Projected are 50 world and North American new vehicle debuts.
With five weeks to go before the 2020 New York International Auto Show’s press preview days (April 8-9), organizers claim – not without self-interest – that they are moving forward with plans to open the Show as scheduled in the face of the spreading respiratory disease COVID-19, aka coronavirus. The show’s fate of course will be determined by public health departments at the city, state and federal levels. At the moment there is no known vaccine for preventive or ameliorative use against COVID-19.
The US Centers for Disease Control on its website, which is lagging reporting current developments and is being censored or closely monitored by the Trump and Pence Administration says as of today:
- Imported cases of COVID-19 in travelers have been detected in the U.S.
- Person-to-person spread of COVID-19 was first reported among close contacts of returned travelers from Wuhan.
- During the week of February 23, CDC reported community spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 in California (in two places), Oregon and Washington.
- Community spread in Washington resulted in the first death in the United States from COVID-19, as well as the first reported case of COVID-19 in a health care worker, and the first potential outbreak in a long-term care facility.
Ford to Offer All-Electric US Transit in 2022
Customers in Europe will have 18 Ford EVs to buy at the end of 2021.
Ford Transit will debut an all-electric model in the U.S. and Canada for the 2022 model year. Ford says that the regulation prompted line will help businesses lower the cost of ownership while improving city air quality and reducing noise levels. An all-electric Transit is about to go on sale in Europe where cities are increasingly restricting or banning internal combustion engines.
Built in the U.S. with imported parts from lower wage areas, the all-electric Transit will be “connected,” providing fleet owners with in-vehicle high-speed data architecture and cloud-based services to offer unspecified new ways to optimize fleet performance.
Continue reading →