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In a second press conference at the North American International Auto Show yesterday afternoon, Ford announced a supplemental investment of $450 million in its electric vehicle program, whereby a next-generation hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle will be produced in Michigan. This comes in addition to the $550 million already invested to convert Ford’s assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan from a large SUV factory to a car plant to build the all-new Focus, staring in ‘10. Starting in 2011, the plant will also be putting out the Focus Electric.

The plant in Wayne, will produce hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and full battery electric vehicles – all to be built using Ford’s new global C-car platform. “This investment underscores how serious we are about delivering a range of electrified vehicles to customers — including hybrids, plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles,” said Bill Ford, Jr., executive chairman of the company that bears his family name. “Our industry is at the intersection of three critical global issues — the economy, energy and the environment. The winning companies will be those that address these issues with vehicles that are also exciting and fun to drive, without compromises.”

Ford was granted $188 million in tax incentives from the State of Michigan for this project which will add approximately 1,000 jobs to the state, and relocate the production site of battery packs from Mexico to a location in Michigan that has yet to be announced.

-By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Detroit News

At this point in time, you’d be hard pressed to find someone out there who isn’t in love with the fun-loving cross between Mr. Wizard and Julia Child — Alton Brown. Recently, Alton has taken a stand against the unfit-physiques he’s seen in chefs (himself included), and trimmed down. How did he do it?

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China is the driver of the world’s economy. A day like today makes that clear.

Earlier it was reported that the government there had increased reserve requirements for banks, and just like that the entire China-dependent world from Australia to Brazil to, well, the US, is pointing down.

The S&P is down less than 1% pre-market, in part due to China, but also due to Alcoa’s after-hours miss (more bad news for commodities). The stock is down about 8% pre-market.

Don’t miss: Why investors are going crazy for Brazil — >

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See Also:

• The Next BRICs: Six Surging Countries You Must Pay Attention To This Decade
• Why Investors Are Going Wild For Brazil
• Why Investors Are Going Crazy For Australia

Faculty Appreciation Week is being planned for Feb. 17-23. In preparation, we are collecting stories about great UT faculty members. Do you work with someone who is an extraordinary teacher? Do you know a dedicated researcher whose work should be recognized? Do you have a colleague who deserves a special pat on the back? Send your stories to [email protected].

Quem diria? os americanos que adoram um carro grande, virando o pescoço para os compactos da Fiat no estande da Chrysler no Salão de Detroit. Exatamente, a Fiat já está praticamente no mercado norte-americano, falta apenas começar a vender seus produtos por lá através da Chrysler, e em mais um ensaio em uma mostra americana, os visitantes daquele local apreciam cinco modelos do grupo Fiat, sendo que quatro já estão em produção e um é protótipo.

Os modelos que estão marcando presença no Salão de Detroit são os Fiat 500 na versão convencional, que leva consigo um motor 1.4 aspirado de 100cv, o mesmo que equipa o 500 que é importado para o nosso mercado. Um 500 C (conversível) também com o mesmo motor do 500 convencional e um 500 Abarth com o motor 1.4 T-Jet (turbo) de 135cv.

Ainda na linha 500, a Fiat apresenta pela primeira vez o 500 BEV, um protótipo que possui motor elétrico do projeto ENVI desenvolvido pela Chrysler ao longo de três anos e que foi concluído oficialmente há pouco tempo, infelizmente não foram divulgados dados técnicos do modelo ainda. Por fora o modelo leva a roupagem da grife Abarth e tem rodas aro 16” na cor preta, por dentro o modelo perde a alavanca de câmbio e adota alguns botões como N de neutro e D de drive. O painel do motorista ganha um enorme mostrador digital na tonalidade azul e vermelho que tem, além de velocímetro e conta-giros, informações das baterias, do carro e do motor. Os três últimos modelos são novidades para o público americano sendo que o 500 BEV é um lançamento mundial.

Além destes a Fiat também apresenta o exótico Lancia Delta por lá, mais com algumas modificações. Surpreenda-se, o Delta que está sendo exibido no Salão de Detroit teve a logomarca da Lancia trocada pela da Chrysler, isso! Um Chrysler Delta, ou Chrysler “alguma coisa” já que o modelo ainda não teve seu nome definido para os EUA. Além do logo o carro teve sua grade dianteira original trocada por uma com barras na horizontal para aproximá-lo dos modelos da Chrysler. Seria esse um bom substituto para o PT Cruiser? Sim porque os dois têm estilo exótico e controverso. Mais é meio difícil imaginar um americano comprando um Delta. É esperar para ver.

Fonte: Autoblog.it

New Jersey’s legislature passed a bill yesterday to legalize medical marijuana, and Gov. Jon Corzine has said he’ll sign it into law before leaving office next week.

Marijuana is now legal for some patients in more than a dozen states. But, at least based on the Jersey bill, the rules seem to be getting stricter as legalization spreads.

Medical marijuana will be limited to certain patients — people whose prognosis gives them less than a year to live, or those with specific symptoms resulting from certain diseases, such as AIDS, cancer and Crohn’s. (The bill also allows the state health department to add other diseases to the list.)

