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Antique and classic trucks at MATS 2017 Fleet Owner / March 30, 2017 Photo gallery - http://fleetowner.com/mats/antique-and-classic-trucks-mats-2017#slide-0-field_images-215121

Transport Topics / March 30, 2017 Pozzo Truck Center Inc. [formerly William A. Pozzo, Inc.] recently achieved a milestone in its history of serving Mack customers as it celebrated its 95th year as a Mack Trucks dealer, the truck maker said. Founded in 1921 by William Pozzo Sr., the business was opened after a Mack parts and repair facility in Gary, Indiana, closed. Pozzo, an Italian immigrant who was a mechanic at the facility and also raced with the Fiat team at the Indianapolis 500, built a new building for his new business and financed it through the sale of bonds. “Mack is synonymous with tough, reliable trucks and integrated powertrains,” says Jud Salmon, who owns the dealership with wife Linda, William Pozzo’s granddaughter. “The integrated powertrain was a great selling point because Mack could control the quality of the components in the truck with its balanced design. Mack’s reputation helped our reputation as a dealer.” The dealership continues to be headquartered in Gary and has locations in South Chicago Heights, Illinois; and South Bend, Indiana. “Pozzo Truck Center has been serving Mack customers almost as long as Mack Trucks has been in business,” Jonathan Randall, senior vice president of sales for Mack Trucks North America, said in a statement. “On behalf of the entire Mack family, congratulations to Pozzo on this impressive achievement.” Mack Trucks is a unit of Sweden-based Volvo Group.

Transport Topics / March 30, 2017 Navistar is recalling some trucks due to the possible loss of air brake pressure that could “increase the risk of a crash,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says. The potential number of trucks affected is 2,733, according to NHTSA, and includes certain 2016-2018 International LT, 2016-2017 International ProStar, 2017 International LoneStar and 2017-2018 International RH heavy trucks. The potential problem is with the air dryer mounting bracket, which may fracture and cause air system leaks or a loss of air pressure to the brake system, according to NHTSA. Navistar will notify owners and dealers will replace the air dryer mounting bracket, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin May 12. Owners may also contact NHTSA's Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236 (TTY 800-424-9153) or go to www.safercar.gov.

Paul, should we not have a unified 50-state law on voter registration so as to resolve the whole matter going forward?

VW settles 10 U.S. state diesel claims for $157 million Reuters / March 30, 2017 Volkswagen AG has agreed to pay $157.45 million to settle environmental claims from 10 U.S. states over its excess diesel emissions, as the world's largest automaker looks to move past the scandal. The settlement, announced Thursday, covers Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as some consumer claims. In 2016, the German automaker reached a $603 million agreement with 44 U.S. states, but that settlement did not cover claims in the announcement. In total, VW has agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the U.S. to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, states and dealers and to make buyback offers. The settlement is significantly less than what the states had sought when they sued VW last year. Washington state had said in 2016 it planned to impose $176 million in penalties related to state environmental claims, while other states said they could seek penalties totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Volkswagen said the deal with 10 state attorneys general "avoids further prolonged and costly litigation as Volkswagen continues to work to earn back the trust of its customers, regulators and the public." Earlier this month, Volkswagen pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Detroit to fraud, obstruction of justice and falsifying statements as part of a $4.3 billion settlement reached with the U.S. Justice Department in January over the automaker's diesel emissions scandal. Under the plea agreement, VW agreed to sweeping reforms, new audits and oversight by an independent monitor for three years after admitting to installing secret software in 580,000 U.S. vehicles. The software enabled it to beat emissions tests over a six-year period and emit up to 40 times the legally allowable level of pollution. The September 2015 disclosure that VW intentionally cheated on emissions tests led to the ouster of its chief executive, damaged the company's reputation around the world and prompted massive bills in what has become the costliest automotive industry scandal in history. VW still faces an ongoing criminal investigation in Germany.

