The closures began Monday, nearly a month before the event, to allow for setup. Motorists should be prepared for heavy traffic and reroutes throughout the event, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Both the CTA and Metra will provide additional service.

More than half of Grant Park will remain open to the public throughout the event, including popular features such as Buckingham Fountain, Butler Field and Lower Hutchinson Field.

All of NASCAR demobilization activities are expected to conclude July 18, the city said.

Last year’s race drew criticism for traffic and limited lakefront accessibility, prompting officials to say setup and takedown time this year would be reduced from 25 days to 19 days. When asked in April to clarify the timeline, city officials said building and taking down the main parts of the course, and the closure of major roads needed to do so, would be reduced by six days.

The city said at the time it did this partly by moving some deliveries of equipment off busy Columbus Drive to Ida B. Wells Drive. That means eight fewer days of lane closures on Columbus, NASCAR said.

Here’s a complete list of street closures throughout the event.

Pre-race activity in Grant Park

• June 10: Ida B. Wells Drive will close from Michigan Avenue to Columbus Drive starting at 12:01 a.m. to allow for construction of the main viewing areas; and limited parking restrictions will be put in place along southbound Columbus Drive between Jackson Drive and Balbo Drive

• June 19 to June 20: Temporary road closure from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on northbound Michigan Avenue from Congress Circle to Jackson Drive to allow for a pedestrian walkway to be installed while viewing structures are being assembled

• June 26 – Beginning at 8 p.m.: Northbound traffic lane closure on Congress Circle

• June 27 – Beginning at 7 p.m.: Curb lane closure of Columbus Drive between Jackson Drive and Roosevelt Road

Significant street closures

• June 27 – Beginning at 7 p.m.: Closure of Jackson Drive between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive

• June 28 – Beginning at 8 a.m.: Closure of Balbo Drive from Columbus Drive to DuSable Lake Shore Drive (intersection will remain open)

• June 28 – Beginning at 7 p.m.: Full closure of Balbo Drive from Michigan Avenue to Columbus Drive

• June 29 – Beginning at 7 p.m.: Southbound lane closure on Columbus Drive from Balbo Drive to Roosevelt Road

• July 1 – Beginning at 1 a.m.: Closure of Columbus Drive between Jackson Drive and Roosevelt Road. Closure of Jackson Drive between Columbus Drive and DuSable Lake Shore Drive

• July 1 – Beginning at 9 p.m.: Closure of southbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive between Randolph Street and McFetridge Drive. Reopening at 6 a.m. on July 2

• July 2 – Beginning at 6 a.m.: Closure of Congress Circle and entrances at Michigan Avenue, Van Buren Street and Harrison Street

• July 4 – Beginning at 9 p.m.: Closure of westbound and eastbound Roosevelt Road between Michigan Avenue and DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Closure of northbound Michigan Avenue between Roosevelt Road and Jackson Drive

• July 5 – Beginning at 12:01 a.m.: Closure of northbound and southbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive between Randolph Street and McFetridge Drive. Closure of southbound Michigan Avenue between Roosevelt Road and Jackson Drive. Closure of the northbound lane of Indiana Avenue at 13th Street. Closure on Monroe Street between Columbus Drive and DuSable Lake Shore Drive

Race weekend street closures – July 6 and July 7

• Southbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive from Randolph Street to McFetridge Drive

• Northbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive from McFetridge Drive to Randolph Street

• Northbound Michigan Avenue from Roosevelt Road to Jackson Drive

• Southbound Michigan Avenue from Jackson Drive to 8th Street

• Monroe Street from Columbus Drive to DuSable Lake Shore Drive

• Columbus Drive from Roosevelt Road to Monroe Street

• Roosevelt Road from DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Michigan Avenue

• Jackson Drive from Michigan Avenue to DuSable Lake Shore Drive

• Balbo Drive from Michigan Avenue to DuSable Lake Shore Drive

• Ida B. Wells Drive from Michigan Avenue to Columbus Drive

• Congress Circle from Harrison Street to Van Buren Street

• Northbound Indiana Avenue from Roosevelt Road to 13th Street

• Post Place: Entrance and exit of Lower Wacker Drive

• Garvey Court: Entrance and exit of Lower Wacker Drive

• Reopening Schedule: The northbound section of DuSable Lake Shore Drive is set to reopen on July 8 at 6 a.m. After the event, select streets will gradually reopen

• Priority Streets: The priority streets for reopening are DuSable Lake Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive. Other street closures will remain in place until the demobilization of the track wall, fence and viewing structures is completed. All NASCAR-related demobilization activities are expected to conclude by the end of the day on July 18

Streets with local access only for residents, businesses and their employees

Sidewalks will remain open throughout the setup and teardown (June 10 – July 18).

