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First Merlin Marine, and then Daytona Marine. DME-9-500 16.36 500 @ 2,100 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-550 16.36 550 @ 2,100 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-700 16.36 700 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-720 16.36 720 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-750 16.36 750 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-820 16.36 820 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-880 16.36 880 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine DME-9-925 16.36 925 @ 2,500 Daytona Marine Engine And also Manchester Mack.............https://www.absolutelyeverythingabout.com/boats/american-marine-diesel/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mack Power available for new markets MackPower Press Release / February 7, 2001 Mack Trucks, Inc. announced today that it will market its premier 12-liter diesel engine, the E7, as a power source for a variety of industrial and marine market applications. Mack Power is the company's new business unit which supports the marketing, sales, engineering, service, and parts operations for the E7's strategic move into several new and highly competitive market segments. According to Paul L. Vikner, executive vice president -- sales and marketing, "the Mack E7 engine is a natural fit for the many varied businesses that demand reliability, durability, and efficiency from a diesel power unit. Our engines, which are well known for all these attributes, offer additional advantages due to their outstanding power-to-weight ratio as well." The Mack Power E7 E-TECH, an electronically managed engine, will be available for the major industrial market segments of agricultural, construction, general industrial, material handling, pumps and compressors, and generator sets. For the commercial and pleasure marine market segment, the E7 engine will be available in both E-TECH and mechanical models. "This engine is a well respected product, and a quality alternative to competing products," notes Vikner, "with the weight, power, torque, performance, dependability, serviceability, life, and electronics necessary for a wide variety of applications in these market segments. And the E-TECH engine is a real workhorse. It's the same base power unit Mack offers to the Class 8 truck market." In the future, Vikner adds, the Mack Power E7 will be marketed in several non-competing niche on-highway applications as well. Mack Power products will be produced at Mack's Hagerstown, MD, operations facility. Scott H. Kress, vice president -- business development and industry relations and general manager of Mack Power, says "our goal is to bring to the industrial and marine diesel engine markets a world-class product range that is more than the equivalent of current market leaders -- products that benefit from the dedicated resources and support of the Mack company. The relatively small size and favorable power-to-weight ratio of the E7, combined with Mack's name and reputation, gives our product a significant competitive advantage over others." According to Kress, Mack is developing a distribution network specific to this market – partnering with select diesel engine distributors already servicing these markets that will add the Mack Power product to complement their other offerings. "Our first product shipment will be made in the first quarter of 2000 to the industrial market," Kress says, "and the marine market will follow later in the year. We also plan to unveil the Mack Power E7 at several industry shows throughout the coming year." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16-litre Industrial Engine MackPower Press Release The MackPower I-E9 V8, 16-litre Industrial Engine is ideal for demanding jobs that require extra power and torque. The MackPower I-E9 V8, 16-litre Industrial Engine is ideal for demanding jobs that require extra power and torque. According to Carrie-Ann Baker, sales and marketing manager of the MackPower business unit, "the E9 has years of proven performance, efficiency and reliability on the highway. It is well respected and well known and now a variety of applications can take advantage of this engine such as: mining, power generation, industrial, agricultural, construction, material handling, as well as pumps and compressors." The V8 cylinder, 4 stroke, 32 valve, turbocharged, intercooled diesel engine delivers between 475 and 700 HP. The I-E9 offers several other features common to its truck-driving cousin. These include: Electronically controlled pump line nozzle injection system with V-MAC control for high power density, efficient operations and low smoke. High pressure direct injected fuel for excellent fuel economy and smoke control. Three full flow spin-on oil system with 56.2 quart total capacity. Steel crown articulated piston and full wet replaceable cylinder liners for durability. High power-to-weight ratio for outstanding performance. All I-E9 engines will be manufactured at the Mack Powertrain Operations engineers and product developmentäin Hagerstown, Md., where MackPower specialists have been centralized. The toll-free number for all MackPower inquiries is 877-6-PWRMACK (679-7622) MackPower, 2100 Mack Boulevard, Allentown, PA 18103. Tel: 610-709-3837; Fax: 610-709-3636.

Fleet Owner / July 5, 2017 Eaton has begun production and shipping of its recently upgraded line of aftermarket Advantage Self-Adjust and Eaton Easy Pedal Advantage heavy-duty clutches. Twenty-eight part numbers with a wide range of torque ratings up to 2,250 lbs.-ft. are now available for replacement service for all makes and models of heavy-duty trucks in North America. “Enhancements were made to both designs to improve durability, reduce harmful vibration and better enable smooth, effortless shifting,” said Ben Karrer, global product strategy manager, Eaton Vehicle Group. “Contemporary diesel engines and powertrains, including downsped designs, continue to evolve. This newest line of clutches, our smoothest and most durable ever made by Eaton, are designed to better support those developments.” The 28 part numbers are a reduction from 41 previous part numbers by combining several earlier models into one. The line covers all commercial heavy-duty truck applications while allowing dealers to reduce inventory levels. According to Eaton, highlights include: A new strap drive system, which affixes the intermediate plate to the housing on the clutches, prolongs clutch life by eliminating lug fatigue that over time could lead to failures. The design also eliminates noisy rattle that is associated with the prior design. Eaton’s soft rate dampers absorb engine vibrations to prevent driveline damage and are now standard on all clutches. This technology enables downspeeding at all torque ratings up to 1,850 lbs.-ft. A patent pending spring separator system permits cleaner, quicker disengagement with the engine for more efficient, smoother shifting. A second wear tab indicator has been added to the Advantage Self-Adjust model giving maintenance professionals better access during visual inspections. Bearing lube intervals for all Eaton Advantage heavy-duty clutches is 50,000 miles. Eaton Commercial Vehicle components are backed by Eaton’s Roadranger network of more than 180 drivetrain professionals who provide solutions, support and expertise to fleets and dealers.

Heavy Duty Trucking / July 5, 2017 Kenworth’s T680 on-highway flagship and T880 and T880S vocational trucks are now available for order with the Cummins Westport ISL G Near Zero NOx emissions natural-gas engine. The 8.9 liter Cummins Westport ISL G Near Zero is rated at 320 horsepower and 1,000 lb.-ft. of torque. Emissions of the ISL G NZ are 90% lower than the current Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board NOx limit of 0.2 g/bhp-hr and also meet the 2017 EPA greenhouse gas emission requirements, according to Cummins Westport. The engine makes use of advanced engine calibration, a three-way catalyst aftertreatment system, and a closed crankcase ventilation system to help achieve lower emissions. The ISL G NZ can operate on either compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas and is also compatible with renewable natural gas. “The Kenworth T680 and T880 specified with the ISL G Near Zero emissions engine are ideal for regional haul, vocational, and refuse fleets focused on decreasing their environmental impact and reducing operating costs,” said Kurt Swihart, Kenworth marketing director. ISL G video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8CxxGWfYYk .

Fleet Owner / July 5, 2017 State struggles to reach new budget agreement A proposal in the Wisconsin legislature to create a mileage-based fee on trucks to help fund highway improvements was met with fierce opposition from business groups. The proposal by state Rep Amy Loudenbeck (R) estimated it would create $138 million annually. The fee would charge 2.85 a mile on commercial trucks weighing 59,000 lbs. It was supposed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R), but five senators came out in opposition, meaning it could not gain enough support for passage. Neal Kedzie, president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association (WMCA), told Fleet Owner the idea appears to be dead, but "anything can happen" because there is not yet an agreement on a new budget. "We will continue our effort to oppose until we see the actual budget language has no mention of a heavy truck tax in it," Kedzie said. In late June, the WMCA, Schneider National, Walmart, and Roehl Transport were among more than a dozen business groups filing a letter in opposition to the idea. “The Wisconsin trucking industry alone paid 38 percent of all taxes owed by Wisconsin motorists last year, pay some of the highest trucking registration fees in the nation, and will continue to bear the brunt of additional efforts on taxes and other revenue generating mechanisms that won’t disappear once this budget is completed,” the groups wrote. The letter added there is no ton-mile collection system in operation in Wisconsin and “targeting heavy trucks . . . will raise the cost to do business here in Wisconsin, resulting in less routes through the state, increased prices for consumers and curtail new investment.” State lawmakers failed to reach a new budget deal by July 1. As a result, spending levels from the previous two-year budget are carrying over. State officials have said if the stalemate continues it could delay road construction.

Speed-Limiter Regulation Hits Roadblock in Trump’s Quest to Cut Rules Transport Topics / July 5, 2017 Years of pleas from parents whose son was killed by a speeding tractor-trailer, buy-in from some truckers and the promise of fewer highway deaths convinced U.S. officials in September to propose requiring speed-limiting devices on all large rigs. All it took was a few minutes for President Donald Trump to sign an order putting that regulation and hundreds of others in limbo. “This ought to be the biggest slam dunk you ever thought of,” said Steve Owings, whose son, Cullum, died in 2002. The latest hurdle for the truck-speed proposal is “very, very disconcerting,” Owings said. Trump brought a reformer’s zeal against regulations into the White House, vowing to block what he calls unnecessary rules across the government that stifle business and slow hiring. The order he signed in January requires agencies to kill two existing rules for each new one and caps the costs of new regulations — even ones backed by industry, lawmakers and the public. At the Department of Transportation, for example, it has brought a near halt to the regulatory process, forcing delays or rethinking of rules brokered through years-long efforts at compromise, enjoying at least some industry support and projected to create significant benefits. The speed-limiting devices for trucks — already mandated in most developed nations — would save hundreds of lives, lower fuel use and provide as much as $6.5 billion in benefits per year, the department estimated. If a rule like the truck-speed restriction is to get finalized, agencies have to find a way to save billions of dollars by cutting other regulations. The president has cast the effort as a way to free business of unnecessary burdens. ‘Morality Play’ It’s a “simplistic morality play” to say regulations are either inherently harmful to business interests or are purely for the benefit of the public, said Jerry Ellig, a senior research fellow at the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center who specializes in the issue. “Most regulations benefit some businesses and harm other businesses,” he said. Under the umbrella of transportation agencies regulating aviation, automobiles, rail and highways, of the 43 proposed rules subject to review under Trump’s order, 34 — or 79% — are designed to improve safety, according to a Bloomberg News review. Two would attempt to mitigate the hazards of trains hauling oil, which have derailed and exploded in recent years. Two more, born from the last major U.S. airline accident that killed 50 people in 2009, aim to improve pilot performance. Including the Owings’s truck proposal, at least 10 are focused on reducing the carnage on U.S. roadways, which took 35,000 lives in 2015. At least 15 of DOT’s actions were designed to address concerns raised by National Transportation Safety Board investigations of accidents. For safety advocates like Deborah Hersman, the former NTSB chairman who now heads the nonprofit National Safety Council, it’s frustrating seeing DOT’s proposed rules being held up while the agency searches for rules it can undo. “It’s like Sophie’s Choice. You’re asking people to pick between one thing that will kill you and another thing that will kill you,” Hersman said. Required by Congress Almost half of the pending regulations were required, at least in part, by Congress. They include rollover enhancements for motor coaches and safety upgrades for U.S. transit systems. While agencies are bound to adopt rules mandated by Congress, they generally must still find cost savings and other regulations to cut, according to White House guidance. The new policies apply to proposals that would cost society more than $100 million or are deemed unusual, a category known as “significant.” Military, national security and foreign affairs regulations are exempt. The result is that it’s almost certain to be harder for agencies like the Transportation Department to enact new rules, according to Richard Morgenstern, a fellow at the nonpartisan Resources for the Future and a former U.S. official with experience in crafting regulations. “You now have additional constraints which you didn’t have before,” Morgenstern said in an interview. By numerous measures, regulatory actions have slowed under the new administration. DOT hasn’t updated its monthly list of pending rules since Trump took office. It has halted or delayed implementation of some Obama-era rules, such as airline consumer measures and safety rules for electric and hybrid cars. It hasn’t finalized any of the pending regulations it inherited, including the truck-speed measure, according to government records. The slowdown has occurred across government, from rules governing how coal royalties are calculated to methane gas releases. In several cases, this slowdown has frustrated the very industries being regulated. Drone groups, for example, have urged swift action to create rules allowing unmanned aircraft to operate over people’s heads, arguing it’s needed to allow the industry to expand. Battery manufacturers also want the United States to adopt regulations restricting how airlines can carry flammable lithium cells so rules are consistent across borders. To the advocates for Trump’s regulatory slowdown, the purpose isn’t to block new safety measures or rules that would benefit people. “That would be perverse,” Marcus Peacock, who briefly served in Trump’s Office of Management and Budget and has become executive vice president of the Business Roundtable lobbying group, said at an April public forum. Peacock and others said that for decades there hasn’t been an incentive to remove outdated regulations or to streamline such things as paperwork requirements on businesses. The Trump orders will push agencies to be more efficient, and it should be easy to find enough savings among existing rules to allow for new regulations, he said. Costs of Regulations The stakes for interest groups and society as a whole are enormous. During the Obama administration, DOT forecast that benefits on 18 of the pending rules — reduced accident deaths and injuries, improved health and lower fuel consumption among other gains — would total almost $200 billion and outweigh costs by more than four to one. But the regulations also would create a wide array of additional costs for businesses and society, including required purchases of new equipment by companies or, as in the case of the speed-limiter proposal, the financial impact of delays in delivering goods. Those costs are estimated at about $44 billion. While the cost and benefit estimates are viewed skeptically by conservative groups and some industries, they remain the benchmark for the Trump administration. Under Trump’s regulatory reform orders, that means transportation officials must find billions of dollars in savings by cutting or revising existing rules before finalizing those regulations. ‘Top Priority’ The Transportation Department has allowed some regulations finalized in the final days of the Obama administration to become law, such as training standards for commercial drivers, the agency said in e-mailed statements. Officials believe there are inefficient rules that can be dropped or revised without compromising safety, which is the agency’s “top priority.” So far, details about which existing rules the administration is targeting for elimination have been sparse. “This is an exciting time in Washington,” the agency said in a statement. “We share the president’s commitment to reducing unreasonable regulatory burdens that stifle innovation and undermine shared prosperity without promoting safety.” The White House referred a request for comment to OMB, which didn’t respond to emails. Speed Limiters One of the most expensive pending transportation regulations — and therefore one requiring the elimination of significant existing regulations if it is ever to become law — is the Owings’s speed-limiter measure. Cullum Owings, 22, was a college senior on his way to school after Thanksgiving in 2002 when a truck slammed into his car as he was stopped in traffic on a Virginia highway. The truck had been speeding and the driver applied the brakes too late to stop. Determined to do something, his parents formed a group called Road Safe America. After they and American Trucking Associations, the largest U.S. trade group for truckers, petitioned the government seeking speed limiters, the Republican administration of President George W. Bush began the process of drawing up a proposal in 2007, according to records. Progress was slow and support mixed. When the proposed rule was finally issued nine years later on Sept. 7, the Owings felt it didn’t go far enough because it would only require the devices on newly built trucks. Groups representing smaller trucking companies, including the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, argued that limiting speeds wouldn’t reduce crashes. Over time, some members of the ATA got cold feet and the organization raised concerns in comments to the government. But the Trucking Alliance, a group made up of some of the largest trucking companies, many of which already use speed-limiters, has remained in favor, according to an April 12 letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. Government reviews found the benefits far exceeded the costs it would impose on industry in delayed shipments of goods. Costs are projected to be from $209 million to $1.6 billion a year. Fuel savings alone would exceed that, the government projected, and overall benefits including fewer highway deaths would range from $684 million to $6.5 billion a year. Owings said government officials he’s spoken with who are shepherding the regulation seem uncertain how to proceed under the White House’s new guidelines. A financial planner in Atlanta, he says he has sympathy with Trump’s call for reducing wasteful regulations. He just doesn’t think it makes sense for what he sees as a life-saving measure with little downside. “You would think that this should be so simple,” he said.

MAN Truck & Bus Press Release / July 4, 2017 The MAN "Connected CoDriver" training is set-up as a virtual training at the workplace of the driver to avoid downtimes. It shows how to save up to 10% fuel by offering tips and tricks on how to drive a truck efficiently with the help of the MAN assistance systems. Read more about the MAN ProfiDrive® trainings: http://www.profidrive.man All Costs at a Glance. Effectively reduce your TCO. With MAN. Find out more: http://www.tco.man. .

Owner-Driver / June 29, 2017 The Sydney Classic and Antique Truck Show, held at annually at Penrith’s Museum of Fire, brought together a wide cross section of Australia’s trucking heritage Penrith’s Museum of Fire hosted its seventh annual Sydney Classic and Antique Truck Show on May 28, bringing together rare makes and models from decades past, as this photo gallery shows. Museum of Fire CEO and show organiser Mark White, who also runs the annual Penrith Working Truck Show in March with a willing team of volunteers, has been successful in attracting classic truck enthusiasts to the event each year. Models on display included Fords, Atkinsons, Leylands, Diamond Ts, Kenworths, Dodges, Whites, Western Stars, Macks, Peterbilts, Internationals and, of course, antique fire engines. .