Trump administration seeking “modest” changes to NAFTA The Washington Post / March 30, 2017 White House calls for changing, but not scrapping, NAFTA The Trump administration will seek modest — but numerous — changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to a draft of a letter sent to Congress last week, displaying a much more conventional approach to trade negotiation than the dramatic changes President Trump had suggested he planned to seek. The draft letter suggests a much more diplomatic tone than Trump has threatened to use during NAFTA renegotiations. It says, among other things, that the White House would look to strengthen cooperation under the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international group that the Trump administration had suggested in the past it might not abide by. The draft letter also reinforces that Canada and Mexico are the United States' two largest export markets, and that the countries have “shared borders” and “shared goals, shared histories and cultures, and shared challenges.” “Compared to some of the campaign rhetoric, the letter seemed quite reasonable and measured,” said John Veroneau, a former deputy U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush. “It didn’t strike me as suggesting a departure from the status quo in any significant way.” One section of the letter that is likely to prove controversial appears to call for restricting federal procurement to U.S. suppliers. If the two other countries adopted similar rules in response, U.S. firms that have contracts with Mexico City and Ottawa could lose business. NAFTA is a free-trade agreement that went into force in 1994 after the Clinton administration reached a deal with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA has significantly expanded trade between the three countries, but Democrats and Republicans have said the agreement should be changed because they fear it has hurt U.S. workers. Trump has complained that the deal has allowed Mexico to take advantage of the United States, causing an imbalance in the kinds of goods that are shipped across the border and luring away U.S. jobs. To renegotiate NAFTA, the White House must send a letter to Congress stating its intent, and the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative began circulating a letter last week. The White House must formally notify Congress 90 days before it formally begins renegotiating the trade agreement, and when the letter is formally sent to Capitol Hill, that process will start. “For reasons of scale alone, improving the NAFTA has the greatest potential to benefit the workers, farmers, and firms of the United States,” says the draft, which was signed by Stephen P. Vaughan, the acting U.S. trade representative. “Basically, in most areas, it’s very consistent with the trade negotiating strategies of past administrations,” Schott said. He added, though, that there are several lines in the letter that indicate departures from past policy. One of the objectives listed is to “seek to level the playing field on tax treatment,” which suggests duties on Canadian and Mexican products. During the campaign, Trump floated a tariff of as much as 35 percent on certain goods imported from Mexico. Another possibility is that if Republicans in Congress deliver on their proposal to adjust corporate taxes at the border, the administration's negotiators want to to make sure that Mexico and Canada are ready to accept the change. Other language in the letter suggests the administration is skeptical of a process for resolving disputes between governments and multinational firms that has been criticized by liberal figures including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.), who say corporations have exploited the system at the expense of the public interest. Some on the right have objected to the process as well, arguing that it impinges on American sovereignty by giving international tribunals authority that would otherwise belong to U.S. courts. Yet the letter does not explicitly call for ending the process, known as investor-state dispute settlement. “They put a lot of code words in there about that, but there’s still some ambiguity,” Schott said. Another component of the letter appears related to an old dispute with Canada over softwood lumber. For more than three decades, U.S. loggers have argued that their Canadian competitors are receiving unfair advantages from the government, and the draft calls for eliminating a provision of NAFTA that Canadians could use to appeal any duties the United States imposes on Canadian softwood in retaliation. There were only a couple of passages in the letter that seemed reflected Trump’s stated policy of putting the interests of American workers first. One, Veroneau noted, was the section on “rules of origin,” which govern how much raw material from outside North America can be used in products that are manufactured in Canada, Mexico or the United States and sold under NAFTA’s favorable terms. The document calls for “rules of origin that ensure that the Agreement supports production and jobs in the United States.” Some of the proposed changes are generic and could be interpreted in different ways. The draft letter says, for example, that it would “address anticompetitive business conduct, and other competition-related matters, as appropriate.” The letter also calls for stronger intellectual-property rights and a commitment from Mexico and Canada not to impose customs duties on digital products. “NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever,” Trump said in a debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in September. "It's a defective agreement." Trump has said that if Mexico does not agree to the United States' demands in the renegotiations, he probably would withdraw from NAFTA. But the letter does not include this threat. “We are committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for U.S. workers, consumers, businesses, farmers, and ranchers, keeping in mind U.S. priorities and negotiating objectives,” the draft letter says.

CJ66 Concept Melds Generations of Jeeps with Modern Mopar Hardware Car & Driver / March 30, 2017 The Jeep CJ66 is just the latest in a long and storied line of Jeep concept vehicles to emerge from the creative minds at Jeep and Mopar. Built with a variety of Jeep components including bits from the TJ-, CJ-, and JK-series Jeeps, the Moab-inspired CJ66 makes its debut at the 2016 SEMA show in Las Vegas. Starting with a Jeep Wrangler TJ frame, the team dug deep into the brand’s legacy and came up with a 1966 Jeep CJ Universal Tuxedo Park body. While the specific details regarding the low-volume Tuxedo Park Jeeps are highly contested, most experts agree that it debuted as an option package in 1961 to imbue the rugged Jeep with more upscale appeal for the general consumer. It achieved this by adding chrome bumpers, hood hinges, and badging, plus whitewall tires and other minor trim upgrades. In 1964, Kaiser introduced the Tuxedo Park Mark IV as a new model of sorts. Rare in any configuration, the rarest is the long-wheelbase Universal model, which is what Mopar used for the CJ66 concept. Jeep called this one Universal because it let buyers outfit their Jeep to fit their needs with numerous hard- and softtop options and even the opportunity to specify a PTO to run a post-hole digger or other agricultural equipment. Whatever the backstory, it’s hard to ignore this rig’s Copper Canyon finish, the 35-inch BFGoodrich all-terrain tires, and the Jeep Performance Parts 17-inch wheels with color-matched beadlock rings. A two-way air system takes the hassle out of airing the tires up and down for conditions at hand, and a two-inch lift kit keeps some daylight between the rubber and metal. A new, as-yet-unspecified Mopar crate V-8 mates with a six-speed manual transmission, which sends torque to a pair of Mopar Dana 44 axles. Mopar also supplies the engine cover, the cold-air intake, and the cat-back exhaust. Oversize concept fender flares team with front and rear Mopar 10th Anniversary Wrangler JK Rubicon bumper kits; the skid plates, front bumper plates, and concept rock rails come from Jeep Performance Parts. Matte-black accents contrast with the Copper Canyon paint on the hood, the seven-slot Jeep grille, the bezels of the Wrangler JK headlamps, the hood hinges, and the latches. The LED amber fog lamps and a Warn winch with fairlead come from Mopar. A custom-built roll cage, mandrel bent to match the two-inch chop of the windshield, surrounds the seats, which are sourced from the dearly departed Viper. The center console and shifter were swiped from a JK, and Mopar provides the instrument-panel gauges and the all-weather mats. Finally, the steering-wheel center features the special 50th Anniversary Moab Easter Jeep Safari logo, unveiled earlier this year. If you’re seeking a clotheshorse for the Mopar and Jeep Performance Parts brands, you could do a lot worse than the cleverly constructed Jeep CJ66 concept. Knowing the Jeep folks, you can bet it’ll get a chance to turn a tire on the rocks before too long. Photo gallery - http://www.caranddriver.com/photo-gallery/get-your-kicks-cj66-concept-melds-generations-of-jeeps-with-modern-mopar-hardware-gallery#slide=1&fullscreen=0 .

