Autoline This Week - Video

It’s no secret that auto manufacturers are making their cars and trucks lighter for a variety of reasons in a number of ways. On this week’s edition of Autoline, John McElroy talks with three men on the front lines of taking weight out of vehicles including, Ed Moss from Chevrolet, Alcoa’s Randall Scheps and John Van Alstyne of I-Car.

Historians have long chronicled the rough and tumble world of the United Auto Workers union. But few have seen what it was like from the inside, as author Bob Morris did. His father, Ken Morris, was there during the founding of the UAW and held a leadership position for more than 3 decades. Bob has captured it all in a sizzling book called “Built in Detroit” and he joins host John McElroy on this week’s show along with Henry Payne of The Detroit News and Mark Phelan from the Detroit Free Press.

Though manufacturing has been changing the last 25 years many of the workers remained the same. Now as they prepare to retire, how do we get the millennials interested in 21st century factory work? On this week’s Autoline, John McElroy explores that question with Karl Klimek from SquareOne, the SAE’s Chris Ciuca and Tim Grewe from FIRST Robotics.

It was April 14, 1964 the day the world met Mustang. From that historic day in New York to the unveiling of today’s latest pony car, the Mustang has become one of the most beloved automotive icons. On this week’s Autoline, John McElroy welcomes the dream team who brought the 50th anniversary edition to life including: Chief Engineer Dave Pericak; Moray Callum Ford’s VP of Design, and Marketing Manager Steve Ling.

Today people may use Google to search the Internet but someday soon it may be driving their car as well. The search engine giant is also the leader in autonomous vehicle research, though the traditional auto industry is not too far behind. Joining host John McElroy to discuss the future of autonomy on Autoline THIS WEEK is John Capp from General Motors, Steffen Linkenbach from the automotive supplier Continental and Raj Rajkumar from Carnegie Mellon University.

The experts keep saying the future is now when it comes to mobility. And though we’re seeing inroads, there’s still a lot going on in R and D. On Autoline THIS WEEK. John McElroy’s panel discusses where mobility is today and where it’s going. He’s joined by Chris Borroni-Bird from Qualcomm, Jean-Francois Tremblay of Ernst and Young and Jim Sayer from UMTRI (University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute).

Ford dominates the light duty truck market. Its F-150 is and continues to be the top seller so why mess with success by going to an aluminum truck. Join John McElroy on this week’s Autoline along with Raj Nair, Ford’s Group VP for Product Development, the F-150’s Chief Engineer Peter Reyes along with Doug Scott the Marketing Manager for a deep dive on Ford’s aluminum gamble.

OnStar, General Motor’s telecommunications in-car system, is pushing 20 years old next year. That’s nearly two decades of cutting edge safety, security and a variety of other customer-oriented communications; all driven by the blue button on the rear view mirror. The man charged to lead OnStar into its 19th year and beyond is Terry Inch, the company’s Chief Operating Officer. This week he joins John McElroy, CBS Detroit Radio’s Matt Roush along with Mike Wayland from the website MLive.com to talk about the next steps for this unique telecommunications network.

When Autoline took its first trip to China last year, we not only met many members of the fledgling Chinese auto industry, but also several industry veterans who came to this huge country to share their experience. Joining John McElroy on this week’s Autoline are three of those western auto experts including: Jack Perkowski from JFP Holdings; James Hope, Design Director, Chery Motors and Daniel Kirchert, Managing Director, Infiniti China.

Every four years the world’s elite athletes gather in one location for the Winter Olympic games which requires a lot of planning and training by both the teams and the athletes. To pull it off they reach out to corporations for help; and it’s not just the monetary kind these days. This week on Autoline John McElroy looks at what the auto industry is doing for some of these teams and what it gets out of it. Joining John are Trudy Hardy, the head of BMW North American marketing, Florian Schattenmann from Dow and Prof. Dae Hee Kwak, sports marketing specialist from the University of Michigan.

Did you just tweet or post to Facebook before reading this paragraph? That’s what millions of Americans are doing with their phone, tablet or laptop at any second of the day. And that activity is not lost on automakers. All of them have some sort of social media presence. Today on Autoline This Week John McElroy is joined by Mary Henige from GM, Ford’s Scott Monty and Ed Garsten of Chrysler to talk about what their companies are doing in the social media universe.

The last few years haven’t been kind to Honda. With all the strife caused by the tsunami, sales took a huge tumble. But now after some time rebuilding, Honda’s core brands are on the rebound. This week on Autoline, Michael Accavitti, American Honda product and marketing boss, joins host John McElroy, Michelle Krebs from Edmunds.com and Paul Eisenstein of the Detroit Bureau to talk Honda and the road back to the top.

For two decades WardsAuto.com has been choosing what its editors consider the 10 Best Engines of the year. Joining John McElroy to discuss the 20 years of Ten Best Engines as well as this year’s winners are Ward’s editors Drew Winter, Tom Murphy, Christie Schweinsberg and Steve Finlay.

It’s award time again and Autoline has the scoop on the biggest prize for automakers each year: the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards. Joining NACTOY founding member John McElroy on this week’s truck panel are fellow jurors Jack Nerad from Kelly Blue Book and Chris Paukert of Autoblog.com.

It’s award time again and Autoline has the scoop on the biggest prize for automakers each year: the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards. Joining NACTOY founding member John McElroy on the car panel are fellow jurors Larry Webster from Road and Track along with Matt DeLorenzo of Kelly Blue Book.