Volvo Trucks Australia / July 3, 2017 Cows never stop producing milk, so for SRH Uptime is everything. Watch the video to see how pre-planning has made all the difference to the company's uptime. .

Melker Jernberg has been appointed President of Volvo Construction Equipment and member of the Volvo Group Executive Board. OEM Off-Highway / July 3, 2017 Melker Jernberg was born in 1968 and is currently President and CEO of the Sweden-based powder metallurgy company Höganäs AB. Prior to this he held the position of Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area EMEA at Swedish-based steel manufacturer SSAB. Melker Jernberg will assume his new position on January 1, 2018. Melker Jernberg replaces Martin Weissburg who, due to family reasons, has decided to move back to the U.S. and will take up a position as Senior Advisor to Volvo’s President and CEO Martin Lundstedt. Martin Weissburg will be stationed in Greensboro, USA. “Martin Weissburg has, through his strong leadership, been key to the considerable improvement in the performance of Volvo Construction Equipment and he will continue to have senior positions within the Volvo Group. Martin Weissburg will remain in his position until year end 2017 and take up his new position as Senior Advisor to me during the course of Q1 2018,” comments Martin Lundstedt, President and CEO of the Volvo Group.

Dagens Industri / July 4, 2017 Melker Jernberg leaves the metallic powder giant Höganäs after only three years to become CEO of Volvo Construction Machinery (VCE). Thus, the Scaniafication of Volvo Group is strengthening while the Wallenberg sphere loses another top director to the sphere around Industrivärden. Melker Jernberg, 48, Martin Weissburg succeeds as CEO of Volvo's VCE business area at the turn of the year. Thus, Melker Jernberg Höganäs, which has annual sales of approximately SEK 7.5 billion, leaves a significantly larger VCE, which has a turnover of around SEK 55 billion. The departure of American Martin Weissburg from VCE does not come unexpectedly. At Volvo's report for the first quarter, Di asked CEO Martin Lundstedt asked how sustainable it is for Martin Weissburg's family living in the United States while VCE has its headquarters in Gothenburg. Martin Lundstedt gave a somewhat evasive answer. Following VCE's very convincing result for the first quarter, Martin Weissburg is now looking forward to leaving the flag at the top. The streamlining measures that he has taken in recent years seem to yield the best possible results. The fact that Melker Jernberg is recruited to Volvo is also not surprisingly taken into consideration by Martin Lundstedt's predecessor for recruiting directors with a background of arch competitor Scania. Di wrote at the beginning of 2016 that the former Scania director was the most likely candidate to become Volvo's global truck production. For many years, he has worked with Martin Lundstedt at Scania. Now, Melker Jernberg gained a much more prestigious Volvo assignment, which also presents an interesting development potential if the group chooses to sell VCE after a few years. Melker Jernberg started working at Scania in 1989. Before joining 2011, in order to become Business Area Manager at SSAB Steel Company, he joined the Group Management as Chief Executive Officer and reported to Martin Lundstedt, who was then Sales Director at Södertäljebolaget. According to consistent data, Melker Jernberg and Martin Lundstedt have a similar leadership based on openness and delegation of responsibility and trust. Both are also adept at creating a lightweight and positive atmosphere in their surroundings. The recruitment of Melker Jernberg further enhances the Scaniafication of Volvo. Since Martin Lundstedt himself was recruited from the Södertälje-based truckmaker in 2015, Scania has also recruited Andrea Fuder as Purchasing Director and Lars Stenqvist as new technology director. Before becoming CFO at Volvo, Jan Gurander held the same position at Scania. In addition, former Scania director Håkan Samuelsson sits on the Volvo Group Board. Since Scania historically has been a significantly more profitable and more value-creating company than Volvo, it is interesting and promising that Volvo's top management is now dominated by former Scania directors who contribute new knowledge and change the culture of the Gothenburg Group. At the same time, it is not entirely unproblematic if Volvo Group Management appears like Martin Lundstedt's Compass Club from Södertälje. Normally, it is preferable that in a group there are people with many different experiences. However, as long as earnings performance is favorable, no one complains about Martin Lundstedt's building. Höganäs is owned by Wallenberg Foundation's FAM and Lindéngruppen. This means that the Wallenberg sphere now that Melker Jernberg leaves for Volvo again loses a heavy name to the sphere around Industrivärden. Less than two years ago, Björn Rosengren left Wärtsilä, where Investor is the main owner, to become Sandvik CEO. Whoever takes over as CEO of Höganäs is hard-judged. A possible candidate is Kerstin Konradsson, who is the business area manager for Boliden's smelter and is also part of Höganäs Board.

Volvo Trucks Press Release / July 2, 2017 Twenty years ago, Mark Clare bought a milk run and started up his business with just one truck. Today, his company is considered the number one provider of frozen and temperature controlled goods in Ireland. .

