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Hackett urging Ford to think, act in new ways Michael Martinez, Automotive News / January 21, 2018 DETROIT — You'd be forgiven for having a tough time keeping up with some of Jim Hackett's musings. Ford Motor Co.'s cerebral CEO says he likes to think in the abstract and often considers problems along three time dimensions simultaneously. Hackett views issues in the "now," "near" and "far," likening the view to a bull's-eye with those words in concentric circles. His job, he says, is to manage Ford in each of those circles to ensure success. That might explain why most of Hackett's public appearances since becoming CEO in May take the tone of a college-level philosophy or physics lecture. He invited a Harvard philosopher onstage this month at CES in Las Vegas to lead the audience through a thought exercise about data privacy, and delved into a discussion of deep learning last week during a fireside chat-style appearance at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. The 62-year-old Hackett, a newcomer to the auto industry after two decades running the office furniture maker Steelcase in western Michigan, often recorded Charlie Rose's self-titled TV show for its interviews with leading intellectuals and starts most mornings by scanning Science Daily's newsletter of top headlines. He lists former President Gerald Ford, former University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and former Steelcase Chairman Robert Pew as heroes for their integrity. He drives a Mustang Shelby GT350, although he's the first to admit he's not a car guy. But Ford's board of directors, including Executive Chairman Bill Ford, think he's exactly the kind of leader the 115-year-old automaker needs as it charts a course for the future. "There's great people with great minds that can't get people to follow them, and then there's people who have followership that don't know where they're going. I'm humbled by how difficult that is," Hackett told Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein during the World Congress appearance. "The clarity of what this future is, is undeniable to me. I'm humble about that, but I think I have a pretty good handle on what that is." Unexpected job Hackett wasn't so clear about his own future. He almost declined the Ford CEO role when the board decided to part ways with Mark Fields. The offer came three years after he retired from Steelcase, a role into which he poured his heart and soul. He was so focused on the furniture business, he said, that he would read Architectural Digest in the bathtub. Did he really want to devote himself to another company? An 18-month stint as interim athletic director at Michigan, which he accepted out of a sense of duty to and love for his alma mater, cleansed his palate and reignited a desire to do something, he said. Then his friend Bill Ford persuaded him to become chairman of the automaker's new Ford Smart Mobility subsidiary. But when he was offered the CEO job in May, he initially suggested someone else within the company would be a better fit. Then he asked for a weekend to think it over. He turned to his family, which has long been his anchor. He rarely finishes a public speaking event without mentioning his wife and high-school sweetheart, Kathy, or his two beagles, Ozzy and Rudy. Ultimately, Hackett's family persuaded him to say yes. Kathy said he'd regret saying no by the time he turned 75. His two sons each wrote him a letter: one about great leaders in history who made their mark after age 62, and the other about what the automotive industry could become. "They both got me and Kathy pushed," he said. "I'm so happy about saying yes. Everything that was hesitant has gone. I'm so excited about what we can do in this business." He said his moment of clarity about what Ford can do came in September when he joined his family in Los Angeles for his son's wedding. "It hit me when I was out there because I was with family who hadn't seen me since I got the job," he said. "I said, 'I know what we need to do.' " A few weeks later, on Oct. 3, he met with investors and laid out a sweeping plan to cut $14 billion in costs, shift $7 billion from cars to light trucks and speed product development and technology implementation. He summed up his vision for the company in six words: "smart vehicles for a smart world." ‘Aim ahead' If Ford wants to compete — and win, Hackett says, it must improve its competitive "fitness" and think more like Apple and Tesla than General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. "I have to compete with Apple in a warehouse, and you can't tell me what they're working on," he said. "Not to dismiss GM or Daimler or any of those guys, because they're all really good, too. But they're not defining that fitness." What Apple and others get right, Hackett said, is that they think about the future of transportation in new ways that legacy automakers haven't grasped. "What if I said you have to travel the speed of light to be fast?" Hackett said. "Well, you can't. So how would you beat it? You need to aim ahead, where it's going to be." As Ford faces challenges from Google, Apple and other nonauto companies, Hackett said he is preparing Ford so it doesn't get caught off guard. "Apple is not going to bring the Apple car to the Detroit auto show," he said. "They're going to come at us in a way we didn't expect, and I think I know how they're going to do that, too." Ford, he said, will aim ahead of where it has to be, betting on technology and propulsion systems that may make better business sense in the future than they do now. Consider that the "far" part of his bull's-eye. "It has to be ahead," Hackett said, "in order for people to believe our strategy isn't about catching up to someone else's old view." Hackett said he admires Tesla CEO Elon Musk for getting employees to think hundreds of years in the future and realize that many problems will be solved by time. Speed is important to Hackett, partly because of the intense competition among Ford and its rivals, but also because of his age. "I had 20 years to get Steelcase right," he said. "I don't have that time here." Smart cities What does Hackett see when he looks to the future? He gave some hints at CES. It includes highly connected cities, in which cars talk with streetlights and phones talk with bikes, in which people and goods move freely, without congestion. Hackett is adamant that vehicles will need to be integrated into cities in new ways. "Everywhere in history, when transportation was invented, there was a delegation of the design between two forces," he said. "A horse had a trail, a car had a road, an airplane had an air-traffic control system. Autonomous vehicles have to have something more than the road." Hackett says vehicle propulsion systems will change too. Applying his "aim ahead" strategy, he expects electric vehicle costs to drop and the public to see EVs' benefit. "The cost of the battery is going to go through a step-function improvement," he said. "Moore's law [which generally holds that computers' processing power doubles every two years] is also going to make the cities smarter. Therefore, five to seven years from now we have to be careful about declaring that the population will only buy 5 percent electrification." The automaker is so sure that it has vowed to invest $11 billion in electrification by 2022 so it can introduce 40 new vehicles, including 16 that are fully electric. As Ford imagines the "city of tomorrow," it announced a partnership with Postmates to test the viability of moving goods autonomously. It also is experimenting with Domino's on driverless pizza delivery. "The promise of it is so magical," Hackett said. "The Amazon problem of small businesses closing could be reversed. The logistics power in these instruments could change the scale advantage a small company needs to move goods." His future The most passionate member of the Jim Hackett fan club might be Bill Ford. And vice versa. "He is a treasure of the highest order in this world," Hackett said of his boss. He said the two talk at least 10 times a day, echoing a similar sentiment expressed by former CEO Alan Mulally, who said he and Bill Ford wore a path between their offices on the top floor of Ford's headquarters. Hackett wouldn't say how much the two talk about succession planning but said he has "zero concerns about the executive bench." There are three or four people who could be CEO today, he said, and five other behind-the-scenes candidates who are capable, too. He doesn't know how long he'll last at Ford, but his acute awareness about time and speed apply to himself, too. "Every month on the Ford job is a marble in a jar," he said. "Imagine there's 84 marbles in that jar. I've now taken nine out. The wisdom in that is how fast they go." How many more will be taken out? Even he and Ford don't know. "We just talk about a lot of marbles in the jar," Hackett said. "We haven't counted." .

