Latest news with #Fords
Belfast Telegraph
an hour ago
- Automotive
- Belfast Telegraph
Dan Harper admits his disappointment as drive-through penalty dents Detroit Grand Prix challenge
The reprimand in the closing stages of the series' Fourth Round – the Detroit Grand Prix – meant Harper and his Paul Miller Racing team-mate Max Hesse crossed the line seventh. It was meted out by stewards after Hesse was deemed to have made contact with one of the Fords as he attempted to find a way past, with the penalty costing them valuable time. Despite struggling to get their BMW M4 GT3 in the right operating window on the low-grip, street-based circuit, they still managed to bag a second-row start for the 100-minute race. That laid the foundations for a potential high points haul and even a silverware challenge – and Harper started in positive fashion as he moved ahead of the sister Paul Miller Racing car when the lights went out. He maintained the position throughout his stint before he handed the reins to Hesse, who kept up his push for a spot in the winners' enclosure. However, the coming-together with the Ford saw both drivers' good work come to nought and leave them provisionally sixth in the standings on 1128 points after four rounds – 170 in arrears of AO Racing Porche duo Klaus Bachler and Laurin Heinrich who lead the table. 'It was a disappointing race to end a tricky few days in Detroit,' reflected the Hillsborough man. 'We struggled through free practice on Friday as we tried to get the car in the right window on the low-grip circuit and could not quite match the pace of our GTD Pro rivals. 'Qualifying in fourth was better than we expected, we were happy with that, and the race started well, getting into the top three, but unfortunately, it slowly unravelled from there. 'Quicker cars were able to jump ahead on pit stop strategy, and then a small mistake from Max led to contact and a penalty. We salvaged some points with seventh, though, and we will push for more next time out,' added Harper, who is next in action across the Atlantic later in June at the 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit in the state of New York. In their own backyard, Ford was handed a popular GTD Pro triumph thanks to the No.46 crew of Seb Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller. They steered their Multimatic Motorsports-run Mustang GT3 to a 1.623-second win from the No.3 Corvette Racing and Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R co-driven by Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims. Pfaff Motorsports' Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 was the last of the podium finishers.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
OpenAI Can Stop Pretending
OpenAI is a strange company for strange times. Valued at $300 billion—roughly the same as seven Fords or one and a half PepsiCos—the AI start-up has an era-defining product in ChatGPT and is racing to be the first to build superintelligent machines. The company is also, to the apparent frustration of its CEO Sam Altman, beholden to its nonprofit status. When OpenAI was founded in 2015, it was meant to be a research lab that would work toward the goal of AI that is 'safe' and 'benefits all of humanity.' There wasn't supposed to be any pressure—or desire, really—to make money. Later, in 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary to better attract investors—the types of people who might otherwise turn to the less scrupulous corporations that dot Silicon Valley. But even then, that part of the organization was under the nonprofit side's control. At the time, it had released no consumer products and capped how much money its investors could make. Then came ChatGPT. OpenAI's leadership had intended for the bot to provide insight into how people would use AI without any particular hope for widespread adoption. But ChatGPT became a hit, kicking 'off a growth curve like nothing we have ever seen,' as Altman wrote in an essay this past January. The product was so alluring that the entire tech industry seemed to pivot overnight into an AI arms race. Now, two and a half years since the chatbot's release, Altman says some half a billion people use the program each week, and he is chasing that success with new features and products—for shopping, coding, health care, finance, and seemingly any other industry imaginable. OpenAI is behaving like a typical business, because its rivals are typical businesses, and massive ones at that: Google and Meta, among others. [Read: OpenAI's ambitions just became crystal clear] Now 2015 feels like a very long time ago, and the charitable origins have turned into a ball and chain for OpenAI. Last December, after facing concerns from potential investors that pouring money into the company wouldn't pay off because of the nonprofit mission and complicated governance structure, the organization announced plans to change that: OpenAI was seeking to transition to a for-profit. The company argued that this was necessary to meet the tremendous costs of building advanced AI models. A nonprofit arm would still exist, though it would separately pursue 'charitable initiatives'—and it would not have any say over the actions of the for-profit, which would convert into a public-benefit corporation, or PBC. Corporate backers appeared satisfied: In March, the Japanese firm Softbank conditioned billions of dollars in investments on OpenAI changing its structure. Resistance came as swiftly as the new funding. Elon Musk—a co-founder of OpenAI who has since created his own rival firm, xAI, and seems to take every opportunity to undermine Altman—wrote on X that OpenAI 'was funded as an open source, nonprofit, but has become a closed source, profit-maximizer.' He had already sued the company for abandoning its founding mission in favor