• Southbound Michigan Avenue from Monroe Street to Jackson Drive

• Southbound Michigan Avenue from 8th to Roosevelt Road

• 8th Street from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• 9th Street from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• 11th Street from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Balbo Drive from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Harrison Street from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Ida B. Wells from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Jackson Blvd. from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Van Buren Street from Wabash Avenue to Michigan Avenue

• Monroe Street from Michigan Avenue to Columbus Drive

• Southbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive from Randolph Street to Monroe Street

• Northbound Michigan Avenue from 13th to 16th Street

• Northbound Indiana Avenue from 14th to 16th Street

• Columbus underpass and the Chicago Lakefront Bicycle Path will remain open throughout the event (this includes Monroe Street and Roosevelt Road)

• Pedestrians traveling west must utilize and access sidewalk on the north side of Monroe Street, Roosevelt Road or Columbus Drive underpass only

Alternative routes available – streets may be closed by the city of Chicago, if deemed necessary

• DuSable Lake Shore Drive northbound will remain open from South Shore Drive to I-55 merger

• To visit the Museum Campus from the South: Exit DuSable Lake Shore Drive at 31st Street and utilize Fort Dearborn Drive to proceed north and access 18th Drive

• To visit the Museum Campus from the North: Access Stevenson Expressway (I-55N), and merge onto DuSable Lake Shore Drive Exit at 18th Street

• DuSable Lake Shore Drive Southbound will remain open from Hollywood Boulevard to Randolph Street

• Inner DuSable Lake Shore Drive will remain open in both directions

• Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94) will remain open in both directions

• Kennedy Expressway (I-90/94) will remain open in both directions. Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) will remain open in both directions

• Stevenson Expressway (I-55) will remain open in both directions

• In the Loop, the following streets will remain open: State Street, Dearborn Street, Clark Street, LaSalle Street, Wells Street, Franklin Street, Upper Wacker Drive, Lower Wacker Drive, Randolph Street, Washington Street, Madison Street, Roosevelt Road – West of Michigan Avenue, 18th Street

The final rule will increase fuel economy by 2% per year for model years 2027 to 2031 for passenger cars, while SUVs and other light trucks will increase by 2% per year for model years 2029 to 2031, according to requirements released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The final figures are below a proposal released last year. Administration officials said the less stringent requirements will allow the auto industry flexibility to focus on electric vehicles, adding that higher gas-mileage requirements would have imposed significant costs on consumers without sufficient fuel savings to offset them.

President Joe Biden has set a goal that half all of new vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2030 are electric, part of his push to fight climate change. Gasoline-powered vehicles make up the largest single source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The 50% sales figure would be a huge increase over current EV sales, which accounted for 7.6% of new vehicle sales last year.

Even as he promotes EVs, Biden needs cooperation from the auto industry and political support from auto workers, a key political voting bloc, as the Democratic president seeks reelection in November. The United Auto Workers union has endorsed Biden but has said it wants to make sure the transition to electric vehicles does not cause job losses and that the industry pays top wages to workers who build EVs and batteries.

Biden’s likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, and other Republicans have denounced Biden’s push for EVs as unfair for consumers and an example of government overreach.

The new standards will save almost 70 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050, preventing more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by midcentury, the Biden administration said.

“Not only will these new standards save Americans money at the pump every time they fill up, they will also decrease harmful pollution and make America less reliant on foreign oil,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “These standards will save car owners more than $600 in gasoline costs over the lifetime of their vehicle.”

The highway safety agency said it has sought to line up its regulations so they match new Environmental Protection Agency rules that tighten standards for tailpipe emissions. But if there are discrepancies, automakers likely will have to follow the most stringent regulation.

In the byzantine world of government regulation, both agencies essentially are responsible for setting fuel economy requirements since the fastest way to reduce greenhouse emissions is to burn less gasoline.

Fuel economy figures used by The Associated Press reflect real-world driving conditions that include factors such as wind resistance, hills and use of air-conditioning. Because of those factors, the real-world numbers are lower than mileage figures put forward by NHTSA.

New passenger cars would have to average nearly 49 miles per gallon in 2031 under the new rule, up from about 36.5 miles per gallon this year.

“These new fuel economy standards will save our nation billions of dollars, help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and make our air cleaner for everyone,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman.

John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a leading industry group, said the Biden administration “appears to have landed on a CAFE rule that works with the other recent federal tailpipe rules.” Bozzella was using an acronym for the fuel standards, which are officially known as the corporate average fuel economy rules.

Dan Becker at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, slammed the new rules as inadequate.

The highway safety agency is supposed to set strong standards for gas-powered vehicles, he said, “but instead it sat on its tailpipes, leaving automakers free to make cars, SUVs and pickups that will guzzle and pollute for decades to come and keep America stuck on oil.”

The administration “caved to automaker pressure, with a weak rule requiring only a 2% improvement” per year in fuel economy, Becker said, adding that the rule falls short of the agency’s own requirement to set fuel-economy standards at the maximum technologically feasible level.

Bozzella, the industry official, said the government soon might need to reconsider whether the fuel-economy standards are needed “in a world rapidly moving toward electrification” of the vehicle fleet.

The mileage standards are “a relic of the 1970s,″ Bozzella said, “a policy to promote energy conservation and energy independence by making internal combustion vehicles more efficient. But those vehicles are already very efficient. And EVs don’t combust anything. They don’t even have a tailpipe.″

Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for Consumer Reports, said the NHTSA rules were not strong enough to pressure automakers to ensure new vehicles are as efficient as possible.

“Today the administration is merely checking the box on the legal requirement” to set fuel-economy standards, he said, adding that NHTSA is hamstrung by statutory limitations that prevent it from explicitly considering EVs in setting mileage standards.

“It’s likely that this important consumer protection program will become increasingly irrelevant as EV sales continue to grow,” Harto said.

The front power seat motor on the affected Tellurides from the 2020-2024 model years may overheat because of a stuck slide knob, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That could potentially result in a fire while the car is parked or being driven.

