Innovation

It includes more than $103,600,000 from the city itself.

Columbus, Ohio has earned $140 million to be a living laboratory for the future of transport. Don't act so surprised.

In yet another signal that cars and consumer electronics have become one in the same, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Thursday she will deliver a keynote address during the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In many circles, the prospect of autonomous and self-driving cars taking over American roads is greeted with enthusiasm. Among car enthusiasts, however, the idea of removing the driver from the driving often sounds like a soulless and grim transportation future.

Ford is getting serious about developing more sophisticated technology for its models, and to make things even better, the automaker is opening the new Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto in Silicon Valley. With a former Apple engineer as the center's technical head, the lab is focusing on five areas: connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, customer experience and big data.

In a case of outsourced becoming insourced, 3,000 Hewlett-Packard employees who are devoted to General Motors IT issues will be swapping workplaces, moving to GM and becoming GM employees in order to work on IT issues.

Even if you've never heard of Swiss automotive think tank Rinspeed, don't be surprised if you've seen some of their funky concepts before. Since 1979, they have put out more than twenty concept vehicles that challenge the status quo of transportation. Many of their ideas are wild. But they don't just theorize them as drawings on paper, they actually build them. A famous Walt Disney quote is proudly displayed on Rinspeed's website that says, "If you can dream it, you can do it." Rinspeed has stay

It would be impossible to reinvent the wheel, but reinventing how we get around on one is exactly what small New Zealand-based YikeBike Ltd hopes to do. If you ever see one of these little YikeBikes, you'll quickly notice that it is ridden in a unique fashion. YikeBike hopes to do what the Segway couldn't: take human mobility full-circle.

When you bring together two universities known for their expertise in future transportation technologies and combine them with company leaders and pioneers in the green vehicle industry, you end up with a lot of knowledgeable people packed into a single room at an event called the Cleantech Conference. An event of this magnitude, focusing almost entirely on electric vehicles, is a relatively rare occurrence that should not be missed. Sadly, we'll be missing it.

As Bill Ford continues to promote innovation as the key to recovery for "America's car company," here's an interesting look at another automaker automaker touting its leading edge engineering.

Each year, Automotive News honors automotive suppliers who have developed products that are innovative to the industry. Some of the twenty-two finalists this year include: