Ford says new Taurus 'is fitted with stealth fighter radar'

Renault

I heard that Renault are doing a joint venture with Ford, combining the Clio with the Taurus and making a CliTaurus.

Apparently good fun to drive, but men will struggle to find it. Regularly parked in hedgerows, etc, etc.

IGMC

VW and the CliTaurus

Indeed.

Not to mention the age-old activity of trying to find a certain mysterious object known to many as Golf SPOTting.

I'll get the other coat...

Amerkins, grumblegrumblegrumble

If I recall, the article also goes on to mention, almost as an afterthought, that the Taurus 2010 turns out around 17 mpg.

Reports that a Ford employee expressed his delight that they could now manage "mpg" rather than "gpm" are unconfirmed.

I mean, come on! It's a saloon car, not HMS Ark Royal.

Simple answer

So much is being spent on "Vision" to allow the cross-pollination of talent with the deep synergies of core provision and dynamic content generation to herald a new wave of pro-active stakeholder buy-in and collateral democratisation....

...that anyone with a clue as to what is going one has either been sacked or quit. This means there's no one about to check facts, or gives to shits about facts.

C'mon...this a company that can't even get their 'phones to work!

I am continually staggered that the Beeb manages to stay on air and actually make any programmes at all!

My Car

My car features rail guns on a par with secret US Navy warships!

Ok, ok it's got some solenoids which are used to lock the door remotely.

It's a Perverse Capitalist Fat Cat Thing, y'all.

Lewis,

That would make the Raptor a flying White Elephant to accompany the Nimrod Pork Pig..... for both appear to be built for an enemy which doesn't materialise ........ but it does swallow up lot of lovely lucre, which is probably the main contract purpose of such Schemes/Projections/Productions/Stories.

But paying through the Nose for Nothing Worthwhile is not an Intelligent thing to do as it Opens up the Narrative Field to Beta Greater Game Players with QuITe AIdDifferent Home/Foreign/Alien Intelligence being Servered Virtually for the Creation of ITs Media Hosted Realities. Or is it imagined/touted/pimped to be any more difficult/a lot more difficult than that Simplicity.

I would of course disagree with the notion that it be any more difficult, having realised and thoroughly betatested IT to prove that it is surprisingly easy.

As surprisingly easy as building and detonating a nuclear bomb, when you know how ....... although HyperRadioProActive IT Missions are many stages more disruptive and infrastructure destructive than any explosive munition can ever be. After all, they are just bigger dumber IEDs, no matter how smart they may be touted/presented.

re: Too many targets #

I think it depends on what you consider targets - if they were all hostile enemy objects in close proximity - yes in trouble. However a radar target probably means blips on the screen which it needs to track even to just eliminate as important/threat - this might include small flocks of birds. Also if it was limited to a hundred - then dropping some anti-radar counter measures may overload it's tracking capability

really though

you just wanted to post that picture didn't you?

Speaking from a position of authority Lewis?

You may well mock, but the statement might have some element of truth to it, even if slightly exaggerated.

There may be all sorts of restrictions on actual bits of F22, and on the more advanced/military specific technologies, but a lot of the underlying aspects are relatively open and have been exploited many times. And reuse of ex-military technology is nothing new.

The basic design of the solid state array, the design rules & manufacturing techniques of the microwave parts, the compact/lightweight signal processors, the signal processing algorithms, the target classification techniques - lots of this stuff is going to be similar & the most likely source for a small, fast, lightweight, low target count radar technology is going to be derived from a airborne fast jet system.

After all, the F22 stuff is quite a few years old now, and even if you can't take the secrets with you an engineer going from a military contractor to an automotive electronics supplier is still going to know much the same stuff and re-use the knowledge the next time they get a similar problem.

Not that I'd know anything about it of course, I only worked on a ton of this stuff for a lot of countries and platform types...

