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And, thanks for pointing that other one out, I thank the people who bought the first expensive cars with anti-lock brakes (again, not used the first time by Mercedes, but still greatly improved by them and Bosch, so that not only the driver with amazing driving "skillz" like you can brake safely, but also the unexperienced driver behind him (!) so that that one wont crash into the driver who knew who to stop safely. You're not the only one on the road, you know.

Frankly, if one of the "Big Three" ends up being swallowed by another car company

Listen, I don't want to say too much, but Apple may be buying DaimlerChrysler.

Sounds crazy - crazy enough to be true! Also it makes perfect sense. DaimlerChrysler has been bleeding money for a while, mainly because of its stodgy management. Apple understands that a charismatic, forward-thinking leader is just the shot in the arm the company needs to become profitable again. And it also makes perfect sense from Apple's point of view - they're primarily a hardware company, after all.

Mercedes, a division of Daimlier-Chrysler

Sales are up.

also, the fa didn't mention anything about the minivan swerving. the driver just ran over the student? the fa never mentions anything about the driver of the minivan even braking. a remorseless killer, eh? regardless what the fa says, you don't know what happened - you weren't there. there are many, many different ways to swerve across the road. slow drift, into the side of the minivan, 50 yards ahead of the minivan, perpendicular, the list goes on.
maybe i'm speculating here, but if i saw something with the body of a lightweight dune buggy driving down the other side of the road, i'd pay attention to what it's doing, and be a little more cautions. after all, it's not exactly an armored car. maybe i'm giving owners of minivans too much credit, but aren't they supposed to be safety-minded? that is what minivans are all about, right? why are these vehicles so huge as to obscure the vision of other drivers, when their heightened vantage point is put to no use, other than to destroy the visibility of the road?

or try Jean Tinguely and his moving sculptures

It's called the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve (Mid-Engined, four turbos, twelve cylinders).

Believe it or not, that is a minature of the 1921 Rumpler, a name that anyone familiar with the aircraft of WWI will recognize. After the war Dr. Rumpler applied aircraft knowledge to automobiles, but was usually too far ahead of his time and so largely ignored. Witness the Benz Tropfenwagen GP car of the early 20s. Fully streamlined, independently sprung, with mid-mounted motor and radiators, the very model for the modern GP car. The FIAT of the same year became the model for the next 10 years of GP car though, for although it was revolutionary, it was also evolutionary, and thus in an idiom other designers could understand, copy and develop.

1921 Rumpler

1923 Benz Tropfenwagen

KFG

There's been a whole host of developments in the ongoing SCO saga over the past couple of days. SCO have now filed law suits against Autozone and DaimlerChrysler on the same day as announcing growing operating losses. Despite securing a deal to license their IP with ev1servers, SCOsource only generated an income of $20,000 for the quarter. Today it has been revealed that Computer Associates, Questar Corp. and manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc have all joined the ranks of SCO source licensees. Over at the Nasdaq the publicity stunts are beginning to wane thin with investors who sent SCO shares plummeting by almost 14% yesterday. In the courtroom, SCO was yesterday given 45 days to identify all specific lines of code they allege IBM put into Linux from AIX or Dynix; identify and provide with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to.

Browser integration is not dead! Microsoft works on it everyday. MS constantly innovates new features that crash Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera but provide no value. Innovation will truly end when we can no longer use any browser other than IE and at the rate things are doing it won't be long.

I would ask all the developers out there to support more than IE on your extranets. I am talking to YOU Mr. Webdeveloper in that Fortune 100 company like Ford, GM, Diamler, EBAY (Is Ebay Fortune 500 yet?). Ask yourself this, "Do I really want to limit the web to a Microsoft ONLY browser?" The point of the web was platform independence. I especially love developers who code in Java then create an O/S specific dependency.

Think about this next time you decide to implement a feature that only works in IE but provides little to no value to the end user experience. If we all wake up one morning and find we are living in a "one-browser", "one-platform" world, it is going to be horrible. However, if it makes you feel any better, I fight these battles every year and lose to the developers. Usually the management will wine and say, "it costs too much to develop for two browers" or "but if I can just let developers wiggle the mouse and use a tool to generate HTML they won't have to think and can get my project done faster".

