The software creates digital simulations that can replace or augment more expensive methods of designing and engineering vehicles, such as wind-tunnel testing of prototypes.
That bought new transport planes and helicopters for the air force, and M-777 howitzers and heavy-armoured transport trucks and engineering vehicles for the army, the better to withstand roadside bombs. (The navy has been less fortunate.) The first Canadian soldiers to arrive in Afghanistan in 2002 wore green camouflage designed for forests, because the army had sold its sand-coloured uniforms.
As senior vice president of global vehicle development, she oversees both designing and engineering of vehicles worldwide.
Hydrogen research is a drop in the bucket compared with the annual cost of, say, engineering new vehicles and getting plants tooled up to build them.
As Ford's investment in electrified vehicles such as Fusion Hybrid increased, so did the size of the Sustainable Mobility Technologies team behind it, said Chuck Gray, Ford chief engineer, Global Core Engineering Hybrid and Electric Vehicles.
ENGADGET: Ford underscores its love of electric cars, spends $135 million to make them happen
The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press both reported Friday that GM is moving the engineers -- who have been working on the fuel-cell technology in the company's advanced development laboratories division -- to the company's core production engineering division, which designs vehicles to be brought into production.
"Being able to provide our customers with the best overall efficiency of any retail EV has always been a key target for the Spark EV engineering team, " said Pam Fletcher, GM executive chief engineer for electrified vehicles.
ENGADGET: Chevy Spark EV rated most efficient retail car with 82-mile range, 119 MPGe
"The good news for customers is that they not only have more choice, but they have faster access to Ford's latest and greatest in fuel-saving technologies and vehicles, " said Joe Bakaj, Ford vice president of Powertrain Engineering.
ENGADGET: Ford underscores its love of electric cars, spends $135 million to make them happen
This means mixing and matching components so that the same engineering and parts can be combined like Lego to produce a wide range of different vehicles.
"Ford's electrified vehicles offer a great combination of efficiency, performance, technology and affordability that we believe will help spur adoption of these advanced vehicles, " says Kevin Layden, director, Ford Electrification Programs and Engineering.
ENGADGET: Ford's 2013 C-Max Energi rolls out 95 MPGe, arrives later this fall
Its regional operations in North America, Europe and Asia (not to mention South America and Australia) operate almost autonomously, selling vehicles like the Focus that are similar but often based on unique designs and engineering.
Raj Nair, Ford's vice president for engineering, says Ford is confident that it has conducted the EPA tests properly on all its vehicles.
Ford wants to also accelerate development of global vehicles that share similar underpinnings, in order to squeeze out even more savings from engineering, manufacturing and marketing.
FORBES: Ford Says CEO Mulally to Stay At Least Through 2014; Successor In Line
It said an engineering inspection carried out in 2011 found it had "deteriorated significantly", and the maximum weight of vehicles was reduced from 18 to 7.5 tonnes.
BBC: A6: Derby's London Road Bridge to close for up to a year
The performance of these vehicles, which is often astounding given their size and weight, owes a lot to small engineering improvements made, in many cases, for other reasons.
Two companies whose vehicles fared well in the Insurance Institute tests say they had already factored more crash scenarios into their engineering.
应用推荐