Iveco Trucks Press Release / June 3, 2017 The Bullen of IVECO Magirus step again on the podium with two third positions and finish second in the Team ranking The Nürburgring is in a class of its own. Despite the usual Eifel weather of wind and rain, over 100,000 truckers and truck enthusiasts enjoyed a thrilling weekend that saw the “Bullen of IVECO Magirus” team and their three vehicles compete once again. The "Bullen von IVECO Magirus" step on the podium again with a third place earned by Jochen Hahn – Team Hahn – on Saturday’s first race, followed by a third position for Gerd Körber – Team Schwabentruck – in the second race of the day. The “Bullen of IVECO Magirus” are now in second place in the overall team ranking, 5 points behind the first position, and Jochen Hahn defends his third podium placement in the drivers’ ranking. Before the start of the race, tribute was paid to a special anniversary: precisely 30 years ago, Gerd Körber of Team Schwabentruck first climbed into a racing truck. In spite of his truck’s 750 hp engine – an impressive output at the time – he still only finished in fourth place. Nowadays, Gerd Körber and Jochen Hahn rely on a powerful 1200 hp IVECO Cursor 13 engine. Both drivers were under extreme pressure – after all, they are well known names in Eifel: Hahn is the current European Champion and has held the title numerous times in the past, while Körber, also a European Championship winner several times, is famous as a trusted member of the Schwabentruck team, from its very beginnings to this day. The first – and rainy – day of the home fixture on the Ring turned out to be one of mixed fortunes for the Bullen of IVECO Magirus: in qualifying, Jochen Hahn settled down into pole position, but soon faced pressure from behind and finished the race in third place, while Gerd Körber crossed the line in eighth position. In the second race, starting with inverted starting grids, collisions were non-stop right from the first bend. Thrilling clashes and a wealth of shredded plastic kept the spectators on the edge of their seats. After a well-fought race, Gerd Körber beat teammate Hahn to the third spot on the podium by a whisker – and was ecstatic with the result. After qualification, Sunday’s starting grid saw Hahn take his place in the first row. Körber was in eighth position and was able to hold it all the way to the finish line, while Hahn, after a number of skirmishes, slid into seventh place. As a result, both needed to be in the first starting row in the next and final race of the day. Due to an oil spill from an accident (during an interim race in another class), the track would have to be cleaned, but it proved impossible to manage this in good time. The decision was therefore taken at 17:00 to cancel the last race. One of the main attractions at the IVECO stand was a Stralis XP Limited Edition – one of only 124 in the whole of Europe – that was developed to celebrate a collaboration with the Abarth-Scorpion team. The New Stralis XP with its traditional red and grey Scorpion colour scheme was a reminder of the successes of the legendary Fiat Spider 124 rally vehicles and the newly released "Abarth 124 Rally Selenia". A Stralis and a Eurocargo will be responsible for the racing team's logistics across Europe for the next three years. .

Truckers who carry your favorite goods to market are being cheated to save you money The Los Angeles Times / June 3, 2017 Juan Lara was headed back to the Port of Los Angeles two weeks ago from his daily pickup in the Mojave Desert when his truck erupted with engine trouble. He managed to bring the truck and its 50,000-pound load of borax limping into the port. There the 63-year-old driver says he faced a bill for $10,500 in repairs for a truck he doesn’t even own. That will take a big chunk out of his pretax pay of about $2,500 a week, which is reduced by more than half by his expenses for fuel, insurance and the truck lease itself. Subtract federal, payroll and state taxes, and Lara may be working for less than $18 an hour, with no benefits. Lara is classified at his trucking company, California Cartage Express, as an “independent contractor,” not an employee, even though he says he drives exclusively for the company and operates under the control of its dispatchers. The vast majority of the roughly 12,000 regular truck drivers at the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach are classified by their bosses as independent contractors. But as federal and state judges and labor regulators have consistently ruled, they’re employees in all but name. They just don’t get the benefits — access to employer-owned equipment, workers compensation and unemployment insurance, employer contributions to Social Security and minimum wage protection. They don’t get retirement or healthcare coverage, or reimbursement for their work expenses. Typically, they work on 90-day renewable contracts, which means they can effectively be fired at will, with no recourse to the protection against arbitrary treatment enjoyed by employees. The misclassification of workers as independent contractors is a national scandal. But the port may be the single most concentrated example of this race to the bottom in the American workplace. Port trucking “really is a case study in the bigger economic trends we have seen since the 1980s,” says Jessica Durrum, head of the clean & safe ports campaign for LAANE, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. “This is not about one or two bad apples.” There’s no mystery why shipping firms at the port prefer the independent contractor model: It saves them about 30% compared to the cost of operating with employee drivers. That’s the estimate of Fred Potter, director of the port division of the Teamsters, which represents about 500 drivers at the port and is trying to expand its representation. The Teamsters’ goal is to get the drivers as much as 30% more in pay over the average $28,000 that the union says the “independent contractors” can pull down after expenses, but resistance by the firms has been ferocious. As long as the misclassification continues, Potter says, “the employers who break the law have an advantage.” The drivers haul not only industrial cargoes, but merchandise for leading retail chains, including Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart as well as merchandise bearing some of the world’s most familiar brand names. Those chains and brands are the customers that shipping companies try to please by undercutting each other’s rates, and they have the power to require the shippers to comply with the law. We reached out to the four big retailers; Target said it expects all its vendors “to comply with our vendor standards and all applicable laws and regulations around labor, wages, overtime and more,” including “the appropriate classification of their workers.” Home Depot said, “we're investigating the issue and we're exploring ways to ensure drivers are aware of available channels to raise concerns with us.” Lowe’s said it had “no information to share” and Wal-Mart didn’t respond. We also reached out to California Cartage, Lara’s company, but they didn’t respond. Shipping companies claim that truckers prefer to be independent contractors. “The market is telling us that independent contracting is where the talent pool is,” says a spokesperson for XPO Logistics, a big port shipping firm. “For them it’s about pay and flexibility, and that’s important for us, too.” “Of drivers offered the opportunity to be employees or independent contractors,” says Weston LaBar, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Assn., “more than 90% choose to be independent contractors.” But that choice is really a sham because opportunities to be employees are limited; the few employee-only companies at the port face “a significant economic disadvantage,” says an industry insider who asked to remain unidentified because he serves in port management. Legal rulings have almost uniformly found that the truckers meet all the markers of employees and almost none of independent business operators; LaBar concedes that “99% of the cases” have been ruled in favor of the drivers. As a National Labor Relations Board judge found in 2015 in a case involving Green Fleet Systems, the company dictated each driver’s shifts, set payments unilaterally, effectively prevented them from working for other companies and required the drivers to park the trucks on company property between shifts — and charged them up to $15 a week for the parking. “In every real sense, they were neither independent nor businesses,” ruled the judge, Jeffrey D. Wedekind. “Rather, they were dependent drivers.” As the rulings pile up, so do the liabilities. The port firm Shippers Transport Express settled a federal court suit over the misclassification of more than 500 truck drivers for $11 million in 2015, while agreeing to convert the drivers to employee status. Of about 900 complaints filed with the California labor commissioner since 2011, rulings have been issued in more than 375 — every one finding that the drivers are employees and ordering back pay totaling nearly $40 million, according to Julie Gutman Dickinson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer for the Teamsters. About 350 cases have been settled or sent to arbitration, and 150 are pending. In May, U.S. Judge William D. Keller of Los Angeles ordered Pacer Cartage, a unit of XPO, to pay five drivers a total of $958,657 in unlawfully deducted wages, lease payments, expenses and interest. XPO is appealing the order. During the trial Keller warned Pacer that case law had moved inexorably toward the conclusion that the drivers had been improperly classified as independent contractors.“That isn’t a storm cloud for you,” he said. “That is an absolute tornado coming at you at about a hundred miles an hour. And you better scatter.” The industry attributes its string of losses to “politically tilted” judges and regulators and the influence of “plaintiffs’ attorneys and organized labor,” as Greg M. Feary, the head of a law firm that represents the shippers, wrote in response to a recent USA Today investigation into lease abuses at the Port of Los Angeles. The classification of drivers as independent contractors dates back to federal deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980. Companies that mostly employed Teamster members on fixed wages were soon supplanted by nonunion companies that sold their trucks to their drivers and paid them by the load. Established Teamster companies, including California Cartage, shifted to the new model. A vigorous trade in used trucks developed among drivers. But the economics for drivers took a drastic turn for the worse in 2008, when the port instituted an initiative to get old, polluting diesel trucks scrapped and replaced with fuel-efficient, lower-emission — and much more expensive — new models. The goal was to quell local residents’ complaints about filthy air, paving the way for a port expansion to relieve congestion. As a federal appeals court later observed, port officials believed that the conversion to clean trucks would be “prohibitively expensive” for independent drivers. The city of Los Angeles issued a mandate that all trucking firms at the port, which had better access to the capital needed to convert the fleet, would have to change back to the employee-only model. The shipping firms successfully sued to overturn the mandate in federal court. “Every day I come to work knowing I’ll have to cover $60 for the lease that day, plus fuel and insurance,” says Daniel Seko, 39, a driver for Intermodal Bridge Transport who gets paid by the load. In a good week, Seko says, he might earn $900 before expenses. “If it’s not a good week, $500.” There are signs that the industry is moving toward an employee-only model, but at a snail’s pace. One reason may be that the companies are hoping that the advent of the Trump administration heralds a more indulgent approach at the NLRB. A few weeks ago, XPO asked an NLRB judge to suspend two cases in which the Teamsters accuse the firm of illegally misclassifying drivers, to “see whether the new administration remains interested” in the cases. The judge rejected the motion and scheduled a hearing for July 24 in Los Angeles.

