‘Imported from Detroit’ commercial unveils Chrysler’s new 8-speed auto transmission

The Chrysler brand is touting its new eight-speed transmission and fuel-efficiency in its new television commercial for the 2012 Chrysler 300.

The new commercial continues the “Imported from Detroit” message and is filmed throughout Detroit and its neighboring cities and is comprised of local residents.

The new 60-second commercial titled, “If You’re Gonna,” began airing on Friday, Sept. 16 on national and cable networks.

“The 2012 Chrysler 300 offers consumers a fuel-efficient and luxurious vehicle at an extraordinary
value without compromising size or amenities,” said Saad Chehab, President and CEO – Chrysler
Brand, Chrysler Group LLC.

Chehab said the new commercial is meant to feature area’s people and promote the automaker’s new eight-speed transmission available for 2012 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger models.

“The combination of our award-winning V-6 Pentastar engine, the new eight-speed transmission and world-class interior appointments takes the domestic luxury sedan to a new level that only can be found at Chrysler.”

The new 845RE transmission is manufactured by German transmission specialist ZF. It will be similar to eight-speed transmissions developed by ZF for a variety of Audi, BMW, Bentley, Range Rover and Rolls-Royce models.

Ford innovation: The system that protects doors from scratching

Parking in tight spaces and getting out of the car has never been easier before with Ford’s new innovation, a system that protects door-opening scratches named Door Edge Protector.

Ford’s new “safety” system is actually a small rubber placed on the inside of the door that and it “glues” itself to the door contour when it’s opened for more than 15 centimeters. The automaker says that it takes less than a second for the system to pop out and pop back in, allowing the door to be closed in normal conditions.

“The Door Edge Protector will be one of those inventions that will arouse public exclamations like: ‘Why didn’t anyone think of that before?’ The system will be very useful for parents with children in the backseat and for anyone who needs to park in a narrow space”, said Matthias Tensing, the engineer who coordinated the development of this system.

The automaker says that its new innovation is offering 90 percent protection for the front doors and 85 percent for the rear doors and Ford already has the answer to a question that most people would ask: the only element that could break down would be the protective rubber, which is very easy to replace.

The Door Edge Protector will be fitted for the first time on the current Ford Focus. You can view the photo gallery below to understand how the system works.

Frankfurt: Ford Evos Concept

Live: Frankfurt: Ford Evos Concept

The Ford Evos concept, formally introduced here – today, on the eve of the 2011 Frankfurt auto show, is the “new face of Ford” and is expected to influence styling on all its coming cars, said J Mays, the company’s chief designer.

The Evos concept has a fastback body shape which is said to reinforce the models’ driving dynamics and distinguishes it from its competitors. Key elements in what Ford is calling its first truly global styling DNA are evidenced in the car’s dramatic proportions — the Evos is as long as a Focus but as wide as a Fusion — more refined surfaces, powerful-yet-elegant technical graphics and most critically, in its recast front fascia.

Engadget reports that the plug-in hybrid concept car focuses on connecting the driver’s personal cloud of data with the vehicle. Data could include health, preferences and work schedules.

It’s a plug-in hybrid, so it can run as a full electric for at least part of its 500 mile total range. And, thanks to that connected nature we just mentioned, it’ll even look at the layout of the roads ahead and switch between EV and normal modes appropriately.

Ford Evos Concept monitors the road and your wellness, adjusts as needed

Wouldn’t it be great to have a car that adapts to your personality and state of alertness? Isn’t it annoying to have your mother critique your driving even when you’re 30? Meet the Ford Evos Concept. The Evos hints at four Ford directions: personalizing the vehicle on-the-fly, make it more fun to drive, looking after the driver’s well-being, and optimizing the car for performance and fuel economy.

Ford unveiled the Evos Concept this week at the IFA show in Berlin as a precursor to the official unveiling at the Frankfurt Auto Show at mid-month. Ford sees its future cars always communicating with the cloud (and other cars), then adapting to the driver’s personal cloud of information. It knows if you like a sporty or comfy ride and adapts the suspension and handling accordingly. Whatever music you listened to at home or in the office could continue when you opened the car door. Pull away from your house and it would close the garage door. Sneeze and it turns on the air filters.

