Not the rotary you’re thinking of
One thing is for certain: a purely rotary-powered Mazda sports car is not going to happen. Fuel efficiency, or lack thereof, is the reason why. However, Mazda engineers have continued to develop rotary tech, reports Car Buzz, and they may have found a new use for it as a power generator, i.e., a range extender for a hybrid powertrain. According to Australian publication Drive.au, Mazda executive Ichiro Hirose, head of powertrain development, said the automaker has built a flexible rotary hybrid platform with excellent fuel efficiency that could meet the emissions standards set for nearly any global market, even California, where regulations are particularly strict. Hirose also said Mazda was considering the name ‘XEV’ for this rotary-hybrid setup.
Dealer service improving
Porsche ranks highest in satisfaction with dealer service among luxury brands, while Buick ranks highest among mass market brands, according to J.D. Power. Following Porsche among luxury brands are Lexus (second), Cadillac (third), Infiniti (fourth) and Mercedes-Benz (fifth). Following Buick among mass market brands are MINI (second), Mitsubishi (third), Chevrolet (fourth), GMC (fifth) and Toyota (sixth). Overall satisfaction with services performed by independent facilities has improved 22 points since 2017, compared with a 17-point improvement by franchised dealers. Similarly, satisfaction with service quality at independent facilities has improved 23 points since 2017, compared with a 17-point improvement by franchised dealers.
Don’t do it!
Teenagers who reach for objects, such as food or makeup, while driving increase their risk of crashing nearly seven times, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Their study, which appears in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, also found that manually dialing, texting or browsing the web on a phone while driving doubled a teen’s crash risk. Researchers followed 82 newly licensed teen drivers in Virginia over a one-year period, equipping their vehicles with cameras and GPS technology to track the driver’s activity and environment. After one year, 43 of the drivers did not experience a crash, while 25 had one crash and 14 had two or more crashes. Using six-second videos of driver behavior prior to a crash, researchers calculated that for every second that a teen’s eyes were off the road, the risk of a crash increased by 28 percent regardless of the type of distraction. Teens manually using a cell phone doubled their odds of crashing. Teens who were reaching for something while driving increased their risk nearly sevenfold, which researchers attributed to a combination of distractions, including taking their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel.
Connected cars
For many people, their two most expensive possessions are a home and a car. Now technology is bringing both together, one as an extension of the other, reports the Consumer Technology Association. In an accelerating trend, smart homes and connected cars are converging. ABI Research forecasts 500 million connected cars on roads worldwide by 2022. And, at least initially, the common factor will be voice control functionality offered by virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant. “Extending smart home voice control into the connected vehicle is part of an ongoing integration that will pull together home and vehicle personalization,” says Jonathan Collins, research director in the smart home practice at ABI, based in New York. Last January, Ford Motor Co. launched its FordPass Alexa skill, which enables Ford owners to tell Alexa to remotely start their vehicles or fetch odometer, tire pressure and fuel level readings from it. Ford says the partnership with Google will bring Google Assistant to Ford vehicles soon. According to Amazon, Ford is among more than 15 automaker brands using Alexa for remote vehicle management, including BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota. Some automakers – including Ford and Toyota – are integrating Alexa directly into their vehicles’ infotainment systems.
Yield to moose
More than 500 traffic crashes involving moose occur in northern New England each year, and the injuries sustained by a vehicle’s occupants – because of the height and weight of the animal – can be far more serious and more likely to result in fatalities than collisions with deer, researchers report in a study published on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Treating these injuries can pose unique challenges for trauma centers in areas with high moose populations. There has been an average of more than 500 traffic accidents involving moose per year for the last five years, but that’s down sharply from the peak of more than 1,200 accidents in 1998, according to study authors. In Maine alone, the study documented 50,281 collisions with deer and 7,062 with moose from 2003 to 2017. Twenty-six moose collisions resulted in a human fatality, as did 10 deer collisions – an incidence of one in 271 crashes (0.37 percent) for the former compared with one in 5,000 (0.02 percent) for the latter. Deer collisions are much more common, but after controlling for other factors, the researchers’ statistical model demonstrated that a human fatality was more than 13 times as likely after collision with a moose.