DETROIT
- Ford Motor Co. said yesterday it is
investing $450 million in production facilities where it will build hybrids,
electric vehicles, and electric vehicle batteries.
"It's a major development for our company, our community,
and our country," noted Ford chairman William Clay Ford, addressing reporters
at Ford's NAIAS booth.
The news is significant because it solidifies Ford's recent
announcements about electric vehicles. The company had already invested $550
million in the past year to transform its Michigan assembly plant from a large SUV
factory to a production site where it will build the all-new Ford Focus and the
Focus Electric.
Going forward, Ford said it will bring four hybrids and
electric vehicles to its lineup in the next three years: the Ford Transit
Connect battery electric vehicle (2010); the Ford Focus Electric passenger car
(2011); an unnamed hybrid car based on Ford's C-platform (2012); an unnamed
plug-in hybrid in 2012.
Equally important is Ford's announcement that it will bring
EV battery systems design and development in house. In its facilities, Ford
will design advanced lithium-ion batteries in house and will move production of
the battery packs from Mexico
to Michigan.
Ford says that the new engineering and production efforts will create up to
1,000 new jobs in Michigan.
"We believe battery systems development is going to be a
core competency for Ford in the 21st century," Ford said.
Smith Electric Vehicles teamed with Trans Tech Bus to roll out a 42-passenger, 26,000-lb electric bus called the Newton eTrans, which it hopes will change the way children get to school every morning.
Doug Conner's self-starting, solar-powered Stirling engine runs all year when the sun is visible from the sculpture’s location. The engine can shut down when the sun isn’t visible, and it can restart by itself when the sun comes back up.
Thanks to embedded electronics, medical devices are getting smaller and smarter than ever. Pacemakers and implantable defibrillators are now able to call physicians. MRIs, CT scanners, and ultrasound machines are gaining mobility. And the venerable Band-Aid may soon be able to detect illnesses ranging from fevers to heart arrhythmias. On February 21, join Design News senior editor Charles Murray for a wide-ranging discussion, "Embedded Angles for Medical Products," which will explore the latest developments in medical electronics. The discussion will examine advances in medical device technology and offer an inside look at the embedded electronics behind it.
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