Ford to announce Ontario engine program in boost to Canada automaking Reuters / March 29, 2017 Ford Motor Co. plans to announce production of a new engine in Windsor, Ontario, two sources familiar with the matter said, in an investment that would boost Canada's auto industry after years of job losses to Mexico and the U.S. The sources told Reuters the 7X engine, for large pickup trucks, is to be announced with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Ford Essex Engine Plant in Windsor on Thursday morning. Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president of the Americas, and Mark Buzzell, CEO of Ford of Canada, also will be on hand, the automaker said in a notice. No details were provided. During 2016 contract negotiations with Canadian union Unifor, Ford pledged to spend $700 million on its Ontario manufacturing operations. The lion’s share of the money was earmarked for a “major engine program” at the Essex Engine Plant. The promised new engine program fulfilled a key goal for the union, which had sought investments from each of the Detroit 3 automakers last fall. Spokesmen for Ford and Trudeau declined to comment. In addition to Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne will be on site, according to a spokeswoman from Edelman, a public relations firm working for the province of Ontario. They will also be part of an announcement “related to autonomous vehicles,” an advisory from Edelman said, without providing details. More torque Brian Maxim, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions, said in a telephone interview that the 7.0-liter, V8 engine would have more torque and be more fuel efficient than the 6.8-liter V10 engine now built in Windsor and used in Ford's super-duty trucks, such as its F-250s. Maxim said he expected Ford to produce about 125,000 units of the new engine per year, starting in 2019. New investment in engine production in Canada was seen as vital because the large V8 and V10 motors now built by Ford in Windsor were expected to end production in four years. Between 2001 and 2013, some 14,300 jobs were lost in vehicle manufacturing in Canada, according to Hamilton's Automotive Policy Research Center. Unifor Local 200 President Chris Taylor, who spent much of Wednesday in meetings with Ford management, would only tell Automotive News Canada that the Ford announcement “is good news for our site.” About 800 employees at the Essex factory currently build 5.0-liter V-8 engines. Next door, at the Windsor Engine Plant, about 600 workers build the 6.8-liter V-10 engines.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives." U.S. President Donald Trump / March 30, 2017

Reuters / March 30, 2017 President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has told the FBI and House and Senate intelligence committees investigating the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Flynn was fired in February for failing to disclose talks with Russia's ambassador before Trump took office about U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

Driverless vehicles and the end of the trucker Leslie Hook, Financial Times Weekend Magazine / March 30, 2017 New self-driving technology threatens an American way of life Ramona Saucedo has been on the road for nearly two months, and she’s ready to get back home. Standing in front of a dusty white truck in the parking lot of a Flying J truck stop, she fingers her iPhone as she waits for a call from her business partner, who is checking on her progress. If she stays on schedule, driving 10 or 11 hours a day, she’ll be back home in Tucson next week. “I miss cooking my own meals, believe it or not,” she says with a chuckle. At 52, Saucedo has been driving long-haul for nearly a decade, and has the heavy-set build that comes from long hours on the road. It’s a job that runs in the family: her father, brother and son were all truck drivers, and Saucedo says she started driving mainly for the pay. At her old job as an office worker she could barely make ends meet, and had to scrape and scrounge if one of her two children needed a little cash. Now, she drives thousands of miles a week and travels all over the country, sleeping each night inside the truck. Money is no longer a problem. At the truck stop, Saucedo is surrounded by hundreds of drivers who have made similar trade-offs. The United States has more than three million truck drivers, many of whom drive long-haul, or “over the road” as it’s known in the business. As one of the highest paying jobs available that does not require a college degree, trucking can be an economic lifeline. But its future is increasingly uncertain. As the sun sets, the parking lot starts to fill up with drivers stopping for the night. Sleeping in the truck is an integral part of the job. “I call this my ‘tiny house’,” grins Patrick Spicer, 67, a long-haul driver from Reno, as he shows off the inside of his new 2017 Kenworth T680. He gestures to the bunk beds, his guitar, and a box of vanilla-flavoured protein drinks sitting on the floor. There’s a cupboard for clothes, a refrigerator for food and even a pink stuffed unicorn perched on the dash. Spicer, who has stopped to make sure his 60-tonne cargo of wine is properly balanced, is a 20-year veteran of the industry. “If you are smart and don’t waste your money, you can make a good living,” he says. Last year, the median income for a driver with three years’ experience was $57,000, according to the National Transportation Institute. Experienced drivers like Spicer can earn more than $75,000. But he’s not optimistic about what’s ahead. “There is no future in trucking,” he says. He gestures to the parking lot full of 18-wheelers: “In 10 or 15 years, these will all be autonomous trucks. There is no way to stop it.” In an industrial neighbourhood of San Francisco, Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, 27, is one of the people trying to take the humans out of the truck. Sitting in the driver’s seat of a Daimler Freightliner that he has modified, he leans forward and adjusts a pair of robotic feet that rest over the brake and accelerator pedals. Underneath the steering wheel is a small motor that can steer the vehicle. These devices, along with radar and cameras mounted on the exterior, allow the truck to be driven remotely by a human when it is in congested city areas. Once it is on the open highway, the truck can drive itself. “Our intention is for trucks to move from A to B without a human in the vehicle,” Seltz-Axmacher explains. He is the co-founder of Starsky Robotics, a small, two-year-old start-up working on self-driving trucks. As he sees it, this is solving the “core problem” of North American logistics. “It is really hard to get people to live in a truck,” he explains. “Those long-haul drivers are the most sought-after people in logistics.” With a US trucking industry that moves more than 10 billion tonnes of freight a year, his market is already made, he believes. “We would lease the robots to the trucking companies,” he explains. “We are able to go to people who are already looking for drivers, and be their driver.” All over Silicon Valley, one start-up after another is making a similar bet. Not all of them are trying to take human drivers out of the truck completely, as Starsky is, but everyone agrees this will be the outcome of their technologies in the long run. Investors are pouring in. One of these is Jim Scheinman, a venture capitalist at Maven Ventures who has backed start-ups in both autonomous trucks and cars. Self-driving trucks will arrive “significantly before” self-driving cars, he says. “It’s probably going to happen so much faster than city driving, just because [highway driving] is so much easier,” he explains. Highways are much less complex than urban areas, with fewer intersections and clearer road markings. The economic opportunity is tantalising: in the US, trucks carry more than 70 per cent of domestic freight tonnage. Trucking industry revenues were $726bn in 2015, more than the sales of Google, Amazon and Walmart combined. “With trucks we can actually build a billion-dollar company,” Scheinman says — meaning a start-up that is valued at more than $1bn, also known in the Valley as a “unicorn”. Not every self-driving start-up will become a unicorn, of course. Failure is common in the rough-and-tumble world of Silicon Valley, particularly when a sector becomes so hot that even bad ideas can get funding. For trucking start-ups, a turning point came last August, when Uber announced it was buying a six-month-old start-up, Otto, for a price tag of more than $600m in equity. After that, other trucking start-ups found it much easier to raise money. Scheinman, 50, sketches out how he sees the future of transportation. “In my vision of this world of autonomous vehicles, every single vehicle is autonomous, everywhere in the world,” he says, sitting on a terrace at the Battery, a private club in San Francisco frequented by venture capitalists. “It won’t be ‘cars’ or ‘trucks’, it will just be robots. Then you have a much more perfect system, because you don’t have humans making mistakes.” This kind of thinking is setting Silicon Valley up for a clash with the rest of the country, where those “humans making mistakes” represent millions of jobs under threat from automation. In Washington, President Donald Trump has made American jobs a cornerstone of his economic agenda, and has shown a fondness for truckers in particular. “No one knows America like truckers know America,” he said in an Oval Office address in late March, flanked by representatives of the trucking industry. “You see it every day and you see every hill, every valley, every pothole . . . every town, every forest from border to border and ocean to ocean.” The president even climbed into a big rig parked in front of the White House, smiling, waving and honking the horn. Partly this is pandering to his supporters: truck driving is a much more common occupation in states that voted heavily for Trump than it is in states that voted for Hillary Clinton last November. Truck drivers are often choosing between jobs in construction, oil fields or trucking, none of which requires a degree. With current oil prices low, trucking can attract people living in more depressed areas that lack local construction opportunities. Although “over the road” driving is not an easy job, it has long been seen as a way out, and a way up, for those with few other options. The loneliness of life on the road is a frequent complaint, and some truck drivers travel with dogs, or bring their kids along during school holidays, to break the solitude. For couples, a popular option is team driving, which yields extra bonuses because they can drive twice as far in a day. “Some people don’t have houses, they just live in their trucks,” Spicer says approvingly. “If you are a young couple, that is the way to go. I know people that have done that, and saved up for a down payment on a house.” President Trump has routinely lambasted companies that he accuses of moving jobs overseas. It can only be a matter of time, some fear, before he turns his attention to the threat posed to American jobs by robots — and, in particular, self-driving vehicles — precisely at the moment when these technologies are on the verge of maturing. So far his administration has not made its position on self-driving trucks clear. However, in a recent meeting with state governors, transportation secretary Elaine Chao suggested she was worried about how autonomous vehicles might impact truck drivers. “I am very, very concerned about that and very cognisant of those challenges. So we do have to transition people and we need to keep that in mind,” she said. How soon those “transitions” might need to occur is a matter of great debate. Self-driving start-ups can be broadly split into two camps: those working on interim solutions in which a human driver is assisted by self-driving technologies; and those that, like Starsky, are focused on removing the human from the vehicle as soon as possible. The technologies that will hit the road first are firmly in the former camp, which means there will be a period of several years in which the human driver is working side-by-side with the self-driving systems before full autonomy can occur. Daimler, the German carmaker that accounts for 40 per cent of the US truck market, has invested heavily in self-driving technologies. But its top self-driving engineer Derek Rotz says he doesn’t expect fully autonomous trucks — the kind with no driver at all — within his lifetime. “That’s quite frankly something that we are not looking at,” he says. Rotz should know, because he is the engineer who helped develop the first self-driving truck to receive a testing licence in the US, in 2015. That concept vehicle, Daimler’s Freightliner Inspiration, is able to drive itself under certain conditions but also needs a human at the wheel (which is known as level-three autonomy). Rotz explains that many of the systems developed for the Inspiration are now incorporated on current Freightliner trucks, such as predictive cruise control, which uses maps and elevation data to keep the truck at a safe speed going down hills. Drivers will still be needed for a long time to come, he adds. One of the first steps in the journey towards autonomous trucks will be a technique known as platooning, in which trucks follow each other at close distances to save fuel. Each driver in the platoon keeps his or her hands on the wheel, but the engine and the brakes on the rear truck are linked to the front truck, allowing the two vehicles to slow down and speed up perfectly in sync. Peloton, a start-up based in Mountain View, expects to see its platooning systems in use in commercial fleets later this year. Daimler, Volvo and Scania have also demonstrated platooning systems. While platooning is not technically considered self-driving, it is a key test of how willing the industry will be to adopt new forms of automation. Josh Switkes, the chief executive of Peloton, says the start-up is already working on more advanced forms of platooning, including having the rear vehicle steer itself. But he thinks it will be at least a decade before drivers’ jobs start to be really impacted by automation. “Truck drivers today are not going to lose their jobs,” he says. “We see a process where, at least for the foreseeable future, drivers become more important and more highly skilled.” That view is not quite shared by other trucking start-ups in Silicon Valley, particularly those that aim to take the humans out of the vehicle entirely. However, the technical obstacles of realising their vision are significant. Trucks have some unique challenges when it comes to self-driving technology. Their weight, which is at least 12 times greater than a standard passenger car, makes them harder to control, and the vehicle dynamics change considerably depending on their load. A commercial truck must also drive much further than a passenger car, with a typical lifespan of more than a million