of financial gain, and claimed that the December proposal was further proof. Many unlikely allies emerged soon after. Attorneys general in multiple states, nonprofit groups, former OpenAI employees, outside AI experts, economists, lawyers, and three Nobel laureates all have raised concerns about the pivot, even petitioning to submit briefs to Musk's lawsuit. OpenAI backtracked, announcing a new plan earlier this month that would have the nonprofit remain in charge. Steve Sharpe, a spokesperson for OpenAI, told me over email that the new proposed structure 'puts us on the best path to' build a technology 'that could become one of the most powerful and beneficial tools in human history.' (The Atlantic entered into a corporate partnership with OpenAI in 2024.) Yet OpenAI's pursuit of industry-wide dominance shows no real signs of having hit a roadblock. The company has a close relationship with the Trump administration and is leading perhaps the biggest AI infrastructure buildout in history. Just this month, OpenAI announced a partnership with the United Arab Emirates and an expansion into personal gadgets—a forthcoming 'family of devices' developed with Jony Ive, former chief design officer at Apple. For-profit or not, the future of AI still appears to be very much in Altman's hands. Why all the worry about corporate structure anyway? Governance, boardroom processes, legal arcana—these things are not what sci-fi dreams are made of. Yet those concerned with the societal dangers that generative AI, and thus OpenAI, pose feel these matters are of profound importance. The still more powerful artificial 'general' intelligence, or AGI, that OpenAI and its competitors are chasing could theoretically cause mass unemployment, worsen the spread of misinformation, and violate all sorts of privacy laws. In the highest-flung doomsday scenarios, the technology brings about civilizational collapse. Altman has expressed these concerns himself—and so OpenAI's 2019 structure, which gave the nonprofit final say over the for-profit's actions, was meant to guide the company toward building the technology responsibly instead of rushing to release new AI products, sell subscriptions, and stay ahead of competitors. 'OpenAI's nonprofit mission, together with the legal structures committing it to that mission, were a big part of my decision to join and remain at the company,' Jacob Hilton, a former OpenAI employee who contributed to ChatGPT, among other projects, told me. In April, Hilton and a number of his former colleagues, represented by the Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, wrote a letter to the court hearing Musk's lawsuit, arguing that a large part of OpenAI's success depended on its commitment to safety and the benefit of humanity. To renege on, or at least minimize, that mission was a betrayal. The concerns extend well beyond former employees. Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who last year received a Nobel Prize for his AI research, told me that OpenAI's original structure would better help 'prevent a super intelligent AI from ever wanting to take over.' Hinton is one of the Nobel laureates who has publicly opposed the tech company's for-profit shift, alongside the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Oliver Hart. The three academics, joining a number of influential lawyers, economists, and AI experts, in addition to several former OpenAI employees, including Hilton, signed an open letter in April urging the attorneys general in Delaware and California—where the company's nonprofit was incorporated and where the company is headquartered, respectively—to closely investigate the December proposal. According to its most recent tax filing, OpenAI is intended to build AGI 'that safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,' so disempowering the nonprofit seemed, to the signatories, self-evidently contradictory. Read: 'We're definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI' In its initial proposal to transition to a for-profit, OpenAI still would have had some accountability as a public-benefit corporation: A PBC legally has to try to make profits for shareholders alongside pursuing a designated 'public benefit' (in this case, building 'safe' and 'beneficial' AI as outlined in OpenAI's founding mission). In its December announcement, OpenAI described the restructure as 'the next step in our mission.' But Michael Dorff, another signatory to the open letter and a law professor at UCLA who studies public-benefit corporations, explained to me that PBCs aren't necessarily an effective way to bring about public good. 'They are not great enforcement tools,' he said—they can 'nudge' a company toward a given cause but do not give regulators much authority over that commitment. (Anthropic and xAI, two of OpenAI's main competitors, are also public-benefit corporations.) OpenAI's proposed conversion also raised a whole other issue—a precedent for taking resources accrued under charitable intentions and repurposing them for profitable pursuits. And so yet another coalition, composed of nonprofits and advocacy groups, wrote its own petition for OpenAI's plans to be investigated, with the aim of preventing charitable organizations from being leveraged for financial gain in the future. Regulators, it turned out, were already watching. Three days after OpenAI's December announcement of the plans to revoke nonprofit oversight, Kathy Jennings, the attorney general of Delaware, notified the court presiding over Musk's lawsuit that her office was reviewing the proposed restructure to ensure that the corporation was fulfilling its charitable interest to build AI that benefits all of humanity. California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, was reviewing the restructure, as well. This ultimately led OpenAI to change plans. 