FEATURES BY DEPARTMENT
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| August 2004 |
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The PT Cruiser made Bryan Nesbitt one of the most famous designers in the world. His move to GM's chevy studio raised eyebrows, as did the subsequent move to managing the exterior design of all GM's North American cars. Now the 35-year-old is running GM's design operations in Europe with surprising focus. |
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Ferrari’s and Porsche’s factory test tracks are legendary, as much for their layouts as for the cars developed on them. GM hopes to at least partially redress this imbalance with its prosaically named “Milford Road Course” and the vehicles developed on it. |
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Change is not something that occurs often in the golf car industry and when it does, you generally have to be a real insider to notice it. But when the people at Club Car realized that they could take incremental improvements only so far, they decided to get some fresh thinking from Detroit and completely change their product and process. |
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| Electric vehicles, hybrid powertrains and fuel cells are generally seen as threedistinctly different development paths, but Delphi’s chief technologist is championing a concept that brings them alltogether in one vehicle. Could this be the powertrain of the future?
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Carbon fiber is strong, stiff and light. In short, perfect for automotive structural parts. But high material costs and long manufacturing cycle times have kept it out of mass production vehicles. That may be changing. . |
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The physically smaller PLCs get, the more control applications they fit in. Now comes one that’s a single chip. |
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