miles, creating much more wear on delicate self-driving sensors. On top of that, trucks already come with a patchwork of built-in computers: new trucks today will typically have a processor for the brakes, one for the engine, one for the transmission and one for each camera or radar. A safe autonomous system must be able to communicate smoothly across components from different manufacturers. The greatest challenge, however, is that there is simply no room for error. Humans may get distracted and fall asleep, but the general public will hold robots to a higher standard (as was demonstrated last year with the outcry over the first death from Tesla’s Autopilot). The safety advantage of autonomous vehicles is touted by their proponents as one of their key selling points. But what engineers see as a perfect future, the general public can see as terrifying — particularly if that means an 80-tonne truck flying down the freeway with no one in the driver’s seat. If robots are at the wheel, they have to be perfect. To achieve that, autonomous driving systems must be able to recognise and quickly react to everything that crosses their path. “Safety is really not about the 99 per cent use case, it is about the .00001 per cent of the time something crazy happens,” explains Josh Hartung, founder of PolySync, a start-up that makes software for self-driving cars. The hardest scenarios for autonomous vehicles to deal with are unlikely, one-off events, called “edge cases”, such as a child on a scooter or an unexpected stop in a construction zone. The artificial intelligence controlling the vehicle is trained with real-world experiences, so if the AI hasn’t encountered one of those situations before, it won’t know what to do. Edge-case scenarios are one of the main things that have been occupying Alex Rodrigues, the co-founder of Embark, a start-up that is working on autonomous trucks. Rodrigues has been building robots since he was 13, and began with self-driving golf carts before deciding that trucks might hold more commercial opportunities. At 21, he is barely old enough to have a commercial trucking licence (he has a learner’s permit) but that hasn’t stopped him dreaming big. “We are looking to essentially reset how the industry operates, with self-driving as a first-class citizen,” he tells me. Embark’s idea is that its trucks will drive autonomously on highways between set staging areas, and then a human driver will fetch the truck when it exits the highway and drive it to its final destination. “We want to have hand-offs, so there is no human in the vehicle when it is on the highway,” Rodrigues explains. (Scheinman is an investor in Embark.) As each start-up vies for success, the cut-throat competition of the sector has led to a fair share of intrigue. Uber’s purchase of Otto, which was its largest acquisition, has come under particular scrutiny. All of Otto’s co-founders had previously worked at Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which has been developing its own self-driving technology. In February, Uber was served with a lawsuit from Alphabet’s self-driving subsidiary, Waymo, which alleged one of the co-founders of Otto had stolen trade secrets and infringed on patents for a special kind of rotating radar. Uber says the lawsuit is baseless. At the time that the Otto purchase was made, Uber’s chief executive Travis Kalanick waxed eloquent about the potential of the trucking business. In October the company released a slick promotional video that showed an Otto truck on a highway, towing a cargo of Budweiser beer while the truck’s driver sat in the back of the cabin, reading a magazine. But more recently it is Uber’s trucking ambitions that have taken a back seat. Self-driving taxis are Uber’s top priority, and most of the former Otto employees who joined through the acquisition are now working on cars instead. As for the truckers themselves, not all of them will be sad to see their old jobs disappear. Sergei Tulei, an IT specialist and truck driver from Moldova, has sat at both sides of the table. He used to work as a test driver for Otto, an experience that has made him a big fan of what he calls, in a heavy Russian accent, “robot trucks”. Tulei remembers the thrill of sitting behind the steering wheel as the truck started to drive itself. “It’s like you are drinking something from a cup, and you don’t know what’s in it,” he explains. The driver has to be particularly alert in case the truck does something unexpected or starts to drift out of its lane. “You would have to be crazy to say it’s not scary to test in the trucks. But it is safe.” For Tulei, 30, trucking has been his ticket to a better life. He came to the US from Moldova six years ago, and bought his first truck, a 2007 Volvo, shortly after his child was born. He was undeterred by the fact that it had almost a million miles on it, since he had previously worked as a car mechanic. “It is not an easy job, but it is good for guys who are trying to grow, maybe they can make more money, more freedom,” he says. He points to friends in Europe who are doing the job for far less money. “They are dreaming to come here to be a truck driver.” But as Tulei grew his fleet, he found that it was frustrating to manage the drivers on long-haul trips. “They are people, they have their own problems,” he says. “Maybe [the driver] is sick, maybe he’s in a bad mood, maybe he doesn’t want to go to Colorado because it’s snowy there.” Driverless will solve all that, he says. “In 10 or 20 years when we have these autonomous trucks, it will be easier because we won’t have to deal with people, but with robots. If you ask them to go to Texas, they will go to Texas.” The difficulty of recruiting long-haul drivers and the unpopularity of the work are often mentioned as key reasons why greater automation could help the industry. The American Trucking Associations, which lobbies Washington on behalf of trucking companies, estimated that there was a driver shortage of 40,000 in 2014, though it believes this situation has recently improved. However, the ATA’s statements about a shortage of drivers — which support its lobbying efforts to lower the minimum age for long-haul drivers — are at odds with wage data. Over the past 15 years, the incomes of over-the-road truck drivers have not kept up with inflation. Fierce competition has kept freight prices, and driver wages, low. (More than 90 per cent of US trucking companies are small, independent fleets of fewer than six trucks.) At the larger fleets, rapid training programmes and signing bonuses mean a steady churn of new drivers, most of whom stay for less than a year. Annual turnover at big trucking groups is more than 80 per cent, as drivers jump from one company to the next in search of better pay. Start-ups such as Embark point to these numbers as evidence that nobody will really miss the jobs that are being automated away. “When you actually have the human all the way out of the vehicle [on the highway], there’s a whole bunch more of these higher-paying, much preferred local jobs,” says Rodrigues. The drivers fetching the self-driving trucks to and from staging areas, for example, could live at home. Jeff Scorsur, 39, a truck driver who used to own his own fleet, thinks this sounds like a great idea. “It’s not a real fun life,” he explains, referring to his years of long-haul driving. He now works at Embark, where he test drives their autonomous truck, and is optimistic about the human jobs that will exist alongside self-driving vehicles. “In the future there will be some job loss,” he says. “But it’s also an opportunity, to get maybe more skills, a job that can make more money.” Even though drivers’ jobs will be safe while self-driving vehicles require special handling, there are millions of jobs outside of the truck cabin that will be deeply impacted by the coming shift. The trucks support a network of towns based around truck stops, where gas stations, stores, restaurants and laundromats serve the drivers. There are more than seven million people working in trucking and trucking-related industries, according to the ATA — one in 17 working adults in the US. As trucks become self-driving, service jobs at places such as the Flying J could come under threat. It’s a problem that some in Silicon Valley are already worrying about. “What happens to the towns when the trucks don’t stop there?” asks Aaron VanDevender, chief scientist at Founders Fund, the venture capital group started by Peter Thiel. Self-driving trucks will only need maintenance at the beginning and end of their trips, he points out, whereas drivers today have to stop to eat and pee constantly. VanDevender likens this shift to the construction of the US Interstate system in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, which bypassed the smaller towns that lay along older roads such as Route 66. “A lot of those towns were just eviscerated,” he says. “This is like that kind of structural change, but an order of magnitude more intense.” Even though self-driving trucks may be better at moving goods around, they will undermine one of the key economic flows through the centre of the country. As automation has a growing impact on a wider range of industries, Silicon Valley is discussing what role tech companies and government should play in preparing for this shift. For the trucking towns, VanDevender believes that they will require some kind of economic support, otherwise they will collapse. “The sociopolitical consequence of not getting it right is very severe,” he says, referring to the transition to self-driving vehicles. “It’s like the iron law, hungry people riot.” Ideas such as a universal basic income are increasingly popular in the Valley, with some prominent entrepreneurs funding research into the concept. Washington DC is also grappling with the question of how to prepare for a shift in types of jobs. “The challenge for political leaders, for industry, is how do you incorporate the citizenry into this incredible migration to new technology,” says Michael Drobac, a tech lobbyist for Akin Gump, based in Washington DC. He notes that self-driving companies have been beefing up their lobbying teams, preparing for a debate that will profoundly shape their industry and others. “It is not specific to truckers,” he points out. “It is not just the red states, it is everywhere. The economy is changing for everyone.” Ramona Saucedo, the driver from Tucson, recently watched a video of a self-driving truck demo along with some other drivers. “It looked like they were doing a good job, but I don’t know what we’re going to do now,” she says. “The other guy that was sitting there was freaking out, he was like, ‘I’m going to be out of a job now.’” The drivers wondered how robotic vehicles would be regulated, since human drivers are limited to 11 hours’ driving a day under federal law. “It doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t sleep,” Saucedo says. “Will the rules change? That’s our curiosity . . . And who will wash out the truck, if it gets dirty?” Coming from a family of truck drivers, Saucedo feels that self-driving trucks could really impact her community. “It’s going to be devastating for a lot of people,” she says. “There are some drivers that have degrees, but a lot of drivers don’t. And this is their form of making money for their family.” As for Saucedo herself, she says that she is planning to quit in June. It wasn’t exactly the fear of automation, nor the long hours, that prompted her decision. Rather, she points to Washington DC. “There’s just too much uncertainty with the way things are going, with imports,” she says. She is worried that Donald Trump’s America First policies will result in less trade, and therefore less truck freight. Once she sells her truck, Saucedo is planning to find work as a dispatcher or a cargo inspector — a job that is still close to the industry but will remain in demand, even when robots are driving. Leslie Hook is a San Francisco correspondent for the FT .