'We made the decision for the nonprofit to stay in control after hearing from civic leaders and having discussions with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware,' Altman wrote in a letter to OpenAI employees earlier this month. The for-profit, meanwhile, will still transition to a PBC. The new plan is not yet a done deal: The offices of the attorneys general told me that they are reviewing the new proposal. Microsoft, OpenAI's closest corporate partner, has not yet agreed to the new structure. One could be forgiven for wondering what all the drama is for. Amid tension over OpenAI's corporate structure, the organization's corporate development hasn't so much as flinched. In just the past few weeks, the company has announced a new CEO of applications, someone to directly oversee and expand business operations; OpenAI for Countries, an initiative focused on building AI infrastructure around the world; and Codex, a powerful AI 'agent' that does coding tasks. To OpenAI, these endeavors legitimately contribute to benefiting humanity: building more and more useful AI tools; bringing those tools and the necessary infrastructure to run them to people around the world; drastically increasing the productivity of software engineers. No matter OpenAI's ultimate aims, in a race against Google and Meta, some commercial moves are necessary to stay ahead. And enriching OpenAI's investors and improving people's lives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The greater issue is this: There is no universal definition for 'safe' or 'beneficial' AI. A chatbot might help doctors process paperwork faster and help a student float through high school without learning a thing; an AI research assistant could help climate scientists arrive at novel insights while also consuming huge amounts of water and fossil fuels. Whatever definition OpenAI applies will be largely determined by its board. Altman, in his May letter to employees, contended that OpenAI is on the best path 'to continue to make rapid, safe progress and to put great AI in the hands of everyone.' But everyone, in this case, has to trust OpenAI's definition of safe progress. The nonprofit has not always been the most effective check on the company. In 2023, the nonprofit board—which then and now had 'control' over the for-profit subsidiary—removed Altman from his position as CEO. But the company's employees revolted, and he was reinstated shortly thereafter with the support of Microsoft. In other words, 'control' on paper does not always amount to much in reality. Sharpe, the OpenAI spokesperson, said the nonprofit will be able to appoint and remove directors to OpenAI's separate for-profit board, but declined to clarify whether its board will be able to remove executives (such as the CEO). The company is 'continuing to work through the specific governance mandate in consultation with relevant stakeholders,' he said. Sharpe also told me that OpenAI will remove the cap on shareholder returns, which he said will satisfy the conditions for SoftBank's billions of dollars in investment. A top SoftBank executive has said 'nothing has really changed' with OpenAI's restructure, despite the nonprofit retaining control. If investors are now satisfied, the underlying legal structure is irrelevant. Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, wrote in a statement that 'SoftBank pulled back the curtain on OpenAI's corporate theater and said the quiet part out loud. OpenAI's recent 'restructuring' proposal is nothing but window dressing.' Lessig, the lawyer who represented the former OpenAI employees, told me that 'it's outrageous that we are allowing the development of this potentially catastrophic technology with nobody at any level doing any effective oversight of it.' Two years ago, Altman, in Senate testimony, seemed to agree with that notion: He told lawmakers that 'regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks' of powerful AI. But earlier this month, only a few days after writing to his employees and investors that 'as AI accelerates, our commitment to safety grows stronger,' he told the Senate something else: Too much regulation would be 'disastrous' for America's AI industry. Perhaps—but it might also be in the best interests of humanity. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Business
- Atlantic
OpenAI Can Stop Pretending
OpenAI is a strange company for strange times. Valued at $300 billion—roughly the same as seven Fords or one and a half PepsiCos—the AI start-up has an era-defining product in ChatGPT and is racing to be the first to build superintelligent machines. The company is also, to the apparent frustration of its CEO Sam Altman, beholden to its nonprofit status. When OpenAI was founded in 2015, it was meant to be a research lab that would work toward the goal of AI that is 'safe' and 'benefits all of humanity.' There wasn't supposed to be any pressure—or desire, really—to make money. Later, in 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary to better attract investors—the types of people who might otherwise turn to the less scrupulous corporations that dot Silicon Valley. But even then, that part of the organization was under the nonprofit side's control. At the time, it had released no consumer products and capped how much money its investors could make. Then came ChatGPT. OpenAI's leadership had intended for the bot to provide insight into how people would use AI without any particular hope for widespread adoption. But ChatGPT became a hit, kicking 'off a growth curve like nothing we have ever seen,' as Altman wrote in an essay this past January. The product was so alluring that the entire tech industry seemed to pivot overnight into an AI arms race. Now, two and a half years since the chatbot's release, Altman says