https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/43631-announcing-mackstripe-by-mack-western/

Going back to the LTL era, there certainly wasn't anything more beautiful. The built in-house by Mack Trucks F-model (and CF) cab was something we were very proud of. It was heavy, but you couldn't wear it out. I personally do have a strong connection to it.

It's crazy, but I remember the launch of the CM as if it were yesterday. There was nothing wrong with the truck, however to me, it represented the truck that nobody was asking for.

https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/46655-mcaleese/

Okay, my Top 5..... 1. U.S. market Value-Liner 2. Australian market Value-Liner 3. Ultra-Liner 4. Super-Liner 5. Trident https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41322-sell-me-on-a-2016/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-299942 https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/34441-mack-trucks-the-difference-behind-the-name/?tab=comments#comment-230667 https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/30035-mack-australia-trident-a-well-kept-secret/

No, the lower three trucks. Note the hood-mounted "Value-Liner" and "V8" badges. https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/30016-mack-australia-the-other-value-liner/

The V8-powered Australian market Value-Liner ranks in the Top 3 of the most attractive Mack trucks.

No. We built that in the US. It has an RVI cab and engine (the CM423 has a Cummins), but was otherwise a concoction of US components.

No, those other manuals are completely unrelated. You can search “CM400” on the BMT website for additional info. Glen, you’re going to have difficulty obtaining parts for that truck.