Kia made the decision to recall the vehicles on May 29, NHTSA documents published Friday show, after receiving reports of one under-seat fire and six incidents of localized melting in the seat tilt motor between August 2022 and March 2024. No related injuries, crashes or fatalities were reported at the time.

The recall report notes that strong external impact to the recalled Tellurides’ front power seat side cover or seat slide knob can result in internal misalignment — and with continuous operation, that can cause overheating. People driving vehicles with the issue may find they can’t adjust the power seat, may notice a burning or melting smell, or see smoke rising from underneath the seat.

To fix this, dealers will install a bracket for the power seat switch back covers and replace the seat slide knobs at no cost. Until the vehicles are repaired, owners are being instructed to park their cars outside and away from buildings.

Owner notification letters are set to be mailed out starting July 30, with dealer notification a few days prior. Irvine, California-based Kia America did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment on why these notifications wouldn’t begin until the end of next month.

In the meantime, drivers can also confirm if their specific vehicle is included in this recall and find more information using the NHTSA site and/or Kia’s recall lookup platform.

The recall covers 462,869 model year 2020-2024 Tellurides that were manufactured between Jan. 9, 2019 and May 29, 2024. Kia America estimates that 1% have the defect.

This isn’t the only recall impacting Kia Telluride owners. In March, Kia America said it would be recalling more than 427,000 of 2020-2024 Telluride SUVs due to a defect that may cause the cars to roll away while they’re parked.

Just last fall, Kia and Hyundai announced previous “park outside” recalls for 3.4 million other car and SUV models due to the danger of engine compartment fires. Amid long-delayed repairs, many of those vehicles remained on the road months later, posing serious concerns from drivers and consumer safety advocates.

Hyundai owns part of Kia, though the two companies operate independently.

The hulking, scavenger-ravaged structure that ominously shadowed the city’s Corktown neighborhood is now home to Ford Motor Co. and the centerpiece of a sprawling 30-acre mobility innovation district.

The building’s first tenant, Google’s Code Next Detroit computer science education program, is expected to move in by late June. Grand opening ceremonies include an outdoor concert on Thursday, with tours for the public starting Friday.

“The train station … it is perhaps the most powerful story in Michigan of the power of historic renovation,” Detroit Regional Chamber President and Chief Executive Sandy Baruah said. “To turn something that was blight into something that is hugely attractive and is an anchor as opposed to a deficit is huge.”

The restoration effort — part of the automaker’s more than $900 million project to create a place where new transportation and mobility ideas are nurtured and developed — was just as massive as the size of the more than century-old, 500,000-square-foot  building.

In numbers:

• More than 3,100 workers spent about 1.7 million hours of labor on the station and its surrounding public spaces
• 29,000 Gustavino tiles were restored in its Grand Hall
• 8.6 million miles of new grout was laid across the 21,000-square-foot ceiling
• 8 million bricks, 23,000 square feet of marble flooring and 90,000 square feet of decorative plaster were restored or replicated
• 3.5 million gallons of water was pumped from the basement
• Installation of 300 miles of electrical cable and wiring and 5.6 miles of plumbing

“It was always my hope that this project would be a catalyst for moving the city and our industry together into the future,” Bill Ford, the automaker’s executive chair and great-grandson of its legendary founder, Henry Ford, told The Associated Press last week. “It’s always the future. We’re just getting started, now. Took a long time for us to get here and a lot of hard work and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point.”

The train station’s history reflects the city’s fortunes during its heyday as the world’s car capital and later misfortunes as thousands of auto workers and other residents fled Detroit for life in the suburbs.

Michigan Central Railroad started purchasing land around 1908 in Corktown, the city’s oldest neighborhood, for the new train station, according to HistoricDetroit.org. The depot opened in late 1913. But as traveling by train gave way to commuter air travel and as more Americans chose to use the nation’s interstates, the numbers of people coming through Michigan Central steadily dropped.

The last train pulled out in 1988 and for years after the building fell into disrepair, neglect and abandonment. It became a destination for the curious and urban adventurers seeking out such places. Other buildings in Detroit, particularly factories, suffered the same or similar fate, but due to Michigan Central’s size it became a symbol of the city’s decline.

Redevelopment by its former owner never materialized. Then in 2018, Ford announced it was buying the 18-story building and adjacent structures as part of its plans for a more than 1 million square foot campus focusing on autonomous vehicles.

“There’s a lot of innovation going on here,” said Jim Farley, Ford chief executive. “Very much the future of the company is going to be housed here and on the campus. It represents our future revenues.”

The project is expected to bring with it thousands of tech-related jobs. Restaurants, new hotels and other service-industry businesses already are moving into and near Corktown.

In December, state officials announced three proposed housing development efforts intended to meet housing needs around Michigan Central and the innovation district.

Michigan Central and several other efforts around Detroit are expected to accelerate southeastern Michigan’s innovation economy, said Baruah, who added that the building and the surrounding campus will help draw the best and most innovative minds to the area.

“It’s really an attraction play. It’s about talent,” he said.

The reopening of the train station also comes as Detroit apparently has turned the corner from national joke to national attraction. Nearly a decade from exiting its embarrassing bankruptcy, the motor city has stabilized its finances, improved city services, staunched the population losses that saw more than a million people leave since the 1950s, and made inroads in cleaning up blight across its 139 square miles.

