told the judge that the best way counter extremism was with empathy rather than punishment. “A long-term prison sentence for one who chose violence to combat direct marginalization is a statement that our justice system misunderstands the guilty. A restorative approach to justice assesses the lure of criminality and addresses it.” Almost all the men on trial received lengthy sentences, with Daud serving 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of trying to provide material support to ISIS and conspiring to commit murder overseas. .

Ford details customer rewards program Michael Martinez, Automotive News / January 26, 2019 All but four of Ford Motor Co.'s roughly 3,100 U.S. dealers have signed up for a points-based customer rewards program through the FordPass app that will roll out this year. The automaker last year announced vague plans for a future rewards program that's part of a larger focus on customer retention. Executives used their make meeting to reveal details about the program, which is expected to start as early as April. The rewards system will include complimentary maintenance, and customers who sign up will receive $210 in service credits at their dealership. Customers can accumulate points for certain actions, which can be transferred to other dealerships. Dealers were told Ford would cover the cost. "Dealers really get the importance of customer experience," Mark LaNeve, Ford's vice president of marketing, sales and service, told Automotive News. "This program will marry customers to the dealership." Todd Dyer, chairman of the Ford National Dealer Council, said he's happy with how the program helps build a relationship between the customer and dealer. "Consumers are going to come back to us for this," said Dyer, who owns Marshal Mize Ford in Hixson, Tenn. In addition to customer experience, the 90-minute meeting focused on improving dealer profits, which dropped in 2018 compared with 2017. To help increase those figures in 2019, Ford is tweaking its floorplan assistance as a way to offset rising interest rates. LaNeve noted that his presentation was virtually the same as that of Ford's dealer council chairman, a sign the factory and its retailers are on the same page. "I've done 30 of these," LaNeve said after the meeting. "I've never seen that kind of alignment." Dealers heard directly from Ford CEO Jim Hackett, who was attending his first NADA Show as CEO and vowed to sit down with more dealers and attend more meetings with them this year, a task he has typically delegated to other executives through his first 20 months on the job. Ford did not show dealers any photos of future product, although most saw the brand's upcoming models at some point last year after they had asked for more transparency. "I think our relationship is really, really strong," said Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of North America. "That's not an accident. It's a lot of work."

FCA recalls 182,000 Ram pickups for electrical issue Danielle Szatkowski, Automotive News / January 26, 2019 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is recalling more than 182,000 Ram pickups worldwide to repair an electrical issue related to the vehicles' power steering. The recall announced Friday involves about 178,829 vehicles in North America, including 159,740 in the U.S. A fastener that grounds the battery wasn't properly secured in 2019 Ram 1500 pickups. As a result, the connection can become loose and disable the powering steering. Drivers can still steer, but the unstable feedback may increase the risk of a crash. FCA said there have been no reports of crashes or injuries. The automaker did not state a date for the recall to begin, but under U.S. law, it has to start within 60 days. The Ram 1500 won North American Truck of the Year at the Detroit auto show this month, an annual competition that judges redesigned or significantly changed vehicles on innovation, design, safety, performance, technology, value and driver satisfaction. Even though the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, GMC Sierra 1500 and Ram were all redesigned, media reviews praised the Ram for its interior. FCA US said December sales rose 14 percent, driven in part by a 34 percent increase in Ram pickup sales. For the year, Ram pickup sales gained 7.2 percent to 536,980 deliveries. .

As the road gets bumpier for truckmakers, AB Volvo faces emissions pothole Esha Vaish, Reuters / January 25, 2019 Swedish truckmaker AB Volvo’s attempts to cope with a weakening global market are being complicated by problems with a component that do not appear to be affecting its main rivals. Volvo said in October some of its engines could be exceeding emission limits of toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) because catalytic converters in its emissions after-treatment systems were wearing down more quickly than expected in certain situations. This fueled speculation that rivals Volkswagen and Daimler could have the same problem, after Volvo said it sourced converters from a single external supplier. Johnson Matthey, Umicore and BASF have a triopoly in that supply market. However, representatives for Volkswagen’s truck group Traton, which houses the MAN, Scania and VW brands, as well as Daimler have told Reuters their firms have not had any issues. Traton vehicles are meeting NOx emission limits on delivery and also over time, a spokesman said, while a Daimler spokesman said “all indications are that we achieve the targeted service lives” for NOx system components in its trucks. Volvo’s problem is a distraction at a time when demand prospects look weaker in China, the world’s largest commercial vehicles market; growth in Europe is slowing; and order cancellation rates in North America are rising. Over the past few years, orders have boomed as operators renewed fleets starved of investment during the global financial market crash. “We now factor in a cyclical downturn in 2019-20, with the U.S. order bubble an added risk,” Societe Generale analysts wrote on Jan. 14, downgrading Volvo to “sell” from “hold” and forecasting its adjusted operating income would fall 40 percent by 2020 versus 2018. Volvo warned this month its operating income for the fourth quarter of 2018 would be hit by a 7 billion Swedish crowns ($779 million) provision to cover the cost of its emissions problems. UBS cut its 2018 operating income forecast by 17 percent and said investors might worry “there may be more to come” as Volvo said it would continue to assess the provision size. Volvo, which publishes 2018 results on Jan. 30, is expected to report adjusted operating profit of 40.53 billion crowns on sales of 388 billion, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. Daimler reports results on Feb. 6 and Volkswagen on March 12. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Volvo has not said how many trucks might be affected by the emissions problem, and it is unclear what fix regulators might ask for, or whether its supplier might foot some of the bill. However, Volvo has delivered up to 1.68 million trucks that could have the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system, as regulations have meant that SCR has been a standard on Europe trucks since 2005 and on U.S trucks since 2010. Volvo refused to named the supplier, though a previously unreported Volvo document shows it was Johnson Matthey, the world’s biggest supplier of catalytic coatings for diesel trucks. A Johnson Matthey spokeswoman refused to comment. Johnson Matthey said in November it had been informed by two customers of failures in certain engine systems where it supplied “a particular coated substrate as a component” for emissions after-treatment systems. A previous report in March had only identified one affected customer. Johnson Matthey, which has around 65-70 percent market share in U.S. trucks and about 60 percent in Europe trucks, took a charge of 50 million euros to settle a lawsuit related to the coated substrate last year. Analysts have linked that lawsuit to truck-engines maker Cummins, which last year recalled about 500,000 trucks produced between 2010 and 2015 - also due to a catalyst degrading faster than expected. Cummins did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Umicore spokesman said the company had no exposure to Volvo engines, while a BASF spokeswoman said the problems Volvo was having with its emission systems were not due to any catalysts provided by her company. Johnson Matthey’s report also said it had sold the “coated substrate” in question to only two customers.

The quality of Chinese tires in year 2019 is extremely good Bob. If you buy, for example, Triangle or Double Coin, you're getting a first rate tire.

Ford Trucks international / January 24, 2019 WRC-veteran M-Sport Ford WRT is starting the 2019 WRC season with the Ford Trucks F-MAX! We're proud to be “The Official Truck Supplier” behind the Ford Fiesta WRC and M-Sport. #FordTrucks #FMAX #WRC #FordFiestaWRC https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/about-wrc/rally-cars/ford-fiesta-rs-wrc/page/796--672-672-.html .

Proof that CEOs who require on-the-job training aren't a wise choice.

Ford CEO tells employees: 'Time to bury' 2018, focus on doubling profit David Shepardson & Ben Klayman, Reuters / January 24, 2019 Ford CEO Jim Hackett told employees late on Thursday the No. 2 U.S. automaker would not accept last year’s “mediocre” results and said the company was aiming to nearly double its annual operating profit. Hackett made his comments in an email to employees. Ford is restructuring its global operations, including recent plans to make cuts in Europe. It also has announced an alliance in commercial vehicles with Germany’s Volkswagen, with plans to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles, in moves meant to save billions of dollars. Ford announced its fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, reporting a 2018 operating profit of $7 billion with a profit margin of 4.4 percent, down from 6.1 percent in 2017. Ford said last week that its target for operating margin was more than 8 percent. “2018 was mediocre by any standard,” Hackett said in the email. “Yes, we made $7 billion last year. But think of it this way: this represents a 4.4 percent operating margin, about half what we believe is an appropriate margin. So we are aiming for much closer to $14 billion.” Hackett did not give a timetable for hitting the $14 billion target. A Ford spokesman said Hackett was simply doing the math to show employees how the margin target translated to overall profit. Hackett, who has been on the job for 20 months, also said that it was “time to bury the year (2018) in a deep grave, grieve over what might have been and become super focused on meeting, and, in fact, exceeding this year’s plan.” Ford did not provide Wall Street with a specific financial forecast for 2019. It simply said it had the potential to improve earnings and revenue. That was in contrast to Ford’s larger U.S. rival, General Motors Co, which on Jan. 11 forecast higher 2019 earnings that far surpassed analysts’ estimates. Hackett also said in looking at Ford’s 2018 results: “I become mad for a short time. Likely mad at myself, but also because I know we are better than that. ... I know that our competition hasn’t been better than us by magic.” He said Ford had been considering moving up its time frame to electrify its product portfolio since he took over and asked how the company could learn from the trends it missed in China, the world’s largest auto market, where it is losing money.

Zoe Keenan, Perth Now / January 25, 2019 In a cruel twist of fate, a Western Australia (WA) road train carrying bales of hay to provide relief to drought-stricken farmers in New South Wales (NSW) was engulfed in flames on Eyre Highway, near the South Australian border, on Wednesday. The truck caught fire at Eucla, which had its highest recorded temperature in more than 100 years when it reached 48.6C, just under the 49.3C recorded in 1912. Drivers were left in shock after the semi-trailer’s cargo went up in flames just after 2pm, with no explanation for the fire. It was one of 48 road trains transporting hay to farmers in Cobar in an effort organised by the not-for-profit organisation Farmers Across Borders, started by Esperance farmers Sam Starcevich and Anne Bell in 2014. Ms Starcevich said luckily no one was hurt in the spontaneous fire. “We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to deliver that load of feed to drought-affected farmers in Cobar,” she said. “But we’re continuing the journey to arrive on Australia Day and deliver donations as planned.” The Department of Fire and Emergency Services estimated the damage at $50,000. The convoy will deliver almost 3000 tonnes of feed to NSW farmers.

I'm confident they will. The X12 is the "sweet spot" for so many applications.

GM to build new V8 engine at Tennessee plant Automotive News / January 24, 2019 General Motors said on Thursday it will invest $22 million at its Tennessee plant to build fuel-efficient engines for GM's large pickups and SUVs. GM will add more than 200 jobs at the Spring Hill plant to make the new generation of 6.2-liter, V-8 engines. The Spring Hill complex, originally built in 1990 for GM's now-defunct Saturn brand, also makes the popular GMC Acadia large crossover and Cadillac XT5 crossover. It employs about 3,800 people. GM claims the new V8's Dynamic Fuel Management (DFM) technology is "the industry’s first cylinder deactivation technology which enables the engines to operate in 17 different cylinder patterns to optimize performance. DFM enables only the cylinders needed to deliver the power a customer wants." “This investment will enable our Spring Hill team to continue building our award-winning engines enhanced with technology that will improve fuel efficiency and performance for our customers,” says GM CEO Mary Barra. “This investment reflects our commitment to vehicles and technologies our customers desire today and in the future.” Meanwhile, the complex is slated to begin production of the Cadillac XT6 later this year. Barra attended an event at the plant to celebrate the planned launch of the three-row crossover. GM is investing $300 million and hiring 200 people for production of the new model.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46981092

Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 students, and has yet to be executed. Now this young man murdered all five customers in the bank.....and nothing will come of it.

Five people dead in SunTrust Bank shooting in Florida BBC / January 24, 2019 Gunman kills every customer in Florida bank Officers responded after a man called police from inside the SunTrust bank in the town of Sebring and said: "I have shot five people". The gunman - Zephen Xaver, 21 - had barricaded himself in the branch, forced people to lie on the floor and began shooting, according to police. He surrendered after officers stormed the bank. The motive for the shooting remains unclear. The incident took place just after 12:30 (17:30 GMT) at SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 80 miles (130km) south of Orlando. Police say they were the only five people in the bank at the time. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, “Obviously this is an individual that needs to face very swift and exacting justice.” .

The office furniture man from Steelcase is sucking wind.

Ford, Hackett feel Wall Street's pain over slow-motion turnaround Keith Naughton, Bloomberg / January 24, 2019 DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. needed to stop the bleeding before it could start showing gains from herculean efforts to turn the company around. That’s the key takeaway from CEO Jim Hackett’s second try in as many weeks to explain to analysts why Ford has been struggling more than some of its peers to weather a host of headwinds hitting the auto industry. He said he understands their disappointment after the company posted only its second quarterly loss since 2009. “I respect that,” Hackett said of frustrations with how long Ford’s restructuring is taking. “But it is what it takes to build an industrial model that we’re talking about -- to do it the right way and not have it fall apart.” Hackett, 63, was more blunt than he’s ever been in the 20 months since he became CEO about what has ailed Ford. He described how its product development had been “constipated” days after taking the wraps off a new Explorer SUV that hadn’t been redesigned in almost a decade. And he painted a picture of a company that allowed costs to creep up under his two predecessors. From 2013 to 2017 -- a period coinciding with the last years of Alan Mulally’s tenure and the abbreviated reign of Mark Fields -- Ford’s structural costs grew by an average of about $1.7 billion annually, Hackett said. Ford “arrested” this trend last year and will keep structural expenses flat in 2019, the CEO said on a conference call with analysts. It can move more quickly now to bring fresh SUVs, crossovers, pickup trucks and other new models to market. The call was a change in tack from Hackett’s messaging a week earlier, when the CEO’s plea for patience and the lack of specific guidance on Ford’s earnings outlook for 2019 sent shares down 6.2 percent, the biggest drop in a year. The stock was little changed in pre-market trading Thursday. Overhauling Ford Hackett has been trying to overhaul the automaker by killing off slow-selling sedans, boosting spending on SUVs, crossovers and trucks, and plotting salaried staff cuts worldwide. Last week, he announced an alliance with Volkswagen Group to jointly develop commercial vans and trucks and said the two companies will explore working together on electric and self-driving cars. But analysts have criticized the company for not providing more details on its turnaround plans and for giving vague earnings guidance. Ford executives didn’t elaborate much beyond an outlook issued last week: that there’s potential for improvement this year in revenue growth, profit margin and other measures. Ford CFO Bob Shanks also addressed fears that have been percolating in the debt market about the risk of the company’s credit ratings falling back into junk status. This prospect for one of the largest corporate-bond issuers outside the financial sector gained urgency after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Ford to the last rung of investment grade in August. “My interpretation of their concerns is that it’s the operating performance. The balance sheet is very strong,” Shanks said of ratings companies’ views on Ford. “We’ve got to deliver stronger operating performance.” .

And yet so many operators are extremely pleased with their Kenworths and Cascadias, so much so that they keep buying more. Interesting. Mack brand salesmen across the country routinely see their pricing from Volvo puts them $10,000 or more over competitive quotes.

If I could get the four-cylinder 2.0L EcoBlue or 2.2L Duratorq diesels available in the global market, or the five-cylinder 3.2L Duratorq diesel available in the US market Transit as well as the global market, Ford would have a customer.

The China market Beijing Foton-Cummins ISG arrives in America. In the Middle Kingdom, it is available in both 10.5 litre and 11.8 litre displacements, although sales are predominantly the larger of the two. It's a great and proven powertrain. Zero issues. FYI......https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/40094-cummins-starts-field-testing-heavy-truck-engine-in-australia/?tab=comments#comment-290546

ForConstructionPros / January 23, 2019 The X12 engine weighs 600 lb. less than its predecessor without sacrificing any performance or power. .