However, web browers in general suck for application development. I think the old mainframe character terminal had better input screen capability than the modern web browers. In fact, if you compare the two they work just about the same (Push screen to terminal/browser from, Fill In Screen, send screen back to server, repeat ... ) As you can tell I am not the least bit bitter. I hate tools that generate bloated, crappy, IE specific HTML laden with self destructing Java script.

The whole "embrace and extend" concept is getting old. Can't we all just get along and make things better instead of creating a fragmented incompatible mess. A company like MS is sitting on piles of cash, the likes of which the world has never seen and instead of putting together a Bell Labs or Xerox Parc they spend their cash on marketing and lawyers. There are so few great men in our age and even fewer visionaries. I was holding out a glimmer of hope for Bill when he took over as chief software architect. So much for Utopia.

"There is nothing new under the sun." -Solomon

There really isn't much to do in the way of research here. Most of the major manufacturers list their affiliations on their web sites.

• Ford makes it easy. They list their brands right on the front page. Along with the previously mentioned Volvo, Jaguar, and Mazda, there's the surprise of Aston Martin (think it was a coincidence that the major cars in the last Bond movie were a Ford, a Jaguar, and an Aston Martin?).
• GM makes you have to look a little more. Aside from the previously mentioned Opel, Isuzu, and Suzuki, GM also has ties to Fiat and Subaru, as well as owning Saab. (Toyota isn't listed, but I mentioned it before because Toyota sells the Cavalier under the Toyota brand in Japan.)
• Chrysler/Dodge make you work harder. You have to know that they're part of Daimler-Chrysler, and then you'll see that they not only have Chrysler, Dodge, and Mercedes Benz, but also Maybach and Jeep as well as "strategic relationships" with Mitsubishi and Hyundai.
• Similarly, Volkswagen makes it pretty difficult to find their list of brands, but it can be found. They're pretty small-time, only having Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Skoda alongside the Volkswagen moniker.
• Porsche actually makes you have to learn history before you can get to its complex relationship with other brands. For instance, did you know that Dr. Ferdinand Porsche founded Volkswagen on Hitler's request? Also, before Porsche even formed Volkswagen, he did designs for Mercedes and Daimler. Over the years, Porsche (the company) and Porsche Design (separate company, same family) have consulted for quite a few different firms. As well, ties to Volkswagen have remained strong (the original 356 was based around a Volkswagen engine, as was the 914; lots of parts in all models of cars have been shared with VW; and the most recent model, the Cayenne, shares a base platform with VW's Touareg).

Hydrogen stores energy more effectively than current batteries[...]

1. Get hydrogen to fit in a car, in metal hydrides or in another form;
2. Implement PEM fuel cells on cars (See Mercedes' Necar 4)
3. Use SO fuel cells to burn natural gas more efficiently and reduce emissions while managing to actually make money, see Siemens.
4. First mobile implementations will likely be buses, as they have a reduced chicken-and-egg problem (they all refuel at the same place and regularly), see Ballard.

It looks like the old-school Mercedes Unimog, only at higher cost, less manueverability, less ground clearance, less flexibility, and crappy fuel economy... A 1968 Mog with a 6-cylinder diesel engine can pull a 16-ton howitzer.

On the other hand, it might be competitive with the new reconstituted Unimog.

Yes, look at Chrysler. Er, did you mean DaimlerChrysler AG?

You are assuming hydrogen combustion.

This is the technology developed by BMW. There are, hoever, competitors that do use fuel cells, e.g. DaimlerChrysler.

They are also testing on-board production of H2 out of methanol-a liquid, which is safer and easier to handle than hydrogene. (Yes, this _does_ mean that the cars consume oxygen and produce carbon-dioxide. But that does not matter because it just cancels the effect of fuel production.) [More...]

According to the article, the car is a joint venture between Honda, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and 'other automakers'. One of its biggest drawbacks is its limited range (110 miles before it must be refueled.)

Well, DiamlerChrysler introduced this car in early 1999, and it supposedly has a range of 280 miles.

Don't believe the hype.

There is no other explanation for 80+ MPG cars existing but not being marketed or alternative fuel vehicals existing but not being properly marketed, if at all.

http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/index_e.htm?/histor y/history_e.htm

Well it does look like that, however read the caption in the image on that page

Two of the greatest companies the world has ever seen come together to form the world's newest: DaimlerChrysler.

DC is a very new company, I remember hearing about the merger on TV last year.