some half a billion people use the program each week, and he is chasing that success with new features and products—for shopping, coding, health care, finance, and seemingly any other industry imaginable. OpenAI is behaving like a typical business, because its rivals are typical businesses, and massive ones at that: Google and Meta, among others. Now 2015 feels like a very long time ago, and the charitable origins have turned into a ball and chain for OpenAI. Last December, after facing concerns from potential investors that pouring money into the company wouldn't pay off because of the nonprofit mission and complicated governance structure, the organization announced plans to change that: OpenAI was seeking to transition to a for-profit. The company argued that this was necessary to meet the tremendous costs of building advanced AI models. A nonprofit arm would still exist, though it would separately pursue 'charitable initiatives'—and it would not have any say over the actions of the for-profit, which would convert into a public-benefit corporation, or PBC. Corporate backers appeared satisfied: In March, the Japanese firm Softbank conditioned billions of dollars in investments on OpenAI changing its structure. Resistance came as swiftly as the new funding. Elon Musk—a co-founder of OpenAI who has since created his own rival firm, xAI, and seems to take every opportunity to undermine Altman— wrote on X that OpenAI 'was funded as an open source, nonprofit, but has become a closed source, profit-maximizer.' He had already sued the company for abandoning its founding mission in favor of financial gain, and claimed that the December proposal was further proof. Many unlikely allies emerged soon after. Attorneys general in multiple states, nonprofit groups, former OpenAI employees, outside AI experts, economists, lawyers, and three Nobel laureates all have raised concerns about the pivot, even petitioning to submit briefs to Musk's lawsuit. OpenAI backtracked, announcing a new plan earlier this month that would have the nonprofit remain in charge. Steve Sharpe, a spokesperson for OpenAI, told me over email that the new proposed structure 'puts us on the best path to' build a technology 'that could become one of the most powerful and beneficial tools in human history.' (The Atlantic entered into a corporate partnership with OpenAI in 2024.) Yet OpenAI's pursuit of industry-wide dominance shows no real signs of having hit a roadblock. The company has a close relationship with the Trump administration and is leading perhaps the biggest AI infrastructure buildout in history. Just this month, OpenAI announced a partnership with the United Arab Emirates and an expansion into personal gadgets—a forthcoming ' family of devices ' developed with Jony Ive, former chief design officer at Apple. For-profit or not, the future of AI still appears to be very much in Altman's hands. Why all the worry about corporate structure anyway? Governance, boardroom processes, legal arcana—these things are not what sci-fi dreams are made of. Yet those concerned with the societal dangers that generative AI, and thus OpenAI, pose feel these matters are of profound importance. The still more powerful artificial 'general' intelligence, or AGI, that OpenAI and its competitors are chasing could theoretically cause mass unemployment, worsen the spread of misinformation, and violate all sorts of privacy laws. In the highest-flung doomsday scenarios, the technology brings about civilizational collapse. Altman has expressed these concerns himself—and so OpenAI's 2019 structure, which gave the nonprofit final say over the for-profit's actions, was meant to guide the company toward building the technology responsibly instead of rushing to release new AI products, sell subscriptions, and stay ahead of competitors. 'OpenAI's nonprofit mission, together with the legal structures committing it to that mission, were a big part of my decision to join and remain at the company,' Jacob Hilton, a former OpenAI employee who contributed to ChatGPT, among other projects, told me. In April, Hilton and a number of his former colleagues, represented by the Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, wrote a letter to the court hearing Musk's lawsuit, arguing that a large part of OpenAI's success depended on its commitment to safety and the benefit of humanity. To renege on, or at least minimize, that mission was a betrayal. The concerns extend well beyond former employees. Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who last year received a Nobel Prize for his AI research, told me that OpenAI's original structure would better help 'prevent a super intelligent AI from ever wanting to take over.' Hinton is one of the Nobel laureates who has publicly opposed the tech company's for-profit shift, alongside the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Oliver Hart. The three academics, joining a number of influential lawyers, economists, and AI experts, in addition to several former OpenAI employees, including Hilton, signed an open letter in April urging the attorneys general in Delaware and California—where the company's nonprofit was incorporated and where the company is headquartered, respectively—to closely investigate the December proposal. According to its most recent tax filing, OpenAI is intended to build AGI 'that safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,' so disempowering the nonprofit seemed, to the signatories, self-evidently contradictory. In its initial proposal to transition to a for-profit, OpenAI still would have had some accountability as a public-benefit corporation: A PBC legally has to try to make profits for shareholders alongside pursuing a designated 'public benefit' (in this case, building 'safe' and 'beneficial' AI as outlined in OpenAI's founding mission). In its December announcement, OpenAI described the restructure as 'the next step in our mission.' But Michael Dorff, another signatory to the open letter and a law professor at UCLA who studies public-benefit corporations, explained to me that PBCs aren't necessarily an effective way to bring about public good. 