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Runtime: 6:46
0:33 Waze Expands Carpool Service
1:04 Waymo Logs 10 Million Miles
1:26 A 1,000 Mile Per Hour Car!?
2:22 Ford Fusions Dominate Talladega
2:53 Epic Battle at IMSA Race
3:39 Torrance Wins 4th NHRA Race in A Row
4:33 Ford Edge ST Fuel Economy Story
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On today’s show…Google’s Waze is expanding its carpooling service throughout the U.S…a group developing a 1,000 mile per hour car needs your help to complete it…and how Ford engineers made sure the fuel economy didn’t drop too much in the performance version of the Edge. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily the voice of the automotive industry.
WAZE EXPANDS CARPOOL SERVICE
Waze, the navigation app owned by Google, is really getting into carpooling. It launched a pilot program two years ago in Northern California that allows drivers to give someone a ride and the rider pays a small fee for gas and other expenses. It expanded it to 12 other states but now it’s available to anyone throughout the United States. 1.3 million people have already signed up for the carpooling service and with the way this is growing, we think it’s going to have an impact on car sales.
WAYMO LOGS 10 MILLION MILES
And speaking of Google, its self-driving unit Waymo, revealed its logged 10 million test miles on public roads. A lot of people think that we need a lot of infrastructure investment before autonomous cars will become a reality. But Waymo is proving that its autonomous cars can run on roads just as they are today.
A 1,000 PER HOUR CAR!?
Have you heard of Project Bloodhound? It’s a group of hard-core crazies who want to develop a car that can go 1,000 miles an hour. They’ve already done some initial testing and say they’re ready to move out of the R&D stage and into operation. So they’re launching a crowdfunding campaign. It needs 25 million Pound Sterling to see the project to completion. That’s about 33 million bucks. Just think about it. At 1,000 miles-per-hour that thing would break the sound barrier!
Still to come…a look at the results of this weekend’s races.
FORD FUSIONS DOMINATE TALLADEGA
In racing news over the weekend, the NASCAR cup race at Talladega was beginning to look like a commercial for the Ford Fusion. With just a few laps to go, the first 9 cars, running nose to tail, were Ford Fusions. But a crash bunched the field for a late-race rush to the checkers. Even though there was a crash on the last lap, NASCAR did not throw a yellow flag and let the leaders race to the end, with Aric Almirola crossing the line first in his Ford Fusion.
EPIC BATTLE AT IMSA RACE
IMSA closed out its season at Road Atlanta with an epic 10-hour battle. They call it the Petit Le Mans, and it was a see-saw, nail-biting battle all the way. When the checker flag fell, Wayne Taylor Racing took their Cadillac DPi to first place, while the Cadillac DPi of Action Express Racing won the championship. In GTLM, the Porsche GT Team won the race with a 911 RSR, but Corvette Racing won the championship. And Scuderia Corsa won the GTD category with a Ferrari 488 GT3, while Paul Miller Racing won the championship with a Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
TORRANCE WINS 4TH NHRA RACE IN A ROW
At the NHRA Carolina Nationals, Steve Torrance won his fourth race in a row, blasting his Top Fuel dragster to victory in just 3.7 seconds at a speed just over 329 miles an hour. He beat Brittany Force the defending champion. Those Top Fuel dragster’s are just astounding. Steve Torrance’s car has more horsepower than the first four rows at Talladega.
Coming up next, how Ford engineers made sure fuel economy didn’t drop too much in the new Edge ST.
FORD EDGE ST FUEL ECONOMY STORY
Performance vehicles tend to get worse fuel economy than the models they are based on. The new Ford Edge ST however, has an estimated rating of 21 MPG combined, which is just 2 MPG fewer than the regular all-wheel-drive Edge. On last week’s Autoline After Hours we were joined by Ed Krenz, the Chief Functional Engineer at Ford and he shared how it was able to keep the fuel economy from dropping too much in the Edge ST.
(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)
For more about the Edge ST, you can watch that entire show right now on our website, Autoline.tv or you can find it on our YouTube channel. And this Thursday we’re going to take a deep dive into the Ford flathead V8, which came out 86 years ago. And yet there is a hard core group of enthusiasts who continue to work on and develop it. What’s with that engine? We’ll get to the bottom of that on Autoline After Hours.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.