Thor Trucks Takes Different Approach to Electric Trucks Jack Roberts. Heavy Duty Trucking (HDT) / January 19, 2018 What do you get when you get together a group of West Coast tech heads with family backgrounds in trucking? A whole new electric truck company, that’s what. At least that’s what Giordano Sordoni thinks. Sordoni is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Thor Trucks, a Los Angeles-based truck manufacturer and technology lab. He told HDT in an interview that the Thor Trucks team is focused on providing long-haul electric truck solutions that are “reasonable and profitable now.” The resulting prototype is a tough-looking regional-haul truck with an aggressive stance and styling that even old school truckers can appreciate. But styling cues aside, Sordoni said the Thor truck – and his company’s vision – is firmly rooted in future technology and the rapid changes coming at trucking. “The push toward more in-home delivery is where our vision was born,” Sordoni said. “Our families have a fleet background, so we understand the challenges of compliance, maintenance, fluctuating fuel prices, and other trucking issues today. And an electric truck solves a lot of those problems. You go from a vehicle with 2,000 moving parts to fewer than 20, so maintenance is cheaper. There’s no exhaust treatment or diesel particulate filter to deal with. And, if you get enough of these trucks on the road, you’ll eventually see fuel prices stabilize. So, electric trucks are actually good for fleets that run diesel, too." The God of Thunder Comes to Trucking The first Thor truck, dubbed the ET-One, is spec’d for regional-haul applications with daily ranges of 300 miles or less. The company says the truck features instananeous torque starting at 0 rpm, with powertrain options ranging from 300 to 700 hp. The ET-One features a regenerative braking system and battery packs designed specifically for commercial vehicle applications, and has the highest energy density lithium-ion cylindrical cells available today, according to the company. While Sordoni and his team think electric powertrains will eventually be feasible in long-haul applications, changing freight patterns and a new emphasis on in-home grocery deliveries are the primary factors driving his design team today. “Right now, I think regional haul makes the most sense for us,” Sordoni said. “We’re looking specifically at predicable routes that the drivers know like the back of their hand. Fleets know exactly where trucks on these routes are at any point during the day or night. So, we’re looking at developing a vehicle and a charging network spaced in an intelligent way to support those operations. And by doing so, we’ll have a capable truck that appeals to a huge swath of the trucking industry today.” Based on their collective fleet backgrounds, Sordoni said his design team has focused heavily on giving Thor trucks a familiar, comfortable, and productive environment, noting that many regional-haul routes rely heavily on human drivers unloading the truck, checking inventory, and reporting issues back to headquarters. “And those types of jobs won’t be replaced by robots any time soon,” Sordoni added. “In fact, my co-workers hate going to lunch with me because I’m always chasing down a truck on a route and talking to the driver. We also make a point of inviting drivers we meet on routes back to our labs to inspect our trucks up close and give us feedback on what we’re doing. They’re pretty skeptical at first. But once they take a drive in the truck and see what our approach is, they convert pretty quickly.” Partnering with Established Suppliers Thor also has taken on a business model that is “a little bit different” from the one being pursued by most of his electric truck competitors, Sordoni said. “We’re seeing a lot of OEMs out there trying to do everything themselves,” he explained. “They’re making huge claims and promises regarding dealerships, service and nationwide charging networks. Our strategy is to partner with existing companies already in the trucking ecosystem to manufacture or service our vehicles. There’s not a lot of value in us designing and manufacturing an axle, for example, when there are a lot of excellent companies out there already producing components like that, and there’s frankly not a lot of value we can add in that area.” The next steps for Thor, according to Sordoni, will be demonstrating prototype vehicles throughout 2018 with an emphasis on getting the truck into the hands of potential customers. “We want them to run them in their daily operations and make certain they can live up to the duty cycles we’ve designed them for."

The Transtar II remains one of my favorite COEs.

Today's Trucking / January 18, 2018 Take a ride back in time aboard Steve Constantin's out-of-this-world 1980 International Transtar II Eagle COE. Steve's a machinist not a driver, and his skills and handiwork make this a truck like almost no other. We interviewed Steve in August 2016 at the Athens Antique Truck Show in Athens Ont. The summer truck show season is just getting underway here in Ontario, starting with the Great Lakes Truck Club's premiere event, the Clifford Antique and Classic Truck Show July 1-2. .