BBC / March 30, 2017 The US representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki Haley, said on Thursday that "we can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did". Under President Obama, the US said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go and backed rebels fighting against him. But US resources shifted after the rise of the so-called Islamic state. "Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," said Haley. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria," she added. (The big question is, should our employees in Washington be spending time, money and effort meddling in the internal affairs of another country on the other side of the world, at a time when we’re forced to use private funding to upgrade our national infrastructure due to a lack of money?)

The Guardian / March 30, 2017 Steve Bannon, the senior adviser to Donald Trump, will not face criminal charges in Florida for voter fraud, prosecutors have ruled, despite them finding evidence that he never lived at or intended to reside at a vacant house in Miami where he was registered to vote. The decision follows an investigation conducted by Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the Miami-Dade state attorney, following the Guardian’s disclosure last year that the former Breitbart chairman and Trump campaign chief held an active voter registration at an abandoned, rented property in the Coconut Grove area of the city. “This investigation revealed evidence that tends to indicate that the subject did not intend to or actually reside in Miami-Dade County,” Fernandez Rundle said. “However, the investigation also revealed sufficient evidence that the subject intended to legally reside in Miami-Dade County,” the document continues. “Therefore, at a minimum, there is reasonable doubt as to the subject’s guilt. Because the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that the subject swore falsely on a voter registration application, the state attorney’s office is not pursuing charges. The matter is now closed.” According to the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections, Bannon was registered to vote in the county between 2 April 2014 and 19 August 2016, when he switched his registration to a new address in Sarasota County, a property owned by Andy Badolato, a Breitbart News contributor with whom he had previously worked on political films. The switch came in the same week as the Guardian’s initial report. In January, Sarasota’s elections chief purged Bannon’s name from the county’s roll of voters after concluding that he was simultaneously registered to vote in New York state. Voters who are registered in two places have previously drawn Trump’s ire, the president tweeting on the same day as Bannon’s Sarasota removal that “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states ...” Others who have fallen foul include Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, and the president’s daughter Tiffany, who held an active New York registration at the same time she was registered to vote as a student in Pennsylvania. “The prosecutor’s ethical obligation persists regardless of the subject being investigated or the charge being contemplated." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There's two sets of laws, one for the police [powers that be], and one for the ordinary citizens"

Like many elder Americans born in the 1920s and 1930s, I've long been an admirer of Herbert Hoover. So I found this live footage of him and his thoughts are great interest. I'm a deep admirer of history.

