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Amazon is showcasing its big push into cars and transportation at CES

From making cars talk using Alexa's voice to managing data from factories full of robots, Amazon wants a big piece of the action in transportation, and next week at CES will unveil more about its strategy to achieve that goal than ever before. The Seattle retail and cloud services powerhouse plans to use the annual technology show in Las Vegas to unveil its plan to be a major player in self-driving vehicle technology, connected cars, electric vehicles and management of the torrents of data generated by automakers and drivers, company executives told Reuters. Amazon Web Services, which provides large-scale cloud computing and data management services, is central to Amazon's strategy. "We really are extending ourselves more and more out in the ecosystem from manufacturing to connected car," Jon Allen, head of professional services in Amazon Web Services' automotive practice, said in a telephone interview. "The takeaway message on this is if you go to CES this year we really are taking it as a 'One Amazon' view." Until now, Amazon has shown its transportation strategy to investors — and rivals — one piece at a time. Amazon has invested in self-driving software startup Aurora. It also has signed deals with automakers to deliver packages to vehicle trunks, help develop electric vehicle charging networks and use AWS to network their factories. The Seattle company will share the CES stage with partners such as virtual reality firm ZeroLight, electric vehicle startup Rivian, Canada's BlackBerry Ltd and video game software development company Unity Technologies. "It's our attempt to weave everything together in a single experience for our customers," Dean Phillips, AWS' automotive technical leader, told Reuters. "Customers don't distinguish AWS from Alexa from Amazon.com. It's Amazon."   Related: As GM readies Alexa convenience for vehicles, we ponder its dark side   At CES, ZeroLight and GM's Cadillac will demonstrate how they are partnering to develop an online vehicle configuration experience that will allow high-fidelity images of vehicles that consumers build online to be taken with them on visits to dealers, Phillips said. The process can open the door to dealers better meeting customer needs by knowing what users focused on when building their dream car. It has already boosted profit per vehicle at Volkswagen's Audi brand by an estimated 1,200 euros ($1,340), he said.

2016: The year of the autonomous-car promise

About half of the news we covered this year related in some way to The Great Autonomous Future, or at least it seemed that way. If you listen to automakers, by 2020 everyone will be driving (riding?) around in self-driving cars. But what will they look like, how will we make the transition from driven to driverless, and how will laws and infrastructure adapt? We got very few answers to those questions, and instead were handed big promises, vague timelines, and a dose of misdirection by automakers. There has been a lot of talk, but we still don't know that much about these proposed vehicles, which are at least three years off. That's half a development cycle in this industry. We generally only start to get an idea of what a company will build about two years before it goes on sale. So instead of concrete information about autonomous cars, 2016 has brought us a lot of promises, many in the form of concept cars. They have popped up from just about every automaker accompanied by the CEO's pledge to deliver a Level 4 autonomous, all-electric model (usually a crossover) in a few years. It's very easy to say that a static design study sitting on a stage will be able to drive itself while projecting a movie on the windshield, but it's another thing entirely to make good on that promise. With a few exceptions, 2016 has been stuck in the promising stage. It's a strange thing, really; automakers are famous for responding with "we don't discuss future product" whenever we ask about models or variants known to be in the pipeline, yet when it comes to self-driving electric wondermobiles, companies have been falling all over themselves to let us know that theirs is coming soon, it'll be oh so great, and, hey, that makes them a mobility company now, not just an automaker. A lot of this is posturing and marketing, showing the public, shareholders, and the rest of the industry that "we're making one, too, we swear!" It has set off a domino effect – once a few companies make the guarantee, the rest feel forced to throw out a grandiose yet vague plan for an unknown future. And indeed there are usually scant details to go along with such announcements – an imprecise mileage estimate here, or a far-off, percentage-based goal there. Instead of useful discussion of future product, we get demonstrations of test mules, announcements of big R&D budgets and new test centers they'll fund, those futuristic concept cars, and, yeah, more promises.

2016 Ford F-150 gets sporty new sport mode for added sportiness

Good news, everyone! The Ford F-150 fullsize pickup truck is getting a new sport mode for 2016. Because it needs it, or something. "Crazy-smart Ford engineers have struck again – this time blending the sport mode feature borrowed from the all-new Mustang with the reduced weight of the all-new F-150 to deliver an engaged, dynamic driving experience with any of the four high-output, fuel-efficient powertrains available to truck customers," Ford says in its press release. In fact, the Mustang tie-in comes up a few other times. "An advanced feature of F-150's six-speed automatic transmission is its ability to match engine rpm as it downshifts in slowing for a corner. Electronics calibration for this feature comes straight out of Mustang." That's right, folks. A two-ton truck with rev-match downshifts. The F-150's sport mode holds the transmission in the powerband, limiting upshifts during more spirited driving. "It makes Mustang come alive, and we feel it does the same thing in F-150," says one Ford engineer. Sport mode is activated by pushing the tow/haul button twice, at which time an amber "S" illuminates in the dash. We're hoping this also means that pushing the sport button in a Mustang will activate tow/haul mode. Sport mode is standard on all 2016 F-150s, and can be used with two- or four-wheel drive. More details are available in the release, below. Related Video: F-150 PERFORMANCE ENHANCED BY NEW SPORT MODE - 2015 Ford F-150's 700-pound weight savings, its choice of four high-output, more fuel-efficient powertrains, and – for the first time ever – an on-demand sport mode combine to enable an improved driving experience for truck customers - Six-speed automatic transmission with sport mode is standard across F-150 lineup; system operates in two-wheel drive, four-wheel-drive automatic and four-wheel-drive high settings - Automatic transmission technology used for both Mustang and F-150 was jointly created – allowing some performance advantages of the pony car to be applied to the pickup truck for a more responsive driving experience DEARBORN, Mich., Aug. 5, 2015 – Crazy-smart Ford engineers have struck again – this time blending the sport mode feature borrowed from the all-new Mustang with the reduced weight of the all-new F-150 to deliver an engaged, dynamic driving experience with any of the four high-output, fuel-efficient powertrains available to truck customers.