1951 Cadillac Convertible From Southern California on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Farley reacts as UAW expands strike against Ford, GM

Members of the United Auto Worker union walk out of the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant as Lance Williams from Lansing, Ill., waves the UAW flag Friday. (AP)   As the United Auto Workers walk off the job at an additional Ford and General Motors plant, Ford CEO Jim Farley addressed investors and members of the media Friday, pleading the case for the company's latest overture to the union and addressing both public and investor concerns regarding the core issues facing American manufacturing.  Farley made a public case for Ford's efforts to resolve the dispute, expressing frustration with the ongoing stalemate and noting both the concessions Ford offered before the strike began and the signing of a contract with Canada's Unifor. Farley also acknowledged UAW President Shawn Fain's success in getting the union's message out, quipping: "Shawn has been on TV more than Jake from State Farm at this point." The first-ever simultaneous strike against the Detroit Three automakers enters its third week with threats of continued expansion, but little in the way of obvious concrete progress.  "If the UAW’s goal is a record contract, they have already achieved this," Farley said. "It is grossly irresponsible to escalate these strikes and hurt thousands of families." Farley also lamented the fact that EVs have become the subject of partisan conflict, with the company's recently announced battery production facilities taking heat from both pundits and investors as Ford was forced to press pause on the venture while negotiations continue. Former President Donald Trump dropped in to Michigan this week to declare EVs the enemy of blue-collar jobs. "They've become a political football, and that's a shame," he said. Friday saw an expansion of the UAW strike to Ford's Chicago assembly plant and GM's Lansing, Delta Township, Michigan, assembly plant, covering about 7,000 workers, Fain said in an announcement, bringing the total number of workers on the picket lines to 25,000. The strike will not include any additional members at Stellantis, where talks have reportedly been more productive. The Ford and GM plants went on strike at noon Eastern today (Friday). Ford builds the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator in Chicago. GM's Delta Township plant builds Chevy Traverse and Buick Enclave. "Despite our willingness to bargain, Ford and GM have refused to make meaningful progress," Fain said in a video address Friday morning.

No, Eminem is not giving away the Cadillac Ciel concept, Facebookers

Damn it, Facebook people, stop being so gullible. When you see something on social media that requires you to share or like a status or page in exchange for a chance at winning something, it's almost always a hoax. This goes for iPads, or Bill Gates giving away cash or, yes, an Eminem fan page giving away a Cadillac Ciel. Now, normally we'd simply ignore this utter hogwash, but it's getting some traction on Facebook and, annoyingly, is beginning to clog our newsfeed. Ignoring the fact that the Ciel is a pure concept car that likely can't even be registered for regular use, there are more than a few things that should give this nonsense away as a hoax. First, Eminem has only ever gotten in bed with one automaker – Chrysler. It seems unlikely that he'd defect simply to give away a car on Facebook. Secondly, the page that is putting on the giveaway isn't even a verified page – Eminem's real Facebook fan page has 97 million likes, this one has 622,000. Third, a quick look at the caption for the Ciel's photo, shown above, reveals the sort of grammatical mess that no serious contest would allow. Take a look (sic implied throughout): "Only 24 Days Until Christmas, Can you Imagine yourself driving this Car? I'm about to make that happen, Its Official, I Will be giving away this 2014 Cadillac Ciel to one random lucky fan, all you gotta do is follow these three easy steps, Step 1) Share this photo, Step 2) Like my page, Slim Shady Step 3) Like this photo, Winner Will be picked On December 5th 4 Days Away, Good luck to Everyone!!" We reached out to Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell just for fun. Apparently, this photo and schtick pops up every few months with virtually the same text, only to vanish at the end of the "giveaway." You're as shocked as we are, right? So, once again folks, just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's true. If your friends, family and acquaintances are blowing up your Facebook feed and social network channels with this nonsense, be sure to set 'em straight with a link to this story – we're sure the real Slim Shady will appreciate it.

The 2021 Cadillac Escalade's triple curved OLED screens are gorgeous

The centerpiece and crown jewel of the 2021 Cadillac Escalade is the triple OLED screen setup facing the passengers. It’s an imposing cowl with 38 inches of screen real estate in total, and itÂ’s a Cadillac Escalade-exclusive piece of technology. An interesting and unique feature like this has the potential to set Cadillac apart from the stiff competition in the luxury space.  Its appearance is just like that of the Cadillac Escala concept. We donÂ’t often get to see interior concepts carried into production, so thatÂ’s exciting on its own. The layout consists of a 16.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system, a 14.2-inch instrument cluster and a 7.2-inch touchscreen to the left of the cluster. All of the screens are curved and use OLED technology, which is commonly used on the screen of your Android phone, iPhone or TV. It allows for the deepest blacks, best contrast ratios and extremely vivid colors. In short, an OLED screen is going to look better than an LCD screen, and thatÂ’s why Cadillac is using it. We sat down with a few folks who could tell us more about it. Phil Kucera, Cadillac interior design manager, gave us some background on the decision to implement this tri-screen layout. “To be honest with you, it was a high-end leadership decision,” Kucera says. “There was a lot of, 'Hey maybe we donÂ’t put that on the base level. And why do you have to use OLED?' Because OLED is not the cheap way to go. So the fact that it stayed that size and remained OLED Â… I would bet that youÂ’re going to see other people doing something like this. There was a real push to try and get here first.” Sounds like the screen could have ultimately been a victim of cost-cutting measures. WeÂ’re glad it made it into production, because it looks promising. Sameer Gupta, GM's engineer manager responsible for infotainment, walked us through the new digital landscape. If you didnÂ’t like the old Cadillac software from before, youÂ’ll be happy to learn that this system is a completely new user interface, sharing nothing with any software before. Gupta told us that this is “a complete first-of use of this interface.” “When we started doing the system, we envisioned a system that had rich graphics, but was also simple and adaptive,” Gupta told us. After spending some time poking around in an Escalade, we can report that the new menus are full of rich graphics, pleasing animations and snappy transitions.