Trailer-Body Builders / January 19, 2018 Freightliner Trucks’ new Cascadia model was selected for a recent 2017 Good Design award, which selects product designs and graphics from more than 46 nations for design excellence. Good Design was founded in Chicago in 1950 and curated by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. According to the company, it is one of the oldest and most recognized programs for design excellence globally. Submissions are received from Fortune 500 companies and design firms. “Every detail of the new Cascadia was carefully conceived to provide the best possible experience for drivers,” said Martin Kreidl, design director for Daimler Trucks North America. “We’re honored that the Good Design jury selected the new Cascadia, and are pleased they recognized our team’s thoughtful approach and forward-thinking, driver-centric innovations.” According to the company, the new Cascadia’s interior space configurations let drivers customize their living space to best suit their needs. The sleeper area offers dimmable ambient LED lighting that can illuminate the interior to near daylight levels. The space also has more cabinets, as well as larger areas to accommodate standard appliances and a sturdy, flat-panel TV swivel bracket that can hold up to a 26-in. screen television. Options for a double bunk or a driver’s loft are also available. The driver’s loft includes a dinette/work table and opposing seating with seat belts, which can be quickly folded to allow for a full-size, drop-down, murphy-style bed with the double bunk option. “We’re proud that the new Cascadia has been recognized with the Good Design award, and we’re even more proud of the achievements found in the new Cascadia that benefit drivers while they’re both on the job and off,” noted Kelly Gedert, director of product marketing for Freightliner Trucks and Detroit Components. .

Transport Topics / January 18, 2018 An autonomous-driving technology firm plans this year to begin commercial-hauling operations in Arizona using Class 8 trucks that will require nearly no driver control of the vehicle. Beijing- and San Diego-based tuSimple (aka. Beijing Tucson Future Technology Co., Ltd. /北京图森互联科技有限责任公司) has a supplier committed to the project, which will run trucks the 120 miles from Tucson to Phoenix, Partner and Vice President of Product Chuck Price told Transport Topics. He refused to identify the supplier. “We are testing at our Tucson facility in the first half of the year. By September, we will move to [operating for] a commercial shipper of cargo to generate revenues,” Price said. The tuSimple systems will be installed in Peterbilt trucks that will run at autonomous Level 4 of High Automation, defined as a vehicle system capable of conducting all driving without human control except in special circumstance, such as a traffic jam. Price said a driver will be behind the wheel for the Arizona runs. TuSimple conducted successful tests last summer of its Level 4 systems in China and on a 200-mile run from San Diego to Yuma, Ariz. TuSimple does not build trucks but provides the “stack” of autonomous technology that includes Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) and its Drive PX computer system, along with multiple radar and camera sensors. A series of commercial runs using Level 4 systems would be a big step for autonomous technology in Class 8 trucks. The tuSimple system trucks are capable of running themselves as they travel from on-highway to off-highway and in depot parking lots, Price said. In 2016, Uber’s self-driving truck subsidiary, Otto, conducted with Anheuser-Busch a driverless 120-mile beer delivery in Colorado. Last October, autonomous technology firm Embark teamed with Ryder to haul Frigidaire products between Texas and California. Both ran driverless on highways but switched to human control for merges and off-highway driving. TuSimple, formed in 2015 in China by Mo Chen and Xiaodi Hou, has raised $83 million from Chinese investors and Nvidia, according to CrunchBase. The company seeks to build out 50 trucks equipped with its autonomous systems, with an annual goal of hauling commercial freight at Level 4 for 3 million miles, Price said. It plans to outfit 25 Peterbilt Model 579 trucks in the United States and 25 Shaanxi Automobile Group trucks in China with its systems. The firm also will offer an extensive maintenance program. Its business model calls for users to pay a base charge and a recurring subscription fee. In return, the users get the tuSimple technology and staff training, in addition to system and software updates as the program evolves, Price said. The firm also will find and fix a vehicle if a problem occurs that takes it out of commission. “Let’s say the vehicle is disabled — due to weather, a blowout, a system failure — we can detect this and move it remotely or rescue it for the fleet customer,” he said. “We work to ensure [the system] works in all conditions. You can’t leave $1 million in product sitting on the side of the road.” TuSimple takes a different approach from some of its autonomous technology competitors. It opted for radar technology over the widely used lidar systems as radar can sense objects up to 300 meters away and respond, while lidar claims about 150 meters. That extra distance is important for trucks where short stopping distance is essential, Price said. Radar works better in rough weather and it’s cheaper, he noted. And tuSimple deliberately chose to headquarter in San Diego, away from Silicon Valley, where many new technology companies settle. “Our plan is to be the first commercial [Class 8] operator. It’s not our goal to just do demos and get acquired,” Price said. “We build technology that really works. We want to be out of Silicon Valley where there is pressure to get bought.” http://www.tusimple.com/ https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/30870500 .