(BTW, I'd humbly suggest your 'distinguished analyst' knows nothing about anything - apart from the cost of a cut down mass produced version of the technology being much cheaper to do, you'd be hard pressed to tell where the technology actually came from - or even if it was just reworked from research papers - and even if *something* had been reused if it wasn't an actual aircraft part or had a potential military application no-one would care. As for shutting down the line... LOL )

Target Rich Environment

> However, one can be sure that it will track or "lock into" (normally the same thing) a hell of a lot more than 64 or even 100 targets

Hmmm.... I don't think over 100 discrete radar blips neccessarily translate into 100 targets. An armoured convoy might easily come into that number particularly if it were traversing an urban area!

But as the author said it's only just gotten that ground capability. So I think you'd be right in 100 targets being high for an aerial environment.

Heh, but I think it's a bit worse than the 640KB limit if you were to hit it as a pilot.

Re: Too many targets #

I was going to say just that. Only early warning aircraft need to track 64+ targets and having a lock on more than 8 is totally pointless because there is not enough armament to fire on them.

Even Russians with their current "engage 360" doctrine for the latest Mig and Su do not try to track and lock that many. It is pointless.

Also, 147 meters at road level to other targets on a road is actually a considerable achievement. I would not dismiss it with so much snigger.

Crucial difference

One of the two vehicles described might deploy a radar homing missile, the other would rather play sitting duck.

@Will Shaw

>> 17 mpg.

To be fair to them, managing to go 17 miles on a piddling little US gallon is quite an achievement.

Mines a scotch, cause if it's in a US pint glass, it only fit a short.

100 targets on the screen, if one of those targets should happen to fall . . .

Here's the advantage of being able to track 100 targets - all this data goes back to the AWACS mothership, and is re-distributed to OTHER F-22s (or other aircraft, tanks, reapers, etc.) in the area - result is a complete overview of the battle-space environment, and F-22s or other air or ground based "assets" can then be most effectively deployed to counter the individual threats. This is "network-centric" warfare. Even though *this* F-22 may not fire a single shot, the information sent from it can (will) be used to unleash a gen-you-wine sh*tstorm on the enemy du jour.

Rule #1 - carry enough gun (check - fully armed F-22 anyone?)

Rule #2 - don't go alone (check - formation of same + F-16s, F-18s, B-2s, etc?)

Rule #3 - have LOTS of backup if you need it (check - and how many megatons would Sir like to order today? Delivered where?)

Only rule for the bad guys to remember - "don't tug on Superman's cape"

Just a thought

And I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here... But why does a car NEED a synthetic aperture RADAR? I've managed to successfully drive around for the last 9 years without driving into anything else, merely identifying and classifying threats with my eyes...

I just don't see it as being a good idea, people are distracted enough when they're driving - surely getting them to rely on RADAR to warn them of what's knocking about around them is a bad thing.

Also, RADAR, not radar - RAdio Direction And Ranging - it's an acronym not a word :p

Cyclist threat?

To shamelessy drag another story that seemed to provoke emotive responses, I have to ask: Does the Taurus radar identify cyclists as a threat?

American made crap

This sort of total-loss-of-contact-with-reality is why the US car companies are mostly in casters-up mode, begging for bailouts from the government. I stopped "buying American" years ago.

Ford Motor Co.

Ford is actually the only one of the "Big Three" US Automakers that isn't financially troubled at the moment. (This is due to the fact they went through their troubles a few years ago.) There has been a car with the Taurus name almost continuously since the the mid-80s, so it is hardly being "revived", although production was temporarily halted a couple of years ago, before another redesign from a mid-size to a full-size sedan (explaining the mileage figure, which is properly reported as 22 MPG combined city/hwy, not 17. Even the city-only figure is 18.).

My question on the RADAR though is what effect it is going to have on RADAR detectors in cars nearby? Are they going to be rendered useless?

what for ?

does it deserve a full article on El Reg ? (ok apart from the cool pic ...)

and what about the youths?

... on the bridge with a bag full of tin foil?

should be good for a larf!