Detroit now is a destination for conventions and meetings. Last month, Detroit set an attendance record for the NFL draft after more than 775,000 fans poured into downtown last month for the three-day event.

The buzz about Detroit “is very different nationally,” Bill Ford said.

“I think when people see a project like this it’ll really put an exclamation on that,” he added. “And when we’re trying to recruit people from around the country and around the world, wouldn’t you say to them then ’come to Detroit and let me show you where you can work and play and live, and also live affordably.’”

The significance of Michigan Central’s rebirth is not lost on Mayor Mike Duggan, whose administration has guided Detroit back to respectability since the city’s 2014 exit from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

“I’ve been waiting 40 years for this day and so have all long-time to Detroiters, so it’s going to be very special,” Duggan said last week. “It’ll be a very emotional day.”

“The abandoned train station was the national symbol of Detroit’s decline and bankruptcy,” he explained. “So the fact that not only has the city come back, but that the train station has come back in such a spectacular way and the place where we’re going to be designing the automobiles of the future. It’s now about the future, not about the past.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that the recall includes certain 2012-2024 Model S, 2015-2024 Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles.

The seat belt warning system is supposed to provide audible and visual seat belt reminder signals to drivers to alert them that their seat belt isn’t fastened. The NHTSA said that on certain vehicles, the audible and visual seat belt reminder signals were not going off at the time they were supposed to, which doesn’t comply with federal safety requirements.

The NHTSA said that as of Tuesday, Tesla had identified 104 warranty claims that may be related to the condition. The company isn’t aware of any collisions, fatalities or injuries that may be related to the condition.

Tesla, which is headed by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to start deploying an over-the-air software update to the affected vehicles free of charge in June. The software update will remove dependency on the driver seat occupancy switch from the software and only rely on driver seat belt buckle and ignition status to activate the seat belt reminder signals.

Last month Tesla recalled 3,878 of its 2024 Cybertrucks after it discovered that the accelerator pedal can become stuck, potentially causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally and increase the risk of a crash.

In February the NHTSA announced the recall of nearly 2.2 million Tesla vehicles sold in the United States because some warning lights on the instrument panel are too small. The agency also said at the time that it had upgraded a 2023 investigation into Tesla steering problems to an engineering analysis, a step closer to a recall.

In April the NHTSA said that it was investigating whether last year’s recall of Tesla’s Autopilot driving system did enough to make sure drivers pay attention to the road.

L.R., Virginia Beach, Virginia

A: Most engine wear occurs in the first few minutes after cold soak (cold engine) starts. The engine is happier after reaching normal operating temperature and being driven at highway speeds. If this sounds like your behavior, you’re good.

Q: Sir, what matters more in oil change frequency, time or mileage? Our 2007 Toyota Avalon, with full synthetic oil, goes way past time before it ever gets to mileage since we are both retired and also have another vehicle. Thanks for lubricating us with your vast automotive knowledge!

R.R., Pittsboro, North Carolina

A: Most carmakers require owners to change their oil annually, even if the mileage requirement isn’t met. For cars still under warranty, this is a must to maintain the warranty. Oil degrades over time. Moisture (water) is a major culprit and may not get cooked off during lots of short trips. One more bit of advice: Don’t get lubricated before getting behind the wheel.

Q: I drive a 2016 RAV4. Sunlight from side windows causes a glare on the computer screen making it impossible to use at times. Is there anything that can be done to reduce or eliminate it? Any suggestion would be appreciated.

R.C., Glastonbury, Connecticut

A: You can buy anti-glare film and trim it to fit. Some products also have an anti-fingerprint feature. I found the EZ-Pro three-pack product on Amazon for under $15. It can be trimmed with an X-Acto knife or razor blade. Check Walmart and Best Buy, too.

Q: My wife and I have a lot of CDs we like to listen to when driving. I have a 2015 Subaru Forester with CD player, which no longer works, but I can plug in my Sony Walkman using an AUX/line-in cord. She had a 2011 Honda CR-V with CD player, which she recently got rid of for a 2023 Honda HR-V, which does NOT have a CD player, but does have a USB 2.0 and a USB-C port (for phones, iPods, etc.). If there is an AUX/line-in port I cannot find it (600+ page manual does not mention it). I figured buying a male 3.5 mm jack (for CD player) to USB cable would do the trick, but no luck. The car recognizes that something is attached, but no sound comes out. Did I get the wrong cable? Is it possible to connect a CD player to this car’s sound system?

D.J., Allentown, Pennsylvania

A: My Walkman ran away a few years ago. I considered posting “lost dog” type signs around town but figured it would cost more to print them up than to buy a new portable CD player with Bluetooth functionality. Mine even has anti-skip, which is handy on gravel roads. I can play my Pink Floyd collection through a Bluetooth speak wherever I go. That includes the pickup truck. Many cars have Bluetooth compatibility. I suggest you consult an expert in the electronics department of your favorite store.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

S&P Global Mobility, which tracks state vehicle registration data nationwide, said Wednesday that the average vehicle age grew about two months from last year’s record.

But the growth in average age is starting to slow as new vehicle sales start to recover from pandemic-related shortages of parts, including computer chips. The average increased by three months in 2023.

Still, with an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can’t afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to J.D. Power.