Murder your son and face the death penalty? No, just a mere 10 years in prison. What will it cost taxpayers to incarcerate an admitted murderer for 10 years? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Associated Press / January 19, 2018 Nearly three years ago, a state trooper conducting a traffic stop discovered a boy’s body in the trunk of his mother’s car. Quincy Jamar Davis hadn’t been seen for 11 years – his whereabouts unknown since 2004, around the time he was a middle school student in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was never reported missing. This morning, his mother pleaded guilty to killing her son more than a decade ago. Tonya Slaton, 46, had been facing a second-degree murder charge, but under an agreement in Hampton Circuit Court, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. The judge then sentenced her to 10 years in prison – the maximum punishment for that conviction – with two years suspended. Court records place Quincy’s death sometime between July 24, 2004, and July 24, 2005 – when he was 14 or 15 years old. A medical examiner was unable to determine his exact cause of death, but Quincy had a broken vertebrae in his neck that had not yet healed, according to a summary of evidence read aloud in court by prosecutor Richard Shayegan. His body also showed multiple injuries over time. Quincy attended elementary and middle school in Virginia Beach, but friends didn’t see him after seventh grade. He was withdrawn from the Virginia Beach division in September 2003, when he would have entered eighth grade. In June 2015, Slaton was headed east on Interstate 64 in Hampton, Virginia when state police pulled over her Ford Mustang. The state tags were expired, and the license plate wasn’t registered with the state, Trooper Chad Dermyer wrote in a summary of the incident filed in court documents. VIN numbers on the car looked like they had been tampered with, Maurice Lockett, a state police trainee who was with Dermyer that day, previously testified. At first, the troopers thought Slaton may have been a victim, he said. They thought someone may have stolen the car, changed the VIN and sold it to her, Lockett testified. After spending more than 45 minutes on the phone with a DMV agent, Dermyer decided to call a tow truck to further investigate the VIN numbers, he wrote in his report. The troopers then searched the car. When Dermyer opened the trunk, he saw trash bags under a spare tire, according to his report. Slaton told him she had clothes in the trunk that she planned to take to the Salvation Army. But one bag caught his attention. It appeared to contain something long and thin, about the width of a roll of toilet paper, Dermyer wrote. The bag “seemed to be duct taped close to the item,” and it didn’t look like clothes, he wrote. Dermyer tore through several layers of garbage bags and noticed what appeared to be rotting flesh, he wrote. He turned and looked at Slaton. “What is this?” he asked. She said it was just clothing, grabbed another bag with a blanket and covered it up, Dermyer wrote. The trooper uncovered the bag again. He saw what appeared to be two legs, severely decomposed. “I could see from around the knee down to the feet, which were covered by socks,” he wrote. Dermyer detained Slaton, put her in the front of his patrol car and called dispatch, he wrote. Slaton initially was charged with one felony count of concealing her son’s body. Prosecutors dropped the charge in early 2016, and a grand jury directly indicted Slaton on the murder charge. Slaton’s prior record includes a 1997 misdemeanor assault and battery conviction for injuring Quincy when he was 6. Court records filed in her current case show she was convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery in 2002 in Virginia Beach. In 2008, Slaton was sentenced to serve four years in prison for felony attempted maiming and shooting at an occupied dwelling for firing a gun at her boyfriend during a fight in Hampton.