Few questions here

1) How hard/expensive is this going to be to repair when it goes south?

2) Wont somebody think about the cancer causing radio waves?

3) Will this interfere with Police radar for speed enforcement?

4) Will I be able to fry eggs if I point the car at the fridge?

Threat analysis

"we've added a radar that looks at targets and accesses a target as a threat or a non-threat"

If they can hook that thing up to a rack of Hellfires, I'll be all over it. No more problem with slow-driving hicks who can't read the speed limit signs because they flunked kindergarten.

Why ??

Any car of the future is going to have to be able to 'see' what is going on in order to make decisions - htf else is it going to see.

@Gene Cash

You, sir, are TOTALLY on-target...

Too much flash, not enough concentration on things that actually matter, like efficient petrol (gasoline) engines, low-particulate diesel engines, and upgraded interiors and reliability.

Having SAID all that, frankly Ford is probably the best of the US manufacturers for providing well-driving cars, as they lift so much from their EU designs. If you have to buy a family sedan, and you want it American, then the Taurus is a damned good car, much like the Mondeo is in the UK - frankly the Taurus has always been that. Boring, but for a family sedan who cares?

There is a reason why only Ford was able to turn down government stimulus money in the US...and I am proud of them for having done so. I just wish they had kept Land Rover and Jaguar, who benefited enormously from Ford's investment and production knowledge...

"Enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy"(*)

On the road, EVERY other object is a threat - it's just that some have a greater threat value than others.

"Threats" in an Urban travel enviroment would include stupid 13-yr-old mom about to push Baby Chav's stroller into the road, Lycra-clad Cycling Tart trying to hit the speed of sound in the town center, Doddery Old Couple off to collect their pension (oops, not any more! - didn't the UK equivalent of the IRS insist it all go through the banks to prevent 'money laundering'? Or was that just to make it easier for the gubmint to cream more off the top?), iPod-wearing teen crossing the road without thinking about the gasoline-powered death machines hurtling by inches off her shoulder and petrolhead trying to launch his rocket-powered rollerskate off the nearest road hump.

"Threats" in a non-Urban travel environment include Doddery Old Couple in Decrepit Old Volvo doing just over half the speed limit in the middle lane, Company Rep in his German Bulgemobile trying to shout into his phone over the sound of his electric razor while steering with his knees and balancing his Starbucks on top of his satnav, manic trucker short on sleep and close to delivery time, six-legged demi-centaurs in designer jeans, mass-produced 'imitation real fake leather' dude boots and silly hats hiding behind hedges waiting for the only car currently moving in three counties to come along before they start to trot down the middle of the blacktop (despite the nice wide grass strip not 5 foot away), baccy-chewin' Good Ol' Boys who own the road just 'cos they've "been drivin' since before that gol-durned peanut farmer got in the big house (sonny)", and The Man doing 53 on the freeway and watching everyone's front ends dip like crazy as they realise they've got a county mounty on their front porch...

Presumably the Taurus will have some sort of threat assessment routine built in so it can discriminate between some poor sap keeping to his own lane or the occasional pede who remembers that ROADS are for CARS, SIDEWALKS are for PEOPLE, and anything that looks like it might be heading for an attempted co-location in the physical space-time continuum...

I believe Volvo UK are currently running an ad where some great big frack-off 4x4 narrowly misses colliding with a stationary car because some eejit elephant just happens to squirt water all over the windshield as the tank, sorry *car* is approaching a traffic queue at a stop signal, and all due to it's wonderful inbuilt safety features... wonder what that particular safety feature might be... like a short-range RADAR with command authority over the DECU and ABS, perhaps?. (Digital Engine Control Unit, Automatic Braking System). Not sure why they only seem to fit it to the top of the range road-going tank though, surely if they are really *that* concerned about *all* their customers it should be standard fit on all vehicles at no extra cost, nyet?

(*) Learned in Evil Overlord 101.