“It’s prohibitively high for a lot of households now,” said Todd Campau, aftermarket leader for S&P Global Mobility. “So I think consumers are being painted into the corner of having to keep the vehicle on the road longer.”

Other factors include people waiting to see if they want to buy an electric vehicle or go with a gas-electric hybrid or a gasoline vehicle. Many, he said, are worried about the charging network being built up so they can travel without worrying about running out of battery power. Also, he said, vehicles are made better these days and simply are lasting a long time.

New vehicle sales in the U.S. are starting to return to pre-pandemic levels, with prices and interest rates the big influencing factors rather than illness and supply-chain problems, Compau said. He said he expects sales to hit around 16 million this year, up from 15.6 million last year and 13.9 million in 2022.

As more new vehicles are sold and replace aging vehicles in the nation’s fleet of 286 million passenger vehicles, the average age should stop growing and stabilize, Compau said. And unlike immediately after the pandemic, more lower-cost vehicles are being sold, which likely will bring down the average price, he said.

People keeping vehicles longer is good news for the local auto repair shop. About 70% of vehicles on the road are 6 or more years old, he said, beyond manufacturer warranties.

Those who are able to keep their rides for multiple years usually get the oil changed regularly and follow manufacturer maintenance schedules, Campau noted.

D.B., Cheshire, Connecticut

A: There is always a way to replace the battery, but it’s often not obvious. In your case, simply remove the emergency key by pressing the button on the bottom. Next, insert something between the top half of the fob and the metal part of the emergency key storage. Most fobs require a CR2032 button battery, but before popping the old one out, note the polarity. Replace the battery before you need it.

Q: The owner’s manual of my 2018 Subaru Legacy says not to use fuel that is more than 10% ethanol. Since E10 fuel is not available at nearby stations, can I mix half a tank of E15, which is readily available, with half a tank of pure gasoline to get, essentially, fuel that is 7.5% ethanol and therefore usable in my car?

E.H., Minnetonka, Minnesota

A: That’s not a bad idea. Yet, E15 shouldn’t be a problem for cars built after the 2001 model year.

Q: I recently purchased a preowned 2019 Lexus RC 350 RWD Coupe with 23,000 miles. All four tires are new, front 235/40 R19 and rear 265/35 R19. I had the front aligned and tires balanced when I purchased it at a dealer, not Lexus. Just recently, I took it to the Lexus dealer to have the oil changed at 25,000 miles and a general checkup. The dealer wanted to balance and rotate tires and do a four-wheel alignment, which I declined since I just had most of it already done. My real question is about alignments and balancing, four wheel or just front, and tire rotations and frequency of each. My owner’s manual states that vehicles with front and rear tires of different sizes cannot be rotated.

J.M., Virginia Beach, Virginia

A: Different sized tires on the front and rear axles should not be rotated. This is especially true for unidirectional tires, which have arrows on the sidewall. The industry standard is four-wheel alignments. The car is aligned to its thrust angle—the direction it points going down the road. Due to vehicle damage or wear, the thrust angle may differ from the straight-down-center of the car. In severe cases, you may spot a car that is dog-tracking — the rear end is not directly behind the front end. Unless set to the thrust line, premature tire wear is certain.

Q: I would say that the driving habits that D.D. commented on (where some drivers start slowing down for a red light hundreds of feet before an intersection) were the normal habits of a stick-shift driver back in the 1970s, except for the brake lights coming on. But today if you drive an EV or hybrid, most of them engage the brake lights when regenerative braking kicks in. No mechanical braking is involved at all as I slow my Tesla down from highway speeds to a full stop. Energy isn’t created or destroyed, but instead of throwing it away, we put it back into our battery so we can extend the range of the car. Our old Prius got to 95,000 before needing brake work, and our Tesla is expected to get 200,000-250,000 miles out of its brakes.

B.K., Dundee, Illinois

A: Thanks for breaking it down for your fellow readers.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

But newly elected President Shawn Fain said the union will return to Mercedes and will press on with efforts to organize about 150,000 workers at more than a dozen auto factories across the nation.

Employees at Mercedes battery and assembly plants near Tuscaloosa voted 56% against the union in an election run by the National Labor Relations Board.

The vote count handed the union a serious setback a month after the UAW scored a breakthrough victory at Volkswagen’s 4,300-worker assembly factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The NLRB’s final tally showed a vote of 2,642 against the union, with 2,045 in favor. Nearly 93% of workers eligible to vote cast ballots.

Marick Masters, a professor emeritus at Wayne State University’s business school who has long studied the union, said the UAW will have to analyze what went wrong and apply those lessons as it moves to other nonunion factories largely in the South.

“They’re going to have to go back to the drawing board,” said Masters, who added that the union will need to ask itself if it needs to get more workers to sign cards seeking a union election before calling for a vote. The union may also want to respond faster to management opposition, he said.

“Do they need to assess more realistically the actual level of grievances and how passionately workers are to stay committed to a union organizing effort in the face of opposition?” Masters asked.

Fain assured workers that the union will return, telling them the loss was a bump in the road, not failure. He said he told company officials the fight was not over.

“We’ve been here before, and we’re going to continue on and we’re going to win,” he said. “And I think we’ll have a different result down the road, and I look forward to that.”

The NLRB said both sides have five business days to file objections to the election, and the union must wait a year before seeking another vote at Mercedes.

Whether the union challenges the election will be up to its lawyers, said Fain, who accused the company of “egregious illegal behavior.”

The union already has filed unfair labor practice complaints against the company alleging that management and anti-union consultants tried to intimidate workers. Mercedes has denied the allegations.

“Obviously we’re following through on complaints, both here and in Germany” where Mercedes is headquartered, Fain said.

A big difference between the loss at Mercedes and the overwhelming win at Volkswagen, Fain said, was that Mercedes actively fought the union. “Obviously, Volkswagen was more neutral, and that wasn’t the case here,” he said of Mercedes, which he accused of holding captive meetings of workers to campaign against the UAW.

In a statement Friday, Mercedes said it looks forward to “continuing to work directly with our team members so they can build superior vehicles for the world.”

The company said its focus is on providing a safe and supportive work environment.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has campaigned against the union, wrote in a post on X that auto manufacturing is one of the state’s crown jewel industries, and the state is committed to keeping it that way.

“Alabama is not Michigan, and we are not the Sweet Home to the UAW,” she wrote. “We urge the UAW to respect the results of this secret ballot election.”

Worker Melissa Howell, who opposed joining the union, said she and other employees realized that the UAW was making lofty promises that it couldn’t put in writing, including pay of $40 per hour, pensions and better benefits.

“They kept repeating over and over, ‘You’re not going to lose anything. We’re going to start with what you have right now,’” Howell said. “That’s when we really started letting people know, ‘Hey, hold up. It’s all negotiable.'”

But Kirk Garner, 60, who works in quality control at the Mercedes assembly plant and supported joining the union, said workers were shown an anti-union video every day ahead of the vote, while union opponents targeted employees who they thought could be persuaded to vote no.

“I’m disappointed in the people that flipped and believed the persuaders,” Garner said.

The UAW won at Volkswagen largely because of the prospect of substantially higher wages and other benefits. Contracts reached with the Detroit Three automakers, General Motors, Stellantis and Ford, brought 33% raises between now and 2028 when the deals expire, giving the union a large recruiting tool.

Before VW, the United Auto Workers had little success at nonunion auto plants in the South, where workers have been much less drawn to organized labor than in the traditional union strongholds of Michigan and other industrial Midwestern states.

A victory at the Mercedes plants would have represented a huge plum for the union, which has long struggled to overcome the enticements that Southern states have bestowed on foreign automakers, including tax breaks, lower labor costs and a nonunion workforce.

It turns out that the union had a tougher time in Alabama than in Tennessee, where the UAW narrowly lost two previous votes and was familiar with workers at the factory.

Krisher reported from Detroit. AP Business Writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York contributed to this report.

Nearly all U.S. gasoline contains ethanol to reduce emissions, and nearly all of that ethanol is made from corn starch. But, electric and hybrid vehicles offer even further emissions reductions. This poses a threat to corn demand that could be devastating for a state such as Illinois, the second-largest corn producer in the country.

The resulting decline in the value of Midwestern farmland and corn prices will hurt farmers and have ripple effects across rural communities, predict University of Nebraska at Lincoln agricultural economists Jeffrey Stokes and Jim Jansen. Rural businesses that cater to the agriculture sector could go under, property taxes that fund local schools will likely plummet and farmers could be forced to default on debts to community lenders, the economists forecast. This would come after farmers have been hit by a series of misfortunes over the last five years: the pandemic, trade wars, inflation and excess supply.

Corn could be the key to solving another clean energy dilemma, though. Unlike cars and trucks, planes are difficult to electrify, and some fuel companies believe the answer to cleaning up aviation lies in America’s heartland.

“(Corn is) the cheapest, most sustainable, most scalable feedstock (raw material),” said Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo, one of the companies with plans to turn corn ethanol into aviation fuel.

Thompson and other corn farmers are eager to seize this opportunity in sustainable aviation fuel, another term for jet fuel made without fossil fuels.

“As I sit here and look at the next so many years of my farming career, as maybe my father starts to retire and maybe one of my kids wants to farm, I wonder what’s going to keep us here longer. And to me, that’s sustainable aviation fuel and the ethanol demand,” said Thompson, a father of three. “I mean, there’s got to be a home for our corn because that’s what we grow.”

But, before corn ethanol-to-jet fuel can be a viable alternative to conventional jet fuel, the emissions associated with corn ethanol production must come down. This will require farmers to change their practices on the field and ethanol plants to implement controversial technologies like carbon sequestration.

The rise of electric vehicles

Since 2005, the federal government has required transportation fuels to be blended with increasing amounts of renewable fuels such as corn ethanol to reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on foreign oil. The mandate transformed rural economies across the Midwest. Between 2008 and 2016, corn prices rose by 30%, and 26% more land was converted to cropland than would have been otherwise, according to a 2022 study published by the National Academy of Sciences.

Ethanol plants quickly sprang up around corn fields, due largely to investments from farmers eager for the new market to succeed.

“It’s just another avenue of capturing some of that value of my product,” said Thompson, whose parents and grandparents were early shareholders in One Earth Energy, an ethanol plant 15 miles east of his primary farm that he sells to today.

The six states that grow the most corn — all in the Midwest — also account for 70% of the nation’s fuel ethanol production, and it’s a huge market. More than 98% of U.S. gasoline contains ethanol, and 94% of domestic ethanol is made from corn starch. The rest of the ethanol is mostly derived from wood and field residues, including stalks, stems and leaves.