Trump administration says US mistakenly backed China WTO accession in 2001 Reuters / January 20, 2018 WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The United States mistakenly supported China's membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 on terms that have failed to force Beijing to open its economy, the Trump administration said on Friday as it prepares to clamp down on Chinese trade. "It seems clear that the United States erred in supporting China's entry into the WTO on terms that have proven to be ineffective in securing China's embrace of an open, market-orientated trade regime," the administration said in an annual report to Congress on China's compliance with WTO commitments. "It is now clear that the WTO rules are not sufficient to constrain China's market-distorting behavior," the report said. While the annual report from the U.S. Trade Representative's office has long taken China to task for unfair trade practices, the first such review under U.S. President Donald Trump takes a harsher tone against Beijing. It comes amid worsening trade tensions between the world's two largest economies and as the administration prepares actions to curb China's alleged theft of intellectual property. A decision in the so-called "Section 301" investigation is expected in the coming weeks. The report also points at Russia's behavior, saying Moscow had no intention of complying with its WTO obligations, a trend the administration said was "very troubling." A White House official said despite consultations with China, it had failed to follow through on promises of moving more toward a market-orientated economy and playing by international trading rules. "The president and his principal advisor are united in the belief that this is a problem that has gone on for too long and needs to be addressed," the official said. "In the past, conversations have focused more on discreet opening for discreet products, and what we're saying is systematically we're not going to tolerate broad-based policy that attempts to promote state-led enterprises," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump told Reuters in an interview this week he was considering a big "fine" against China for forcing U.S. companies to transfer their intellectual property to China as a cost of doing business there. While the administration is also looking at whether foreign imports of steel, aluminum, washing machines and solar panels are harming U.S businesses, China's alleged theft of intellectual property is a particular concern to Trump because it affects a large swath of American firms, the official said. Trump did not specify what he meant by a "fine" against China, but the 1974 trade law that authorized an investigation into China's alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property allows him to impose retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods or other trade sanctions until China changes its policies. In Beijing, many experts believe Washington is unwilling to pay the heavy economic price needed to upset prevailing trade dynamics between the two countries. In the report released on Friday, Trump's trade envoy, Robert Lighthizer, said the global economy was threatened by major economies who undermined the global trading system. "The global trading system is threatened by major economies who do not intend to open their markets to trade and participate fairly," Lighthizer said. "This practice is incompatible with the market-based approach expressly envisioned by WTO members and contrary to the fundamental principles of the WTO." The Trump administration has already pledged to transform 164-member trade body and has blocked WTO judicial appointments in a move to win WTO reforms. "What we want to do is see countries behave responsibly within the international trading system," the White House official said.

I believe the last year one could order a Class 6-7 Ford (F-650/F-750) with a Caterpillar (7.2L C7) was 2009. And the last year one could order a Class 6-7 Ford with a Cummins (6.7L ISB) was 2015. Fast forward to last year (2017), I think the lack of better credentials (Cummins powerplant, Allison automatic, Eaton transmissions) and lack of aggressive sales marketing are the root of Ford's problems in medium duty.

Ford faces questions from U.S. senators over 'do not drive' warning Reuters / January 18, 2018 WASHINGTON -- Two senators asked the Transportation Department on Thursday to explain why a "do not drive" directive issued last week by Ford Motor Co. is limited to about 2,900 older pickup trucks and if other vehicles are potentially at risk from defective airbag inflators. The company said it had confirmed a second death in a 2006 Ford Ranger caused by a faulty Takata Corp. airbag inflator and urged some owners to stop driving immediately until they can get replacement parts. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should "swiftly and proactively address the deadly defect in Takata airbags and provide consumers with appropriate notice regarding the defect’s serious potential risk to life," wrote Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey, both Democrats, to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. Ford said both deaths in 2006 Ranger pickups occurred with inflators built on the same day. In a recall notice filed with NHTSA, Ford said data from the two incidents and an anomalous test all occurred with inflators from the same propellant production lot. The recall applies to Ford Rangers with inflators built on two days in September 2005, the company said. A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to immediately comment on the letter. Ford spokeswoman Elizabeth Weigandt said the automaker is "still investigating the issue with these inflators." At least 21 deaths worldwide are linked to the Takata inflators that can rupture and send deadly metal fragments into the driver’s body. The faulty inflators have led to the largest automotive recall in history. The other 19 deaths have occurred in Honda Motor Co. vehicles, most of which were in the United States. Ford issued a separate recall for trucks previously recalled in 2016. Of those 391,000 2004-06 Ranger vehicles, last week's recall affects 2,900 vehicles in North America, most in the United States. The company is paying to tow vehicles to dealerships for repairs and providing free loaners. The senators want NHTSA to require the same "do not drive" warning for all previously recalled Rangers unless Ford can explain why they do not pose the same heightened risk. Mazda Motor Corp. issued a similar recall and stop drive warning for 160 2006 Mazda B-Series trucks, which were built by Ford. Takata said in a statement it "strongly urges vehicle owners to check" to see if vehicles have been recalled. NHTSA also urged owners to heed Ford's warning. Takata said it would recall, or expects to recall, about 125 million vehicles from 19 automakers worldwide by 2019, including more than 60 million in the United States.