FORD: Lower fleet sales drive June down 5% Automotive News / July 3, 2017 Ford Motor Co.'s June sales fell 5 percent as fleet sales declined. The automaker's sales to daily rental companies fell 2.4 percentage points to 13 percent of its overall U.S. light-vehicle sales, as companies such as Avis and Hertz take a more cautionary approach amid a plateauing market. Sales to commercial businesses dropped 0.6 percentage points of overall volume and sales to government agencies fell 0.5 percentage points. Total fleet volume fell 14 percent, Ford said. Fleet volume represented a third of Ford's U.S. sales in June. Ford has said the fluctuations in its fleet business -- those sales increased 8.4 percent in May -- is timing-related, and are tough comparisons to last year, when most of its fleet orders were front-loaded. The automaker still plans to finish the year with about the same fleet sales as 2016. Ford's retail sales were flat -- off just 36 vehicles -- compared with last year. The company was again driven by pickup/van and SUV/crossover sales, up 1.4 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. Car sales plummeted 23 percent. Through the first six months of the year, Ford sold more SUVs/crossovers than it ever has. "Customers drove a record 406,464 Ford brand SUV sales in the first half of this year," Mark LaNeve, Ford's vice president of U.S. marketing, sales and service, said in a statement. "F-series continues expanding its sales and share this year, with customers opting for high-series pickups and investing in class-exclusive features that only Ford trucks offer." Ford's F-series sales rose 9.8 percent last month, as average transaction prices rose $3,100 to $45,600. It was Ford's fourth month in a row selling over 70,000 pickups. Ford's SUV/crossover sales were driven by the Explorer, up 19 percent, and the Edge, up 20 percent. Ford blamed a 6.4 percent decline in Escape sales on fleet orders. Escape retail sales rose 5 percent and Ford is shortening its summer shutdown at its Escape plant in Kentucky because it expects continued strong demand. Sales of Ford's Lincoln luxury brand rose 5.3 percent; it was the brand's 17th consecutive month of retail sales gains. MKC sales increased 16 percent, and Lincoln's car sales were again propped up by sales of the new Continental, with 973 deliveries.

2004 Bronco concept hits street -- sort of Automotive News / July 3, 2017 Ford Motor Co.'s 2004 Bronco concept is finally hitting the streets — sort of. The SUV, unveiled at the 2004 Detroit auto show, will be seen in the upcoming movie Rampage, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The wrestler-turned-actor recently posted an Instagram photo that featured the Bronco in a scene from the movie, which is based on the 1980s arcade game of the same name. The Rock is a spokesman for Ford's service centers and earlier this year helped unveil the freshened 2018 Mustang, but the automaker quickly pointed out that the concept's cameo wasn't a tease of what the new Bronco — due in 2020 — will look like. "The Ford Bronco seen in Dwayne Johnson's upcoming movie, 'Rampage,' is the 2004 Bronco concept," a Ford spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. "It does not represent the future Bronco beyond sharing the iconic Bronco name." .

America's broken healthcare system – in one simple chart The Guardian / July 2, 2017 The US spends more money on healthcare than any other wealthy nation. But it hasn’t resulted in better health Healthcare in America is more expensive than in any other rich country. In 2016, the average American spent $4,571 on their health – a figure five times higher than the average out-of-pocket spending of other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). That fact hasn’t changed much over the years: compared to 35 other countries, Americans have spent more on their health every year since 2000. Even once you factor in government spending, healthcare in the US is still more expensive than elsewhere. Total health spending last year, including private out-of-pocket and government spending, was $8,985 per person in the US while the OECD average was just $3,633. And yet all that health spending hasn’t resulted in better health. The life expectancy of the average American is 78.8 years, putting the US a fraction ahead of the CzechRepublic, where out of pocket spending was just $236 last year. .

The story of the Ford Flex is very interesting indeed. It still sells well on the West Coast, and there's not another vehicle like it. I can imagine it being discontinued owing to low sales nationwide overall, but I can also imagine Ford evolving the concept forward to a second generation vehicle that could capture more interest. http://www.ford.com/suvs-crossovers/flex/2017/ Ford is a puzzling automaker at times. For example, tell me which Ford Edge looks better. In my view, one I would seriously consider if I didn't need the Explorer's 3-row capability. The other, the exterior appearance would stop me from any consideration. http://www.ford.com/suvs-crossovers/edge/2017/?gnav=header-all-vehicles https://www.ford.com.cn/suvs/edge/

Keith, recently relating to news events, I've limited myself almost entirely to posting news video from PBS* (Public Broadcasting Service) videos, because, to paraphrase DailyDiesel, I assumed they were still generally considered to be a trusted source of information. I myself still consider them to be reputable among news sources (my gut feeling.......I have no way to confirm. I'm always open to being wrong.) I don't understand why you take my post and attack another BMT member. Over my post, I'd rather you belittle me. * http://www.pbs.org/

Billy, the Ford Flex is a modern woody*, the perfect surf mobile. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/19/business/la-fi-mo-auto-ford-flex-california-20121018 * http://www.carponents.com/content/surfs-up-with-the-woodie-one-of-americas-most-iconic-cars-176

Burns’s new 10-part, 18-hour epic film covers the conflict from all sides, and hopes to ‘shape more courageous conversations about what took place’ The Guardian / July 1, 2017 James Rogers and Renan Reyes, veterans of the Vietnam war, each made a trip to Washington on Wednesday to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for the first time. “Very impressive,” said Rogers, who is from Madison, Alabama, as a river of parents and children flowed past in bright sunshine. “It looks like a black mark,” said Reyes, from near Charlotte, North Carolina, disapprovingly. Divergent opinions over the polished black granite memorial – which lists, chronologically, the names of more than 58,000 Americans who died in the war, from John H Anderson Jr to Jessie C Alba – are peculiarly apt for the Vietnam war itself, a politically and socially polarising episode that shattered the myth of American invincibility. The war in south-east Asia is now the subject of an epic 10-part, 18-hour series by Ken Burns, America’s premier documentary film-maker, renowned for his 1990 masterpiece on the civil war as well as series on jazz, baseball, the Roosevelts and the second world war. Ten years and millions of dollars in the making, covering the conflict from all sides, The Vietnam War could be the closest thing yet to a definitive account of what Burns believes is the most important event in American history in the second half of the 20th century. The time for a conversation “about a war we have consciously ignored” has come, Burns, 63, told the National Press Club in Washington earlier this month. “We have said: ‘We don’t want to talk about it. We’re not gonna teach it, we think it’s about this, or my own personal politics at this moment has actually determined what I should say about Vietnam regardless of what I felt when it was taking place.’ We have this dissonance going on. “We hope that the film will contribute in some way, shape or form to more courageous conversations about what took place, because let us also be very clear that the divisions that we face today, the lack of civil discourse, the inability to talk with each other but only at each other, had their seeds planted in the Vietnam war, so if we understand it then we also understand our present moment.” The origins of the conflict are now somewhat foggy in collective memory. A 1954 ceasefire agreement partitioned Vietnam into a communist north and anti-communist south. Trapped in the logic of the cold war, the US backed a series of corrupt regimes against the communist-led Vietcong in the south and their allies in the north who sought to reunite the country. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sent in thousands of air and ground forces in what was initially a popular move. But as the draft expanded and casualties mounted, public opinion turned against him and anti-war protests erupted against a backdrop of social unrest, racial discord and assassinations. Bill Zimmerman, an anti-war activist, tells the documentary: “People who supported the war were fond of saying, ‘My country, right or wrong,’ [but protesters didn’t] want to live in a country that we’re going to support whether it’s right or wrong. So we began an era where two groups of Americans, both thinking that they were acting patriotically, went to war with each other.” In the early 1970s, under President Richard Nixon, the war expanded into Cambodia and Laos, but in 1973 US forces quit Vietnam, and in 1975 South Vietnam fell to the communists. The Vietnam war has gripped popular consciousness with images of Huey transports (helicopters) taking thousands of US troops into battle in thick jungles, river deltas, fields of elephant grass and hamlets of rice paddies and thatched-roof huts. It spawned a genre of movies including Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. But Burns and his co-director, Lynn Novick, who made several trips to Vietnam, aim to strip away US-centric narratives and give a rounded portrait with 80 interviews from both sides. Gen Lo Khac Tam of the North Vietnamese army tells them: “The war was so horribly brutal. I don’t have words to describe it. How can we ever explain to the younger generation the price paid?” Speaking a a recent event hosted by the New York Times, Burns reflected: “If you think about The Deer Hunter, there’s not a Vietnamese character that’s real, and that’s our problem, and what we set out to do consciously in this was to say we wish to triangulate this story and understand that for many people [in Vietnam] it was an American war, and not just the Vietnam war.” Novick told the Guardian: “It was really profound to begin to appreciate the scale of tragedy there, the scale of loss. I think Americans understandably focus on the 58,000-plus Americans who lost their lives in the war, which was a tragedy for the families involved and there’s no way to make that up to them, but when you go to Vietnam you begin to understand that a country of 30 million lost as many as 3 million people; that’s 10% of the population. What that means is that everyone you meet knows somebody who died ... Every single person you ask says, ‘Oh, my uncle, my cousin, my neighbour, my niece’ – someone they knew personally died. So the weight of that for a country, for a people, is indescribable. Feeling it over time is a profound thing.” Was the war a needless waste, a terrible mistake that could have been avoided? Novick replied: “You will have to watch the film to find out. That is the central question, really, or one of them. There’s a lot of conflict between Americans and even within individual people about the answer to that very question. It’s a very deep one and a very important one but I cannot give you an easy answer because it’s not settled. It’s still very much an open question and our film is an exploration of that.” The series sweeps from the release of the leaked Department of Defense study about the war known as the Pentagon Papers to the Tet offensive to the anti-war activist Jane Fonda’s visit to Hanoi. Researchers consulted former secretary of state John Kerry, a veteran of the war, and Senator John McCain, who was taken prisoner, and the film tells their stories, although they are not interviewed. Donald Trump received five deferments from the draft: four for university and one for “heel spurs”. Burns and his research team found their fundamental preconceptions challenged, the film-maker said at the New York Times event. “At every intersection, there was the explosion of myth, there was the humiliation of being just dead wrong about what we thought had happened. And that, at some point, if it’s not about your own self-aggrandisement, is exhilarating and liberating.” The series, which premieres on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on 17 September in the US and will be released in full on DVD in the UK, includes rarely seen archival footage, photographs, TV broadcasts, home movies and secret audio recordings from the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations, as well as music of the period from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Simon & Garfunkel. In a trailer, the army veteran Phil Gioia says: “The Vietnam war drove a stake right into the heart of America.” Speaking by phone this week from his home near San Francisco, Gioia, 71, told the Guardian: “It was a defining event in the history of the country. It radicalised components of our society and polarised our society in many ways. It affected our decisions in defence strategy ever since.” Gioia, who comes from a military family, served in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969 and was shot in the left wrist. “I fell like somebody had hit me with a baseball bat,” he recalled. “It was stunning but no pain because the nerves closed down.” He was also present in Huế to witness the Tet offensive launched by the communists, now seen as a crucial turning point. “That was like being at Gettysburg in the civil war.” By then the war was the target of growing protests at home. Gioia said: “When you’re a soldier you don’t get to pick your war. You go wherever the government sends you.” On his second tour of duty, he added, most of the soldiers were 18, 19 and 20-year-olds. “Even though the war was unpopular and they were mostly draftees, they were terrific soldiers. Most of them were vilified when they went home. A lot of the population transferred their anger to the soldiers. It was a very unfortunate time.” Two thirds of Americans who served in Vietnam are no longer alive, Gioia noted, while the majority of Vietnamese people were born after the war. “There has not been a Hollywood movie that really accurately portrays Vietnam and the effect of the war. Apocalypse Now, Platoon – it’s all Hollywood. Politics and the anti-war sentiment gets into every movie made by Hollywood. By getting Vietnamese voices, we’re going to see and hear their aspect of the war. They took huge losses; we bombed the hell out of them.” Gioia, a semi-retired technology and venture investor and student of military history, added: “It’s time the country took a good long look at what happened. This is probably going to be the keystone go to documentary for the Vietnam war. It’ll be, if you want to know what happened and why, watch the Burns film.” His image of a stake through the heart was echoed by visitors to Maya Lin’s war memorial, completed in 1982, in Washington this week. Reyes, 66, the veteran from North Carolina, accompanied by his three nine-year-old grandchildren, said: “It tears at my heart because some of my friends were killed. We recovered their bodies from a helicopter crash in 1970.” Amid deep social upheaval and protest, the homecoming was very different from the warmth that generally greets today’s returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. “It was like I didn’t exist,” recalled Reyes, a retired police officer. “The only welcome I got was from my parents and sisters.” Rogers, 68, the veteran from Alabama who had come to find the names of two comrades, added: “When we came back, it was a different time. We were stoned. We didn’t get much respect and it was painful.” Burns and Novack are following in the footsteps of the journalist Stanley Karnow, whose award-winning, 13-part PBS series Vietnam: A Television History was one of the most-watched public television documentaries ever when first shown in 1983. But more than three decades later, veterans, historians and journalists welcome a fresh look. Arnold Isaacs, who covered the last three years of the war for the Baltimore Sun and wrote two books, Without Honor and Vietnam Shadows, said: “It was compelling for me but I think it’s pretty distant for 25-year-olds today. World war two was such a significant event in every respect everywhere in the world and continues to still shape the cultural concept of war – the good war myth remains powerful – whereas Vietnam was inconclusive.” Isaacs, 76, praised attempts to include Vietnamese voices. “Remembering this war as a part of American history is profoundly distorting of what happened. It’s a part of Vietnamese history we jumped in on. I was back in Vietnam in 1998 and it was obvious to me there were a lot of unhealed wounds. In this country you have a culture war that is still going on; Vietnam was part of that story, but not the whole story.” .

With diesel twice as expensive as the US, Australian operators care a great deal about fuel economy, while they at the same time care about performance, reliability and durability.