Ford will record $295 million Q1 hit from two North American recalls Automotive News / March 29, 2017 Ford Motor Co. said it will take a $295 million hit to its first-quarter earnings from two recalls in North America announced Wednesday, one involving engines that could catch fire and the other involving a persistent door latch problem. Ford CFO Bob Shanks last week alluded to a higher-than-expected warranty cost that will impact Ford’s first quarter earnings. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ford said the $295 million charge would be absorbed mainly by its North America and Europe business units and would be included in first-quarter results. Ford is calling back 230,000 2014 model year Escapes, 2014-15 Fiesta STs, 2013-14 Fusions and 2013-15 Transit Connects equipped with 1.6-liter GTDI engines. Ford said a lack of coolant circulation can cause the engines to overheat, cracking the cylinder head. That could result in an oil leak that could ignite a fire. Ford said it’s aware of 29 reports of fires in the U.S. and Canada; no injuries have been reported. Ford currently doesn’t have service kits available and told customers to continue to drive their vehicles. The company advised customers to seek a dealer if their vehicle leaks coolant. It will mail customers instructions on how to check and refill coolant. About 208,584 of the affected vehicles are in the U.S. and federalized territories, 21,854 are in Canada and 318 are in Mexico. The affected vehicles: • 2014 Escapes built at Louisville [U.S.] Assembly from Feb. 12, 2013 to Sept. 2, 2014 • 2014-15 Fiesta ST built at Cuautitlan [Mexico] Assembly from Jan. 22, 2013 to May 27, 2014 • 2013-14 Fusion built at Hermosillo [Mexico] Assembly from Feb. 15, 2012 to June 6, 2014 • 2013-15 Transit Connects built at Valencia [Spain] Assembly from June 13, 2013 to Dec. 14, 2014 Ford on Wednesday also expanded a door latch recall to nearly 211,000 vehicles including 2014 Fiestas, 2013-14 Fusions and 2013-14 Lincoln MKZs. Last September, Ford recalled an additional 1.5 million vehicles for the same issue. Since 2014, the total number of vehicles Ford has recalled for various door-latch problems has topped 4 million. Separately, the automaker Wednesday issued two other recalls covering another 659 vehicles. Ford is recalling 548 2017 model year F-450 and F-550 trucks with faulty driveshafts. Ford said continued operation of those vehicles could result in fractured tranmissions or driveline components, which could cause power loss while driving or unintended moving while parked. Finally, Ford is recalling 111 2017 model year Edges for missing windshield header welds. Ford isn’t aware of any accidents or injuries in the three other recalls.

Volkswagen cleared by EPA to sell repaired 2015 diesels Bloomberg / March 29, 2017 Volkswagen AG will soon do what's been impossible since its emissions crisis began: sell diesel-powered cars in the U.S. The company received approval from the EPA for dealers to sell 2015 model year diesels after updating the vehicles' emissions software, VW Group of America spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said. The software update is part of a required emissions repair approved by the EPA and California Air Resources Board. The repair will also include changes to diesel engine hardware, but dealers do not have to wait until the repair parts become available early next year, Ginivan said. "We are still finalizing the details of this program and will provide more information on its implementation at the appropriate time," Ginivan said in a statement. Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to rigging nearly 500,000 diesel cars to pass U.S. emissions tests. The company froze sales of new and certified used diesels in the U.S. while it worked with regulators on an approved fix. The company has set aside $24 billion (22.6 billion euros) to cover costs and fines related to the scandal. Significant milestone Reviving diesel sales marks a significant milestone in VW's efforts to recover from the scandal and rebuild its relationship with environmental regulators. It also returns a key product to dealer showrooms that attracted a cult-like customer base and accounted for about 20 percent of the VW brand's pre-scandal sales. Yet it's a mostly symbolic step. The sales approval only applies to about 67,000 diesels from the 2015 model, about 12,000 of which are currently in dealer inventory, Ginivan said. An EPA spokeswoman didn't immediately return messages seeking comment. Volkswagen has also said no new diesel models will be offered in the U.S. at least through model year 2018. The company is moving aggressively toward electric vehicles, signaling a diminishing role for diesel engines in the company's portfolio, especially in the U.S. The program will also eventually include used 2015 diesels the company has repurchased from owners through the 2016 settlement with U.S. regulators and owners, she said. Some customers have elected to keep their cars and receive restitution and an emissions repair under the terms of its $10 billion buyback.

Evidence of how convoluted and hopeless things have become. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seattle sues Trump administration over threat to 'sanctuary' cities Reuters / March 29, 2017 The city of Seattle sued U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday over its executive order seeking to withhold federal funds from "sanctuary cities," arguing it amounted to unconstitutional federal coercion. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray says the Constitution forbade the federal government from pressuring cities, “yet that is exactly what the president’s order does. Once again, this new administration has decided to bully.” “Things like grants helping us with child sex trafficking are not connected to immigration,” Murray said, adding: "It is time for cities to stand up and ask the courts to put an end to the anxiety in our cities and the chaos in our system." U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to strip Justice Department grants from cities and other local governments that choose to shield illegal immigrants from deportation efforts. Trump, who made tougher immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign, directed the government in his Jan. 25 executive order to cut off funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. That order has yet to be put into effect, but Sessions' announcement seemed to be the first step in doing so. Trump administration officials say the immigration crackdown is focused on illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes. Responding to the Seattle lawsuit, a U.S. Justice Department representative said in a statement: "Failure to deport [illegal] aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses makes our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets." Seattle’s action was the latest legal salvo over the Trump immigration order from local governments across the country, including the city of San Francisco and California’s Santa Clara County. Police agencies in dozens of "sanctuary" cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have barred their officers from routinely checking on immigration status when making arrests or traffic stops. They have also refused to detain people longer than otherwise warranted at the request of federal agents seeking to deport them. Supporters of the policy argue that enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities' trust in local police, particularly among Latinos. Murray said the goal of Seattle's lawsuit was to have the courts declare that federal authorities “cannot force our local police officials to be involved in federal immigration activities.”