California — where doctors have wide latitude to prescribe marijuana for patients, and pot dispensaries have proliferated in some counties — seemed to serve as a cautionary tale for New Jersey.

Chris Christie, the Garden State’s Republican governor-elect (and former U.S. attorney) said medical marijuana in California is “completely out of control,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Still, Christie said he supports “the idea of medical marijuana for seriously ill people for pain relief to them,” though he was wary of what he called “loopholes” in the bill, such as allowing the health department to expand the list of qualifying conditions.

Even the bill’s backers seemed as eager to talk up what the bill restricts as what it allows. “This bill recognizes that compassion for the sick and dying and adherence to our nation’s war on illegal drugs are not mutually exclusive ideals,” one state senator who sponsored the bill said in a statement.

Patients who qualify will be allowed to buy up to two ounces of marijuana a month at state-sponsored dispensaries, the WSJ says. Patients won’t be allowed to grow marijuana at home or to smoke in public, the New York Times notes.

The bill passed by a wide margin — 48-14 in the Assembly and 25-13 in the state Senate.

Photo: Getty Images

By Alan D. Mutter
newsosaur.blogspot.com

A puny 2.4% of print subscribers is the average number of people paying for online content at the handful of daily newspapers that have been bold enough to erect pay walls, according to a new survey.

In the first comprehensive study of actual consumer willingness to pay for online news, ITZ/Belden Interactive delivered both good and bad tidings to publishers hoping to begin charging for their content.

The bad news, of course, is the limited number of online readers who were willing to pay for online access to the 26 U.S. dailies included in the survey.

The good news, as you can see in the table (here), is that the few consumers who are willing to pay for online content appear to be largely indifferent to how much it costs. . .

. . . Noting that there is no one-size-fits all solution to charging for content, Harmon said paid access is not going to be the “silver bullet to save the newspaper industry.”

To the degree its is successful at all, he continued, publishers have to approach charging for content “as a new business opportunity, not simply as a means of walling off content to defend print.”. . READ FULL STORY

Kris Nissen, the head of Volkswagen Motorsport has put to rest, for the time being at least, hopes regarding a possible Volkswagen take at the IndyCar program. Despite the fact that VW, together with Audi, Porsche and Honda, have entered talks with IndyCar for future engine-rule packages, set to be introduced in 2012, Nissen says it is unlikely VW will enter the series in the near future. The main reason, as expected, is financial related.

"I am not 100 per cent sure of the l… (read more)

Wade Roush wrote:

Xconomy’s Battle of the Tech Bands has become a welcome wintertime ritual in Cambridge: every January or February we get a bunch of loud, enthusiastic musicians together with a loud, enthusiastic crowd at the Middle East Night Club for a night of hot tunes, bravura performances, and audience voting. But this year—on February 4, to be exact—we’re trying something a little different.

Usually, we invite bands from tech companies around the Boston area to apply to compete, with judges selecting the finalists—and we’ll likely return to that format next year. But this time we decided to bring together past standouts from all three of Xconomy’s previous battles in Boston and Seattle for a grand East Coast vs. West Coast play-off that should put an end to all future questions about which edge of the continent is the most talented.

And believe me, the Seattle bands are ready to strut their stuff for a Boston audience. One of the two bands, Juda’s Wake, offered a dose of trash talk in advance of the battle, while the other, Lions Ambition, is a bit more restrained.

“We’re getting’ prepped for it and can’t wait to bring some Seattle thunder to Boston!” says Jim Dixon, bassist/vocalist for Juda’s Wake, which represents Microsoft. The heavy metal group’s material is loud, edgy, and rhythmically intricate, showing the influence of groups such as Tool, Disturbed, Marilyn Manson, Rush, and Static X.

Lions Ambition, an upbeat six-member hip-hop/rap/rock ensemble representing Boeing, offers a slightly more lamb-like preview. “I think we do the best as the humble guest,” says Frankie Starr, who shares the group’s MC/vocals role with Marlon Turner. “We’ll let the music and our performance do the talking and have it speak for itself. Looking forward to seeing Boston and competing.”

A big shout-out to Brad Feld, the co-founder of Mobius Venture Capital, Foundry Group, and venture incubator TechStars, for picking up the tab for the two Seattle bands’ travels to Boston. TechStars recently announced, by the way, that it will host a Seattle startup bootcamp session this year—and TechStars Boston executive director Shawn Broderick will be on hand on February 4 as a guest-celebrity judge to help us choose our traditional “Most Innovative Band” prize.

I haven’t seen either of the Seattle bands play, but I have seen their competition, and it will be stiff. The Seattle groups are going up against DeadBeat Darling, a pop/dub/electronica band that won the Audience Favorite award at the inaugural Battle of the Tech Bands in 2008, and The Dirty Truckers, a country-rock-soul band that took the same prize in 2009. Deadbeat Darling formerly represented Akamai and now represents Pictela, a New York cloud computing startup funded by Avalon Ventures through Cambridge-based partner Rich Levandov. The Dirty Truckers represent Boston-based American Well.

You can get tickets for the showdown here. They’re $25 in advance at $35 at the door, and we’ll be donating the net proceeds to two local educational non-profits: Science Club for Girls and Year Up Boston.

As always, we’ll be giving away some fabulous door prizes at the battle, including Roomba robot vacuum cleaners donated by Bedford, MA-based iRobot. We’ll have more to announce on that front soon, and we’ll also be letting you know about the prizes for which our four bands are competing.

Buy your tickets now, and be sure to bring your cell phones to the battle, as you’ll be able to vote for your favorite band via text message, using an interactive display system provided by our event sponsor Aerva of Cambridge. Our other event sponsors include Microsoft and McNamee Lawrence & Co., and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce is an event partner.

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KNOXVILLE — Melanie Deaderick spent much of her career working in various kinds of science laboratories.

But after leaving that work and spending several years caring for aging parents, she was ready for a change.

“I wanted to use the other part of my brain,” she said. “I wanted to do something for me.”

After watching a chefs’ cook-off at the Market Square Farmer’s Market, she decided that cooking was her new recipe for life.

Deaderick is one of 19 students who will graduate tonight from the Culinary Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This is the institute’s sixth graduating class.

The graduation — which consists of the students cooking a gourmet dinner for 150 invited guests — will be held at 7 p.m. at the UT Visitors Center near the corner of Neyland Drive and Kingston Pike.

“This is no ordinary graduation, because the students have to prepare their ‘final exam,’” said John Antun, founding director of the Culinary Institute and assistant professor of hotel, restaurant and tourism management. Antun, a certified executive chef with a doctorate in higher education administration, has spent more than 40 years in the hospitality industry and opened and operated four successful restaurants in the New York metropolitan area.

“The 19 graduating students worked on designing an elaborate culinary experience for their guests of the graduation and their instructors. This gave them the opportunity to not only prepare a fine meal, but also to show off to their friends and families,” Antun said.

The Culinary Institute provides students with professional culinary instruction. Appealing to both food service professionals and epicureans like Deaderick, the 10-month program, offered by the Department of Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management of the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, covers topics including safety and sanitation, the art of tasting, knife skills and ice sculpting.

Students who complete the program receive a credentialing Certificate in Culinary Arts and the ServSafe Food Service Sanitation certification, valid for five years.

Deaderick said attending the Culinary Institute has changed the way she looks at restaurants, at grocery stores and at food. She’s started up an Ethnic Restaurant Adventures group that tries out a new restaurant every month and she’s joined the “slow food movement,” a group dedicated to counteracting fast food and fast life.

“I want to become a better baker, a food teacher, a food writer,” she said.

Here are the students graduating from the Culinary Institute tonight:

• David Bird, Knoxville
• Cody Boring, Maryville
• Thomas Brackin, hometown not listed
• Robert E. Cook, Farragut
• Melanie Deaderick, Knoxville
• Kyle Korn, Vonore
• Megan Lochridge, Knoxville
• Melinda Moore, Knoxville
• Robert Morgan, Knoxville
• Amie Phillips, Caryville
• Paul J. Predhomme, Oak Ridge
• Justin Reese, Knoxville
• Lindsey Reynolds, Powell
• Robert E. Robinson, Knoxville
• Drew Rout, Knoxville
• Jenna Smith, Franklin, N.C.
• Daniel Thomason, Knoxville
• Robert B. Thompson, Knoxville
• Shannon F. Welch, Knoxville

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C O N T A C T :

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, [email protected])

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/01/11/the-holocaust-we-will-not-see/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Toyota has announced that by 2013 it will have 100 fuel cell vehicles on the road for demonstration and testing. This is two years ahead of the previously announced large scale rollout of commercial production hydrogen cars in 2015.

Up to this point, Honda, General Motors, BMW and Daimler are the automakers who have had large numbers of hydrogen cars on the road for demonstration and testing. BMW has already announced they are scaling back efforts on their hydrogen vehicles.

Some have criticized Toyota (the world’s leading car producer) of being behind the other automakers in development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Since Toyota has pioneered hybrid technology and presumably now plug-in hybrid technology it has made many wonder why the Japanese automaker has only been dipping its toe into hydrogen, so to speak.

But, while Toyota has not been a leader in hydrogen fuel cell technology they have not exactly been lollygagging either. Since 2002, they have kept improving their Toyota FCHV SUV’s and now have a fleet of 20 such vehicles in real world testing.

In fact, in August 2009, Toyota ran a couple of tests with their newest FCHV Adv and found the vehicle to have a range between 431 miles and 516 miles plus 68.1 mpg depending upon driving conditions. So, what Toyota has done, they have done well.

Now, Toyota has decided to scale up their efforts introducing 100 FCHV Adv SUV’s over the coming months in places that already have hydrogen fueling station clusters (California and New York) plus locations that will be building H2 fueling stations in the near future.

One reason is that like the other automakers, Toyota wants to put pressure on business and government to rollout more stations to refuel their vehicles. Another reason is that Toyota sees hydrogen as the future and wants to be right there in the thick of competition when FCV’s start to catch on quickly.