More intriguing are the Evos features that adapt the car to your driving style: sporty suspension for sporty drivers and a marshmallow ride for those looking for a rolling sofa. Suppose your eyesight’s not so good: the gauges would be digital and twice as big. If there’s an incoming call and you’re approaching a tricky intersection, the call would go straight to voicemail. Maybe it makes a judgment call, so to speak, based on how good you’ve been as a driver over the last year, how alert you’ve been the past 30 minutes — info taken from your personal cloud along with road and traffic conditions from the general cloud. What’s a good driver? Somebody who doesn’t make panic stops, who isn’t setting off the lane departure warning system too often, who isn’t making more jerky steering movements compared to the average of all other drivers on this road today. It would have an algorithm that guesses if your driving pattern suggests you’re intoxicated.

Here’s where Big Brother might come in: Wouldn’t the cops love to know? Wouldn’t your insurance company? Your mom and dad if you’re a teenager? Already a handful of insurance companies offer insurance rates based on simple factors trackable by telematics: miles driven, time of day, where you’re going, how fast you’re driving. Ford didn’t talk about this in the Evos Concept rollout, but the possibility exists. Paul Mascarenas, Ford’s chief technical officer, put it more benignly: “We’re researching how we can use patterns or preferences … to make life simpler. The car gets to know you and can act as a personal assistant.” Right up until Jeeves turns state’s witness.

If the car knows you have allergies, it would crank up the HEPA filters and even, Ford hints, might access air quality info and proactively reroute you via a cleaner route. Since this is a concept car, anything a futurist might wish for, Ford can say, “We’e got an app for that.” Ford’s announcement “foresees,” for instance, custom-tuning the suspension for the road and the driver.

The Evos concept car is a plug-in hybrid (like Chevrolet Volt) and Ford sees how economy and performance could be enhanced via the cloud. Ford says that a connection to the cloud could “enhance performance by selecting the optimum combination of powertrain modes for any given journey.” Although after 30 miles the only choice is going to be: combustion engine. But consider little savings: If you’ve going up a five-mile hill and you’ve got four miles of battery charge left — which the car would know from topographic map data — it could run the battery down at the crest of the hill, knowing it could regenerate that power going down the other side. If the Evos knows you’re a performance type, it might always keep a bit of juice in the battery to provide extra acceleration, more on two lane roads than interstates.

At a pre-pre-rollout last week in Deroit, Ford’s chief designer, J. Mays, offered two tantalizing hints about the future for Evos and Ford. For the personal wellness bit, Mays suggested the driver would sit in a smart seat — perhaps equipped with sensors to measure driver movement, discomfort, and vital signs. Mays also said the swoopy look, suitably modified for production cars, meaning the gullwing doors go away, will be part of Ford’s design going forward in the very near future.

Ford Evos concept points to next Mondeo

Five years on from the launch of the Ford Iosis concept in London’s Docklands, the Blue Oval has unveiled the Evos concept in Berlin, ahead of its official launch at the Frankfurt Show in a fortnight. The connection here? Think Mondeo. Under then new design director, Martin Smith, Iosis went on to form the basis of the new Mondeo and in turn, Evos is a preview of that car’s replacement, slated for production in 2013.

This time around, however, the new design direction has to do two jobs. Not only will it clothe the new Mondeo, but it will also be adapted to drape over the replacement Ford Fusion in the States. We will see both vehicles at the Detroit Auto Show in January, where they will be trumpeted as the acme of Ford boss Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” concept; the same basic vehicle sold all around the world.

As a result, it’s all change for Ford’s “Kinetic” design philosophy, for which Iosis was in the 2005 vanguard. Evos is a simpler, more aggressive design, with heavily sculpted panels, which might give the production boys some headaches. So aggressive is the style, in fact, that this four-seat, four-door design wouldn’t look out of place on a Mustang with a gargantuan V8 under the hood – Evos is by contrast a plug-in hybrid, using the same petrol/electric driveline that will debut on the C-Max Energi in 2013.

The reverse sloping, high-mounted grille sets the tone, beset by narrow, hell-cat LED headlamps and muscular front wings with a power bulged bonnet. In the realms of science fiction are the four gullwing doors and the fast-back roof, which looks similar to the Mustang coupés of the Seventies.

Evos is the length of a Focus but the width of a Mondeo, which gives a dynamic, street sweeper stance, although it will be interesting to see how it is viewed in Europe, where such testosterone fuelled style has previously been written off as vulgar.