Mercedes Benz Solex 32 Pajta Carburetor Vergaser E 14513 Oem Nos on 2040-parts.com

CES: GM to open the dashboard to developers

At last year's Autoweek Design Forum, father of the iPod and Nest Labs co-founder Tony Fadell suggested that automakers concentrate on designing and building cars, leaving handset makers to handle infotainment. The latest announcements from Ford and GM -- in conjunction with the International CES -- suggest that automakers would rather treat the dashboard space as a handset. Yesterday, Dearborn, Mich., announced the Ford Developer Program, which opens up Sync to outside application development; now General Motors has announced a similar initiative.

Fiat 500 gets Stop-Start

Flavour of the month, stop-start, and here’s another to add to the list. The Fiat 500 gets Start&Stop (I’ve lost count of the different monikers) as an option on the 1.2 Lounge, using Bosch technology to beef up the system to make it reliable. The Stop/Start also gets another Fiat moniker – Blue&Me – which gives the driver EcoDrive to aid emissions and adds hands-free phone and an entertainment system.

July 13: Pricing the power

I got down to the car to drive home last night at about 11:00 p.m. and found that it had not been charging all day. I had plugged the cord into the wall outlet, plugged the cord into the car and walked off, without peering through the driver's window to see if the little red electrical plug light was on.