Looks like Ford may be working on a touchy/feely way to save the manual transmission, if only for niche petrol-powered sports cars like the Mustang or petrol-electric hybrids. A patent application filed by the company with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in December 2018 is for a “manual transmission with electric clutch.” The USPTO late last year gave the … [Read more...] about Ford files patent in the US for touchy/feely manual gearshift
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Ute leader Ford back in car race with new SUVs
It had gnawed away at Ford New Zealand managing director Simon Rutherford and his team for a few years – the company was becoming a victim of its best selling model, the Ranger ute. Pretty much everything about Ford was about the Ranger. It was front and centre on every dealer’s forecourt. Ranger consistently accounted for two of every three new Fords registered with the NZ … [Read more...] about Ute leader Ford back in car race with new SUVs
EV take-up: Politicians hide behind Homer Simpson’s three rules
You could smell during the Covid-19 lockdown earlier this year the absence on New Zealand roads of fossil-fueled vehicles and their exhaust pipes. Pretty much overnight the country’s air had become cleaner. NIWA – the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research – said so. Its diagnostic equipment kept sniffing the air non-stop. NIWA’s declarations alone should be … [Read more...] about EV take-up: Politicians hide behind Homer Simpson’s three rules
Ford and Samsung get together to help workers stay apart
Workers at Ford factories in the USA will wear wristbands made by South Korean tech giant Samsung – and similar to the one above – that buzz to help maintain social distancing, Bloomberg news agency reports. The ‘fitness-like’ devices are supposed to vibrate when employees come within about 1.8m of each other. The experiment will initially be trialled by 12 employees, a Ford … [Read more...] about Ford and Samsung get together to help workers stay apart
Ford-owned Troller TX4 is another boys’ toy from Brazil
The last time Ford imported Brazilian-made models to New Zealand was in 2002, in the form of the F250 and F350 pick-up trucks from the company’s South American right-hand drive assembly line. Ford’s marketing people reckoned they’d be the bee’s knees for New Zealand’s ‘Southern man’, the mythical tough guy around which advertising agencies at the time built campaigns. The … [Read more...] about Ford-owned Troller TX4 is another boys’ toy from Brazil