http://www.france24.com/en/20180118-usa-california-turpin-parents-torture-taunted-starving-kids-with-pie-house-horrors David and Louise Turpin should be placed in a windowless cell and starved (a spade for a spade)......to death. And authorities should spread the word.

Associated Press / January 17, 2018 RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A California couple tortured a dozen of their children for years, starving them to the point that their growth was stunted, chaining them to their beds for up to months, preventing them from using the toilet at times and forbidding them from showering more than once a year, a prosecutor said Thursday. “The victimization appeared to intensify over time,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in announcing charges. “What started out as neglect became severe, pervasive, prolonged child abuse.” David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, were charged with multiple counts of torture, child abuse, dependent adult abuse and false imprisonment. David Turpin was also charged with performing a lewd act on a child under age 14. The litany of physical and emotional abuse was enough to invoke a house of horrors that apparently went unnoticed for years in California and Texas until Sunday, when a 17-year-old girl managed to escape and call 911. The girl and her siblings had plotted the escape for two years, Hestrin said. Another girl who escaped out a window with the teen turned back out of fear. When deputies arrived at the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on a dead-end street in Perris, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, they were shocked by what they found. Malnutrition was so severe that it was consistent with muscle wasting and had led to cognitive impairment and nerve damage, Hestrin said. The oldest child, a 29-year-old woman, weighed 82 pounds. A 12-year-old was the weight of a typical 7-year-old. Some of the 13 children had been isolated so long they did not know what a police officer was. The victims range in age from 2 to 29. The torture and false imprisonment charges do not include the 2-year-old, who was not malnourished. All the children’s names begin with the letter J, according to court documents that didn’t provide their full names. The parents were jailed on $12 million bail each after pleading not guilty Thursday at their first court appearance. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison. David Turpin’s lawyer, deputy public defender David Macher, had only begun to investigate the allegations, but said the case was going to be a challenge. “It’s a very serious case,” he said. “Our clients are presumed to be innocent, and that is a very important presumption.” David Turpin’s father, James, the grandfather to the children, said from his home in Princeton, West Virginia, that he did not believe the reports about the abuse. “I’m going to talk with the children, find out the real story on this as soon as I can get a call through to them,” James Turpin told The Associated Press. David Turpin had worked as an engineer for both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Louise Turpin identified herself as a housewife in a 2011 bankruptcy filing. The charges date to 2010, when the couple moved to Riverside County from outside Fort Worth, Texas. The abuse began in Texas with the children being tied to beds with ropes and then hog-tied, Hestrin said. When one child was able to wriggle free, the couple began restraining them with chains and padlocks — for up to months at a time, Hestrin said. At one point in Texas, the parents lived in a separate house from most of the children and dropped off food to the others from time to time, Hestrin said. When not restrained, the children were locked in different rooms and fed little on a schedule. Punishments included being beaten and choked, Hestrin said. On Sunday, three children had been shackled to beds, though the parents freed two of them — ages 11 and 14 — when officers knocked on the door, Hestrin said. Deputies found a 22-year-old chained to a bed. Human waste in the house indicated the children were prevented from using the toilet. Sheriff’s deputies said the stench in the house was overwhelming. The children never received dental care, and they had not seen a doctor in more than four years. When the girl who escaped was asked if any pills were in the home, she did not understand what medication was. The children, who were schooled at home, were rarely seen outside the house, though the parents posted photos of them smiling together at Disneyland and in Las Vegas, where the couple renewed their wedding vows. In addition to raising them largely in isolation, the parents may have been able to hide the abuse by functioning while other families slept. The children were reared on the graveyard shift, with the family staying up all night and going to bed shortly before dawn, Hestrin said. In the neighborhood where the kids were hardly known, a steady flow of strangers visited the house Thursday and left stuffed animals and large bouquets of red heart-shaped balloons on the walkway. A home-made poster taped to the house said: “We stand united with the Turpin children.” Neighbor Josh Tiedeman-Bell grappled with how he and others in the tight-knit development that hosts an annual barbecue and Christmas decorating contest could be unaware of what happened there. He recalled seeing the Turpin children doing yard work in the evenings but it didn’t seem unusual in light of the blazing midday heat. He said a handful of the kids came to a neighborhood Christmas event one year and didn’t say much, but he would never have thought this was why. “We were all like a part of their nightmare,” he said, fighting back tears. While the children were deprived of food, the Turpin parents ate well and even tormented the children by putting apple and pumpkin pies on the kitchen counter, but not letting them have any, Hestrin said. Similarly, the children were not allowed to play with toys, though many were found throughout the house — in their original packaging. “This is depraved conduct,” Hestrin said. “It breaks our hearts.” One of the only things the children were allowed to do was to write in their journals. Investigators were combing through hundreds of journals found in the home, Hestrin said. They are expected to provide powerful evidence against the parents. .

