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New UAW boss Williams talks tough, vows 'no more concessions'

Dennis Williams, the newly elected president of the UAW, had some tough words for American automakers in his inauguration speech at the 2014 UAW Convention, striking down the possibility of any additional concessions from the 400,000-strong union.
"No more concessions. We are tired of it. Enough is enough," Williams said during his speech. UAW employees have not received a raise in nearly 10 years, according to Reuters.
Considering the recent strong results for Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, the union's demands are likely to carry a bit more weight in next year's negotiations. And considering Williams' tough stance, we could be in for some fireworks once negotiations commence.

Amazon looking to bring Kindle to your next car?

Maybe so. The online retailer and digital media monolith recently announced the Amazon Cloud Player, an application for Ford Sync that allows users to stream media from their Amazon Cloud account directly to a Ford vehicle. This foray into automotive technology got the minds at Gigaom.com thinking about what could be next for Amazon. As Kevin Fitchard writes, the logical step is to make audio versions of your Kindle library selections available in your car. As he points out, Amazon has already laid the groundwork for such a move.
Amazon pulled the sheets back on Whispersync for Voice last year. The tech pairs ebooks with an Audible book for a small extra fee, allowing users to either read along with a narrator or switch between audio and text versions on command. Fitchard says it wouldn't be some great leap to apply the same principles to a car, where voice recognition software would allow users to pause or select chapters without ever taking their eyes off of the road.
It all sounds just fine to us, but Amazon hasn't said a thing about such a move. Still, we wouldn't be surprised to see the company come down this road in the near future just the same.

Ford F-Series Super Duty prototype reduced to smoldering mess of aluminum and steel [UPDATE]

The most important bit of information you need to know after looking through our high-res gallery of images depicting a prototype 2016 Ford F-Series Super Duty pickup truck burning to the ground is that nobody was hurt. There were two engineers inside the vehicle when it caught fire, and both exited to safety.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the truck, which appears to have been testing in Death Valley, appears to be a total loss, minus, of course, whatever information Ford can glean from the conflagration - particularly tracing it back to its root cause. Besides that, we're also expecting the body of the next Super Duty to be hewn from aluminum, as is the case with its smaller brother, the brand-new F-150. Note the little aluminum droppings littering the roadway as apparent proof of that.
Our spy photographers report that it took just 21 minutes for the F-Series Super Duty to burn completely to the ground. The fire appears to have started in the driver-side front wheel well, spreading to engulf the entire front end in three minutes. We can't confirm the source of the blaze, but we're curious if the car's black vinyl cladding, meant to obscure the secrets within, contributed to the fire.