Chao says Trump to unveil $1 trillion infrastructure plan in 2017 Reuters / March 29, 2017 U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said the Trump administration would unveil a $1 trillion infrastructure plan later this year. She did not provide any details on the funding. Chao said the infrastructure initiative would include "a strategic, targeted program of investment valued at $1 trillion over 10 years. The proposal will cover more than transportation infrastructure, it will include energy, water and potentially broadband and veterans hospitals as well." Chao's comments were the most detailed timetable from the administration about its plans to unveil a plan to modernize U.S. roads, bridges, airports, electrical grid and water systems. Chao said the administration plans to offer incentives for public-private partnerships rather than simply fund improvements. It’s unknown how much new federal funding the Trump administration would propose. Chao said the plan would aim to speed the processes for government projects. Earlier this month, Trump proposed $16.2 billion for the Department of Transportation's discretionary budget for fiscal year 2018, a reduction of 13 percent. The budget would eliminate $175 million in annual funding for the Essential Air Service, a program to support commercial air service to rural airports and end subsidies for Amtrak to operate long-distance train service. The Trump budget would also eliminate the Obama administration's "TIGER" grant program, saving $499 million. That program has been used to fund a variety of transportation projects, including high-speed and intracity rail, highway construction and transit bus systems.

The 1961 film says it is hosted by Herbert Hoover (1874-1964).

HPD Demo Truck Heads to the UK Jacobs Vehicle Systems Press Release / March 29, 2017' Jacobs Vehicle Systems' High Power Density (HPD) Demo Truck will be making a stop at the Beaconsfield Service Area on April 6th. Professional truck drivers will have the opportunity to try Jacobs' latest engine braking technology on the M40 and provide feedback. If you will be in the area, join us from 9:00 to 18:00 at Extra Motorway Services in Beaconsfield, UK. If you can't make it, watch our latest videos from previous HPD demos or visit www.jacobsdrivesthefuture.com. HPD Advantages 200% Increase Double the braking power at cruise speeds - The engine brake power is significantly increased at lower engine speeds compared to conventional compression release brakes. 175 kg Increase Increased payload for the retarding performance you need - Jacobs' integrated, simple design allows for reduced package and mass resulting in increased payload by providing all the retarding performance you need. 3,500 Euro Decrease Lower total cost of ownership - While providing increased foundation brake life, truck uptime, and higher resale value, Jacobs' HPD technology comes at a fraction of comparable retarder devices that offer the same power. . .

A possibility is Metalsa is supplying the frame components and Westport is performing final assembly. Metalsa will supply completed frame assemblies, or rails and crossmembers separately. Again, here's there customer list:

Yes

Transport Engineer / March 28, 2017 Goodyear has launched a new campaign which sees the tyre manufacturer guaranteeing that it will accept 100% of casings for retreading. The Customer Own Casing (COC) scheme means all casings, with no visual defects, can undergo retreading – helping fleet operators to reduce their total cost of ownership, says Goodyear. The company says its Multiple Life Concept – which combines regrooving and retreading – reduces tyre costs by up to 10% while it increases mileage by up to 25% compared to using two sets of new tyres. In addition, there are environmental benefits through using fewer materials in the process, and lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions thanks to the extended performance of the retreaded tyre. The benefit of the COC scheme is that the operator knows the history of the tyres being retreaded. “Accepting more casings from our customers for retreading means one less worry for the vehicle operator. The Goodyear Multiple Life Concept maximises tyre performance, lowers running costs and improves the CO2 footprint,” says Grégory Boucharlat, Goodyear Dunlop’s director of retread operations EMEA. Goodyear’s 100% COC acceptance guarantee is available now and applies to tyre sizes 295/60R22.5, 295/80R22.5, 315/60R22.5, 315/70R22.5, 315/80R22.5 385/55R22.5 385/65R22.5 and 435/50R19.5. .

Land Line (OOIDA) / March 28, 2017 A trucking company in Virginia and four of its executives were indicted in a U.S. District Court on March 16 on 126 counts including more than 50 counts each of false statements and falsifying records. The trucking company was hired by the United States Postal Service to transport mail for more than half a billion dollars over the past 10 years. Since 1999, Gerald Beam, Garland Beam, Shaun Beam and Nickolas Kozel of Beam Bros. Trucking either encouraged or required employees to violate Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, including hours-of-service regs, according to federal court documents. This was done by planning trips that could not be completed within HOS regs and encouraging drivers to falsify records of duty status. Additionally, Beam Bros. Trucking did not pay drivers for “on-duty” time as required by the Service Contract Act (SCA). SCA requires subcontractors hired by the U.S. government to pay employees for each hour or portion of an hour worked at a rate no less than minimum wage. According to SCA regulations, this includes waiting time. Only periods of time when an employee is “completely relieved of duty and long enough for him or her to effectively use that time for their own purposes” are considered “off-duty” when working under SCA. According to court documents, drivers for Beam Bros. Trucking may not have been aware of the SCA pay plan. Drivers were told they would not be paid for short rest periods, waiting for loads, etc. An indictment claims drivers were not informed of SCA pay requirements. Beam Bros. Trucking prevented drivers who were aware of SCA from sharing that information with fellow drivers and government agencies. Since the egregious cover-up of driver pay and violations of FMCSA regulations was done under a government contract, Beam Brothers was charged with Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States, among the many other charges. The indictment is seeking at least $40 million from Beam Brothers Trucking and the four named defendants.

No comment.