According to a 2021 U.S. Department of Energy analysis, corn ethanol offers 40% tailpipe emissions reductions compared with gasoline. But, the National Academy of Science study suggests carbon emissions from using land to grow corn may negate, or even reverse, tailpipe emissions reductions. When land use changes are factored in, corn ethanol may be more than 24% more carbon intensive than gasoline, according to the 2022 study.

Electric vehicles, on the other hand, have no tailpipe emissions. So, in pursuit of the national mission to achieve net zero by 2050, the federal government has shifted its efforts from cleaning gasoline-powered cars to promoting battery-powered cars with emissions mandates and tax credits. Electric and hybrid cars accounted for over 16% of new light-duty vehicle sales last year, more than a 3% increase from 2022.

In March, the EPA finalized “the strongest-ever” pollution standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles. The rule was designed to accelerate the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles.

The EPA’s decision will also “decimate the ethanol industry and corn demand,” the Illinois Corn Growers Association said in a statement shortly after the standards were announced.

Today, roughly 30% of Illinois corn production and 40% of all U.S. corn production is used to make ethanol.

While corn farmers are cognizant of the threat battery-powered vehicles pose to their family businesses, they’re quick to mention the volatility and infrastructure challenges the emergent industry faces. Ford and GM recently scaled back production of electric vehicles and Tesla had mass layoffs.

“I look at the whole EV (electric vehicle) segment as a segment that gets blown around with the winds of change. It may be popular now, but who knows what the future may be harboring,” said Jared Gregg, a seventh-generation farmer from east central Illinois. “EVs have infrastructure challenges that they’ve got to be able to clear to make this a functional reality.”

Regardless of how much electric and hybrid vehicles decrease demand for ethanol in the auto sector, Gregg is looking to opportunities in aviation like Thompson.

“I can’t control how technology comes forward in the future. What I can do is step up to the plate and meet the challenges that are laid before us here and now and adapt like all farmers always have over time,” said Gregg.

The ‘Grand Challenge’

Non-military flights within and departing from the U.S. account for 11% of the nation’s transportation-related emissions. But, aircraft are more difficult to electrify than motor vehicles because of how heavy today’s batteries are. All of the passenger and cargo space in a twin jet airliner would have to be replaced with batteries for it to take off, and even then, the plane could only fly for under an hour, according to the University of Michigan’s aerospace engineering department.

Corn and other biomasses such as animal fat, forestry residue, municipal waste and sugar cane offer an alternative to the dirty crude oil in conventional jet fuel. After additional processing, corn ethanol can be blended with, or entirely replace, petroleum-based kerosene in existing jet engines.

The Biden administration established a “Grand Challenge” to produce 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel — defined as jet fuel with 50% less emissions than conventional jet fuel — annually by 2030. The ultimate goal is to make enough of this fuel to meet all national demand — estimated to be 35 billion gallons — by 2050.

Airlines are on board. United and Delta have both signed advance purchase agreements with numerous aspiring sustainable aviation fuel producers. Currently, however, sustainable fuel only accounts for 0.1% of the jet fuel used by major U.S. airlines, according to the latest federal government data.

The challenge is that creating sustainable aviation fuel costs three to five times more than conventional jet fuel and securing biomasses at scale is challenging. Most of the 24.5 million gallons produced last year were created with discarded cooking oil and animal fat, which are available in limited quantities.

“When you think of the scale of something like this — of the amount of feedstock that’s required — it’s billions of pounds of raw materials,” said Gruber, CEO of Gevo. “Just fundamentally a lot of stuff.”

The 90 million acres of homegrown corn could be a solution to the supply shortage. But, the financial feasibility of the additional processing required to create aviation fuel from corn hinges on access to government incentives, including generous new Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.

Corn ethanol-to-jet fuel doesn’t meet the 50% emissions reduction benchmark for sustainable aviation fuel under most environmental impact models. Significant emissions come from clearing land for corn fields, applying fertilizer to the field and biorefining to isolate the corn starch used to make ethanol.

Climate-smart agriculture practices such as planting cover crops, practicing no-till and using less fertilizer can reduce emissions associated with corn production. But, there isn’t a uniform methodology to determine how much yet.

In late April, long-awaited criteria for an aviation fuel tax credit for 2023 and 2024 were announced.

While it’s too late for most fuel producers to make plans to cash in on this credit, the guidance signals that the Biden administration is keen to foster the corn ethanol-to-jet fuel market with future incentives, including a tax credit for 2025 to 2027.

However, environmental interest groups caution that there must be a peer-reviewed methodology to measure the precise impact of climate-smart practices on emissions before the federal government can write any longer term policy.

“We have to hand out rewards based on the measurable ability to have an impact on reducing climate pollution into the environment,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund.

On the farm

Gevo has been working with farmers to monitor how climate-smart agriculture practices affect emissions and distill the impact into a carbon intensity score, a number that reflects how much carbon is emitted per bushel of corn produced.

“Agriculture has undergone a revolution. It’s not what it was,” Gruber said. “We now have the ability to measure stuff we could never measure before, track things like we’ve never tracked before.”

Gevo is using a $30 million federal grant to reward farmers for lowering their scores. Eventually, the company anticipates the money will flow naturally as less carbon-intensive corn becomes more valuable in the aviation fuel marketplace. Tax incentives will help spur this.

“We have to do a better job for the planet, but we also have to be financially stable,” said Shawn Feikema, a third-generation farmer in the southwestern corner of Minnesota and an early participant in Gevo’s tracking program. “Sustainability doesn’t work in any sense of the word unless it’s financially sustainable.”

He appreciates the program and believes a marketplace based on corn’s carbon intensity will encourage more farmers to adopt climate-smart practices. Illinois farmers Thompson and Gregg, who aren’t being paid for carbon reductions but are experimenting with climate-smart practices, agree.

“As a producer, you’ll evolve to participate in it if you want to stay viable,” Gregg said.

Climate-smart agriculture practices also increase yield over time, so farmers can be more productive on less land. Converting forests and grasslands into agricultural production is a significant source of farming emissions and threatens native ecosystems.

Planting cover crops, reducing tillage and minimizing fertilizer application are also solutions to other environmental challenges like water pollution from fertilizer run-off that contributes to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Everything that a farmer does to produce a crop of lower carbon intensity is good for the soil and good for the plants,” said Chandler Mazour, who leads Gevo’s tracking program.

At the plant

Just changing how corn is grown won’t lower the carbon intensity of ethanol enough. Changes will also have to be made at the ethanol plant.

One key way ethanol producers are looking to drive down emissions at their plants is carbon sequestration: capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground.

However, the nascent process is controversial. Securing carbon underground is energy intensive and many environmental groups warn sequestration may encourage the continued use of fossil fuels over renewable fuel sources.

Carbon sequestration has a particular appeal for the ethanol industry, though — especially those in Illinois. The carbon dioxide released during ethanol production is nearly pure, and porous sandstone formations filled with salty water deep under central Illinois are optimal storage sites.

One Earth Energy, an ethanol plant in Gibson City, seeks to build a 6-mile pipeline from its plant to an injection site in a neighboring county. The pipeline would significantly lower emissions from One Earth Energy’s plant and open the door for it to get a corner on the burgeoning aviation fuel industry, an opportunity the plant is uniquely positioned to seize, said Steve Kelly, the company’s CEO.

“With Chicago O’Hare, Midway and Rockford — a major freight airport — we’ve got huge opportunities within 120 miles of this plant right now,” he said.

Illinois is also one of the first states with its own per-gallon tax incentive for airline carriers using aviation fuel that reaches the same 50% emissions reduction benchmark as the federal credit.

The benefits would trickle down to Illinois family farmers such as Thompson and Gregg.

However, One Earth Energy’s pipeline and others have faced significant local backlash, primarily due to unknown health impacts of the relatively new technology and eminent domain concerns.

Last fall, after fierce community opposition and difficulty securing permits, Navigator CO2 Ventures withdrew its application to build a 1,350-mile pipeline across five states to capture carbon dioxide from over 30 Midwest ethanol plants and store it in Illinois.

Kelly says One Earth Energy’s project is different. Its pipeline would only be a few miles, within state borders, avoid local aquifers and all landowners along the pipeline route signed voluntary agreements so eminent domain wouldn’t be used.

The pipeline would also bring Illinois an estimated $367.2 million in economic impact from 2025 to 2030, according to a recent analysis by Sandy Dall’Erba, an environmental economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Powering plants with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, will offer some emission reductions, but

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview with Reuters last fall that the ethanol industry will need carbon capture and sequestration for corn ethanol-to-jet fuel to reach the 50% emissions reductions benchmark.

“(If the pipeline isn’t approved) we’re kinda stuck in just producing what we’re producing today and selling into that market, and then we’ve kind of lost control of our destiny here,” Kelly said.

In the future

Freedom Pines Fuels, the world’s first-ever ethanol-to-jet aviation fuel plant, opened in Soperton, Georgia, in January. The facility, which is owned and operated by the Illinois-based sustainable fuels company LanzaJet, has pledged to produce nine million gallons of aviation fuel this year, a modest start compared to the 35 billion that the White House has set out to produce by 2050.

LanzaJet’s CEO Jimmy Samartzis hopes the federal government updates policy and provides more emission reductions incentives to ensure domestic corn ethanol qualifies for sustainable aviation fuel production.

For now, the company is only using domestic corn-based ethanol for testing and will begin commercial production at the Georgia-based plant with sugarcane ethanol from Brazil, which has a lower carbon intensity score than corn ethanol across emissions models.

LanzaJet hopes to use a variety of low-carbon domestic ethanol in the future and entered a partnership to create a 120-million-gallon-per-year corn ethanol to aviation fuel plant with Illinois-based ethanol producer Marquis Energy in 2022. Both companies are still assessing the project’s feasibility as the government determines its long-term standards for sustainable aviation fuel.

LanzaJet is also exploring new ways to create ethanol from corn.

​​“We are doubling down on the U.S. ethanol industry,” Samartzis declared.

The company has partnered with Southwest Airlines to explore whether ethanol can be made more sustainably from corn stalks, leaves and cobs left over after harvest. The collaboration is in the early stages but he believes this could be another opportunity for American corn farmers. And, if it is, farmers are eager.

“Agriculture is the best kept secret on all of these environmental mitigation issues, and we’re where we’ve always been: right underneath your nose,” said Gregg, the seventh-generation farmer in east central Illinois. “If they put the infrastructure and the rules in place and all the pieces line up, there’s no doubt in my mind that the American farmer can meet this challenge, goal and demand.”