'They are not great enforcement tools,' he said—they can 'nudge' a company toward a given cause but do not give regulators much authority over that commitment. (Anthropic and xAI, two of OpenAI's main competitors, are also public-benefit corporations.) OpenAI's proposed conversion also raised a whole other issue—a precedent for taking resources accrued under charitable intentions and repurposing them for profitable pursuits. And so yet another coalition, composed of nonprofits and advocacy groups, wrote its own petition for OpenAI's plans to be investigated, with the aim of preventing charitable organizations from being leveraged for financial gain in the future. Regulators, it turned out, were already watching. Three days after OpenAI's December announcement of the plans to revoke nonprofit oversight, Kathy Jennings, the attorney general of Delaware, notified the court presiding over Musk's lawsuit that her office was reviewing the proposed restructure to ensure that the corporation was fulfilling its charitable interest to build AI that benefits all of humanity. California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, was reviewing the restructure, as well. This ultimately led OpenAI to change plans. 'We made the decision for the nonprofit to stay in control after hearing from civic leaders and having discussions with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware,' Altman wrote in a letter to OpenAI employees earlier this month. The for-profit, meanwhile, will still transition to a PBC. The new plan is not yet a done deal: The offices of the attorneys general told me that they are reviewing the new proposal. Microsoft, OpenAI's closest corporate partner, has not yet agreed to the new structure. One could be forgiven for wondering what all the drama is for. Amid tension over OpenAI's corporate structure, the organization's corporate development hasn't so much as flinched. In just the past few weeks, the company has announced a new CEO of applications, someone to directly oversee and expand business operations; OpenAI for Countries, an initiative focused on building AI infrastructure around the world; and Codex, a powerful AI 'agent' that does coding tasks. To OpenAI, these endeavors legitimately contribute to benefiting humanity: building more and more useful AI tools; bringing those tools and the necessary infrastructure to run them to people around the world; drastically increasing the productivity of software engineers. No matter OpenAI's ultimate aims, in a race against Google and Meta, some commercial moves are necessary to stay ahead. And enriching OpenAI's investors and improving people's lives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The greater issue is this: There is no universal definition for 'safe' or 'beneficial' AI. A chatbot might help doctors process paperwork faster and help a student float through high school without learning a thing; an AI research assistant could help climate scientists arrive at novel insights while also consuming huge amounts of water and fossil fuels. Whatever definition OpenAI applies will be largely determined by its board. Altman, in his May letter to employees, contended that OpenAI is on the best path 'to continue to make rapid, safe progress and to put great AI in the hands of everyone.' But everyone, in this case, has to trust OpenAI's definition of safe progress. The nonprofit has not always been the most effective check on the company. In 2023, the nonprofit board—which then and now had 'control' over the for-profit subsidiary— removed Altman from his position as CEO. But the company's employees revolted, and he was reinstated shortly thereafter with the support of Microsoft. In other words, 'control' on paper does not always amount to much in reality. Sharpe, the OpenAI spokesperson, said the nonprofit will be able to appoint and remove directors to OpenAI's separate for-profit board, but declined to clarify whether its board will be able to remove executives (such as the CEO). The company is 'continuing to work through the specific governance mandate in consultation with relevant stakeholders,' he said. Sharpe also told me that OpenAI will remove the cap on shareholder returns, which he said will satisfy the conditions for SoftBank's billions of dollars in investment. A top SoftBank executive has said 'nothing has really changed' with OpenAI's restructure, despite the nonprofit retaining control. If investors are now satisfied, the underlying legal structure is irrelevant. Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, wrote in a statement that 'SoftBank pulled back the curtain on OpenAI's corporate theater and said the quiet part out loud. OpenAI's recent 'restructuring' proposal is nothing but window dressing.' Lessig, the lawyer who represented the former OpenAI employees, told me that 'it's outrageous that we are allowing the development of this potentially catastrophic technology with nobody at any level doing any effective oversight of it.' Two years ago, Altman, in Senate testimony, seemed to agree with that notion: He told lawmakers that 'regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks' of powerful AI. But earlier this month, only a few days after writing to his employees and investors that 'as AI accelerates, our commitment to safety grows stronger,' he told the Senate something else: Too much regulation would be 'disastrous' for America's AI industry. Perhaps—but it might also be in the best interests of humanity.
Motor Trend
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
Get In, Losers—China's Driving the Car-Biz Bus
I first traveled to China in 2000 as a tourist, and as luck would have it, my arrival hotel was across the street from the hall where doors were opening on the first media day of the Beijing Motor Show. Tempting as it was to try to talk my way in there with my business card, tourist visa, and old-school camera, I stuck to the tour-group itinerary—Great Wall, Forbidden City, and a Chinese opera (an ear-splitting agony I vowed never to endure again). But the fact that a hotel that close to an auto show was billeting tour groups speaks volumes to the turn-of-the-millennium state of the Chinese car biz. 0:00 / 0:00 See All 9 Photos Front-end photo comparison shows uncanny resemblance between China's Chery QQ3 and South Korea's Daewoo Matiz (aka Chevy Sprint). I embarked on that trip knowing next to nothing about the car scene in China. Japanese cars had spent a few decades morphing from junk to state-of-the-art in the U.S. market, and Korean-made ones were making that transition way faster. The Chinese-made vehicles our tour buses were dicing with on the roads seemed decades behind the Koreans, and it appeared the masses were mostly getting around on two wheels. In those days the joke was, 'R&D in China means receive and duplicate,' and indeed China's Chery QQ had just launched as a complete knockoff of the Daewoo Matiz. See All 9 Photos The Markus family visits the Forbidden City in 2000. That's Frank on the left, next to his mom. 25 Years' Worth of Massive Change The political climate then versus now certainly couldn't have been more different. The Chinese people we encountered back then seemed genuinely thankful for America's help in freeing them from Japan's ugly occupation of their country prior to and during WWII, for which they were darned grateful. (Buick's popularity as a brand in China partly stems from imagery of our army generals riding around in them.) Today, the average person on the street is confused by (and pretty pissed off about) our tariff policy, as it stands to make their lives difficult, too. See All 9 Photos The Markus family tours the Great Wall in 2000. Now as then, I'm neither a political nor a business reporter, so I don't keep religious tabs on every nuance of international trade, but I've been aware of the disadvantageous (to the U.S.) and one-sided automotive tech transfer that's occurred with China over the past quarter century. China enjoys a planned economy, and the automotive plan around the time of my 2000 visit was this: Foreign automakers that desire access to our billions of buyers must build cars here in a 50/50 joint venture with a Chinese automaker that is granted access to all your technology and intellectual property. Basically, 'to sell cars here, you must show us how you design and build them.' Had America had a central planning commission, we might have nixed that plan, but the GMs and Fords of the world couldn't resist the access to China's burgeoning market. Even outside of these arrangements, it seems fair to say that international patent law enforcement has been a little lax, to put it mildly. And, of course, one-party rule prevents China's grand plan from drastically changing every few years. See All 9 Photos Man moves his car from blocking tour bus in 2000. By everything I was able to determine during this most recent visit, the Chinese were quick studies and have zoomed past us in the car development game. The present and future is software-defined vehicles, and China is long-suited in the software, firmware, and hardware engineering talent needed to develop them—with many engineers having been schooled in the U.S.A. Can you name an American or European automaker that has designed and developed its own silicon chip capable of outperforming Nvidia's offerings while using less power? I can't, but I came across two Chinese automakers on the floor at Auto Shanghai 2025 (Nio and Xpeng) that have, and I may have missed others. See All 9 Photos Bikes seemed to outnumber cars in 2000. Now, most of the bikes you see are ride-share rentals. A stereotype/misimpression many Americans have of the Chinese is that they are less creative and individualistic, but individualism is now revered here, which is why the roadways are jammed with so many bright, pastel, and otherwise vibrantly colored cars. Well, that and the fact that people generally order their cars, because delivery often takes just a few weeks. And car styling in China has advanced rapidly in recent years, if the Shanghai show floor is any indication. See All 9 Photos The Porsche Taycan influenced the design of many Chinese cars including the Xiaomi SU7. Sure, there's still plenty of copycatting. China has fallen hard for the look of the Porsche Taycan and Panamera, because most automakers offer a reasonable facsimile of those designs, in both their fastback and turismo/wagon guises. (I was told the actual Taycan itself has fallen out of favor, as folks view its electrical architecture as outdated.) The Ora Ballet Cat is a pure VW Beetle knockoff (upsized and given four doors), and many would-be rivals to the global bestselling Tesla Model Y bear more than a passing resemblance to that ubiquitous original. See All 9 Photos To keep the proportions looking right, the four-door Ora Ballet Cat is way bigger than any VW Beetle, New or vintage. Government Planning Advantages Come with Less (and More) Cost The European Union devoted quite a bit of time and energy to studying the Chinese auto industry and the degree to which the government subsidizes it, to determine a reasonable and commensurate tariff to levy. I'm not at all sure how they managed that task, arriving at 35 percent on top of an existing 10 percent tariff. How many dollars/Euros is it worth when the government bears all the capital expense of providing land and building a gigantic factory that it then leases back to the automaker? How do you put a tariff value on monetary policy that ensures export-friendly exchange rates? What's the worker wage subsidy of nobody having to pay for healthcare or social security insurance? Any cursory glance at the feature content versus price of some Chinese cars makes it difficult to imagine free labor screwing together the bill of materials for the price being asked, if all said parts had been made by companies that pay their employees reasonable wages and benefits and while returning shareholder value. Chinese streets seem to be filled by happy citizens enjoying consumerism about on par with our own. Shopping malls are filled with designer brands and dining out on amazing food is crazy cheap. Chinese citizens and residents don't dream of owning a home and the land under it, because the government essentially owns all the real estate. Most people rent, but folks who are able to buy an apartment, house, or building enter a 70-year lease on the land it sits on. This keeps the economy planners' options open, drastically reducing 'eminent domain' red tape. Of course, America's younger generations find themselves tempering their own homeownership dreams for entirely different reasons. See All 9 Photos Beijing was never as bad as Xian, and they're both much cleaner now, but the air quality is not up to North American standards. The pace at which stuff can happen in a planned economy is utterly mind-blowing. An auto factory's groundbreaking to Job One rolling off a line can take as little as two years. Giant apartment blocks go up in a heartbeat. Planned economies certainly are efficient. Of course, a pristine environment has yet to top the planners' priority list, so while air quality has improved since my 2000 visit (my lungs never ached this time), it's still way behind our own. I was aware of the curtailed speech freedom. China is like one big corporation, with everybody toeing the company line. Global leadership in autonomous driving has been part of 'The Plan' for quite some time, but a few days before my arrival there was a nasty wreck involving a vehicle navigating on its ADAS systems. As a result, the government announced new regulations on the development and marketing of autonomous driving technology. The feature content versus price of some Chinese cars makes it difficult to imagine free labor screwing together the bill of materials for the price being asked. Can the U.S. Get Back in Gear? So what were my big takeaways? America (like Europe) seems to have become a passenger on the automobility bus, which China is now driving. Our government (including presidents from both parties) has effectively barred Chinese EVs from our market. And although there has been some talk of turning the tables—making U.S. market access contingent upon 50/50 JVs with tech transfer—I sense it's way too late for that to help. In hindsight, we probably should have also offered every Chinese engineering graduate of a U.S. institution a sweetheart deal to stay here in the land of the free instead of hassling them with anti-immigrant visa and green-card hurdles, essentially forcing them to return home. This toothpaste is all out of the tube for good, I'm afraid, and our continuing lack of investment in education seems sure to force us ever farther toward the back of the line. Instead, our current leadership seems intent on trying to emulate Chinese planned-market efficiency by removing as much of the red tape as possible so the industry can blaze ahead unfettered. Can this really work, absent a China-level plan? Is there a political playbook that could pull us out of our auto-industry nosedive? What if these efforts simply leave us with a dirty environment and end up compromising free speech, while driving our best and brightest to emigrate? Maybe I'm just unable to see the big picture. Maybe the globe's biggest, most fractious democracy will somehow come together and grab the stick, pulling hard enough in the same direction to arrest our current nosedive and regain some altitude. Maybe today's efforts will fix America's auto industry (and others), restoring the classic American dream for our young people. Whatever ends up happening, hopefully it won't take another 25 years for us to figure out how we start driving the bus again.