Wards Auto / January 12, 2018 U.S. medium- and heavy-duty truck sales hit 43,534 in December, 24.3% above year-ago’s 36,365. With seven months of consecutive year-over-year gains, big trucks ended the year at 415,042 units, 3.5% ahead of like-2016’s 400,996. Class 8 sales posted a 48.5% gain, a third December best, to 22,355. The push wasn’t enough to equal last year’s total of 192,662, with 2017 falling 0.2% short to 192,252. Segment leader Freightliner almost doubled its volume, reaching 8,504 deliveries and accounting for a 38.0% market share. Volvo was the only truck maker in the group to underperform in December, down 12.8%, outweighing sister brand Mack’s 5.8% gain. That left Volvo Truck down 4.5% for the month. Medium-duty truck sales totaled 21,179, a 6.1% bump compared with year-ago’s 20,736, ending the year up 6.9% at 222,790 deliveries. All medium-duty classes exceeded 2016 sales, topped by Class 4’s 30.7% increase to 18,690 deliveries. Class 7 deliveries jumped 14.1% with large volume gains from Freightliner (+27.9%), Ford (+65.2%) and Kenworth (26.6%). Freightliner accounted for a 46.7% market share for the year and ended 2.5% above year-ago with 29,256 units. Class 6 was the only sector to finish below year-ago. Deliveries totaled 5,385 units, down 5.0%. Segment-leader Ford was the main downward force, with sales plummeting 39.3% from 2,883 units to 1,685. Runner-up Freightliner’s 49.0% bounce to 1,640 units wasn’t enough to offset Ford’s decline. Chevrolet’s LCF entered Class 6 for the first time in December with 7 units. Freightliner also clinched the No.1 spot in this class for the year with a 32.9% market share. Class 5 pulled off a 3.7% gain thanks to Ford’s 10.0% jump to 4,846 units and Hino’s 79.1% spike to 564. These gains offset FCA’s 15.0% plunge to 1,705 units. Ford held the No.1 spot in the class all year long, ending with a 63.0% market share and 9.9% gain over 2016. Class 4 continued to outperform any other class with demand jumping 30.3% to 2,328 trucks. Last month marked the best December since 2009 when 2,519 trucks were delivered. Hino was the only truck maker to decline, falling 8.5% below last year with 104 units. Mitsubishi Fuso saw the greatest improvement, soaring 710.0% from 15 to 117 units. For the year, Ford claimed first place with a 24.3% rise in sales and a 15.4% market share. With domestics and imports climbing 700.6% and 469.2%, respectively, GM grew from a 1.7% market share in 2016 to 9.3% in 2017. .

I observe a lot of growth in Class 5. But whereas in the past Ford would have dominated with the F-550, many companies, municipalities and utilities are instead buying Dodge (Ram) 5500s. The key reason being the class-leading Cummins engine. Class 5 sales also appear to be robbing sales from Class 4, customers purchasing a 5500 instead of the 4500. Bob, Ford could have given the Japanese low-cab-forward trucks some competition with the E-550. But only producing it for two years (2002-2003), they didn't give it a chance, nor did Ford make any effort to market it as a Hino/Isuzu/Fuso/UD alternative. It needed forward development (refinement), but it was a beginning. .