Ford Excursion 2004 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Forza Horizon announces January Recaro Car Pack with LFA N"urburgring Edition

Another month, another car pack for Forza Horizon. This time it's the Recaro Car Pack featuring a motley gang of cars and trucks: the 1983 GMC Vandura G-1500, 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra R, 2012 Cadillac Escalade ESV, 2005 Mercedes-Benz SLR, 2012 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Edition and 2012 Lotus Exige S.
It'll be up for download on Xbox Live on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013 for 400 MS Points. As usual, if you have the Forza Horizon Season Pass you can get them all free, and Season Pass holders will also get a bonus car that's not pictured: the 2009 Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster.
The Pagani is everything opposite to that Vandura, but while you might not ever win anything with the van, you can always use the back of it as a place to give out free hugs. Check out the video and press release below for more details.

Ford confirms Everest SUV production for China

According to Ford, the Chinese SUV segment grew by 49 percent in 2013, and the Blue Oval held a 4.5 percent market share. At the 2014 Beijing Motor Show, Ford is showing the Everest SUV that, while just a concept for now, will go into production in the near future.
The Everest is a big, brawny seven-seat SUV that mixes solid, chiseled styling and contemporary Ford design cues. Up front there is an angular version of the trapezoidal grille and sharp, wraparound headlights. The beltline rises in the rear to make the back appear higher than the front. The rear seems just as chiseled, with the taillights resting in jagged scallops. There is no doubt that this concept means to look rugged, and ready for rough roads - the whole thing looks pretty great.
The truck was penned by Ford's Asia Pacific design and engineering team in Australia, and it was first shown in Sydney last year. Ford's JMC joint venture will build the truck for the Chinese market, and it will be sold at Ford dealers there. The Blue Oval isn't hinting at what powers the production version yet, but it reportedly shares some components with the foreign-market Ranger.

Ford partnering with MIT, Stanford on autonomous vehicle research

Ask any car engineer what's the biggest variable in achieving fuel economy targets, and he'll tell you "the driver." If one human can't understand human driving behavior enough to be certain about an innocuous number like miles per gallon, how is an autonomous car supposed to figure out what hundreds of other drivers are going to do in the course of a day? Ford has enlisted the help of Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to find out.
Starting with the automated Fusion Hybrid introduced in December, MIT will be developing algorithms that driverless cars can use to "predict actions of other vehicles and pedestrians" and objects within the three-dimensional map provided by its four LIDAR sensors.
The Stanford team will research how to extend the 'vision' of that LIDAR array beyond obstructions while driving, analogous to the way a driver uses the entire width of a lane to see what's ahead of a larger vehicle in front. Ford says it wants to "provide the vehicle with common sense" as part of its Blueprint for Mobility, preparing for an autonomous world from 2025 and beyond.