Scottish Sun
18-05-2025
- Automotive
- Scottish Sun
Treasure trove of 17 legendary Fords on sale for staggering £1.2m – but can YOU guess which will go for biggest price?
One-off red Sierra Cosworth ordered by a Duke stuns bidders – but it wasn't the priciest motor on the day TURBO HEROS Treasure trove of 17 legendary Fords on sale for staggering £1.2m – but can YOU guess which will go for biggest price? Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A REMARKABLE collection of classic Fast Fords have hit auction for an estimated £1.2 million – with several models fetching jaw-dropping prices. The collection of 17 cars went under the hammer at an auction this weekend, drawing big interest from collectors and Ford fanatics alike. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 7 Held at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire on Saturday Credit: Iconic Auctioneers/Triangle News 7 Iconic Ford Sierra Cosworth set to sell for £90,000 – over five times what it was worth back in 80s Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 7 Also in the spotlight was a rare 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth in Rosso Red Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers Held at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire on Saturday, the sale was run by Iconic Auctioneers as part of their Supercar Fest event. It was billed as one of the most impressive line-ups of classic Fords from the '70s, '80s and '90s seen in one place for years. Topping the lot was a 1987 Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, a motorsport-bred machine that is estimated to fetch £120,000. Only 500 were ever built, and this particular one was in prime condition with just over 43,000 miles on the clock. Also in the spotlight was a rare 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth in Rosso Red – the only one ever made in that colour. Originally commissioned by the 14th Duke of Bedford and loaned to him by Ford, it ended up going for £90,000. Another big hitter was a 1993 Escort RS Cosworth Lux in Pacifica Blue, which sold for £100,000. This model was one of the 2,500 early 'big turbo' versions built for homologation, making it highly collectable. A 1985 Escort RS Turbo Series 1, unmodified and with just one owner from new, also made headlines. With 64,000 miles on the clock and kept in near-original condition, it sold for £50,000. There were three Sierra Cosworths in more standard spec that still pulled in serious cash. A black 1986 RS Cosworth with only 10,800 miles sold for £60,000. Meanwhile, a low-mileage 1990 Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth 2WD with just 31,000 miles fetched £40,000. The most unusual backstory belonged to the red Sierra Cosworth. Back in 1986, the Duke of Bedford asked Ford for one in a different colour – Rosso Red. Though initially refused, he managed to have one specially finished through Ford's Special Vehicle Engineering team. It's since been part of the Ford press fleet, changed hands a few times, and was recently restored to its original colour at a cost of over £4,000. An Escort RS Cosworth in Radiant Red with only 12,354 miles was another standout, praised for being in 'time warp' condition. It still had the original stereo, interior trim and even displayed the reg number on the radio display. Several cars were linked to long-term private collections. One RS500 Cosworth had just one owner from new – a former executive from the ad agency handling Ford's marketing back in the '80s. He bought the car from Ogilvy and Mather after clocking 41,000 miles in it as a company car. 7 The auction showed just how much love there still is for these iconic Blue Oval machines Credit: BNPS 7 The thirty-two-year-old Ford Escort RS Cosworth Lux Big Turbo on sale at £100,000 Credit: BNPS 7 The 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth in Rosso Red Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers The cars weren't all six-figure sellers, though. Some went for more accessible prices, if you've got a few tens of thousands to spare. A Moonstone Blue 1991 Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 4WD with 64,000 miles went for around £26,000. Even a few non-Cosworth classics were up for grabs, including a Ford Capri, an early Fiesta, and a 2023 Ford RS200. While they didn't steal the headlines, they still drew interest from the Ford faithful. The auction showed just how much love there still is for these iconic Blue Oval machines. Whether it was for nostalgia, rarity, or pure driving fun, bidders clearly weren't shy about putting their money where their hearts were. Rob Hubbard, Managing Director of Iconic Auctioneers, said: 'This selection of Fast Fords captures the spirit and passion that make these cars so legendary among enthusiasts. From the exclusivity of the Rosso Red Sierra Cosworth to the pristine quality of the Escort RS Cosworth Lux, these vehicles epitomise what Iconic Auctioneers strives to offer – truly exceptional cars at every level.' 7 A turbo charged ten-fold increase Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers
