Say the word “hybrid” today and most folks think you're talking about a gasoline-electric powertrain like that found on Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius, Ford Motor Co.'s Hybrid Escape SUV, or Honda Motor Co. Ltd.'s Civic Hybrid.
Some engineers are not comfortable with the idea of a vehicle being called “efficient” when it uses two power plants to do essentially the same job. But to a growing number of new vehicle buyers, the term hybrid is becoming synonymous with efficiency and innovation.
In fact, different types of hybrids have been revolutionizing myriad disciplines and industries outside automotive for years.
Hybridization also has been solving a multitude of issues in the electronics industry for years.
And now, with Ward's Auto Electronics, you are holding a publishing-industry hybrid.
In the automotive powertrain arena, hybrids use electric motors and energy stored in batteries to give an internal combustion engine a boost during periods of high load.
In body design, the new BMW 5-Series sport sedan is a materials hybrid. The front end of the car, from the A-pillar forward, is made of lightweight aluminum while the rest of the body is traditional steel.
In both examples, different components are joined to create an innovative solution. The powertrain hybrid improves mileage and emissions; the material hybrid enables BMW engineers to give the 5-Series a perfect weight balance between front and rear axles.
WAE hopes to achieve these same kind of synergies. It is aimed at delivering specific technical information to a highly targeted segment of the Ward's Auto World audience: automotive electronics design engineers.
While Ward's reporters and editors pride ourselves on our ability to cover and write highly technical subjects, we want this new publication to deliver information that is more specific and at a technical level beyond anything we've done in the past. We strive to be a technical engineering publication that has the peer-to-peer credibility associated with actually being written and edited by engineers.
To do this, we worked through our corporate parent, Primedia Business Magazines and Media, and are collaborating with the editors of Power Electronics Technology and RF Design magazines, also published by Primedia, to deliver this new publication.
It is being developed under the supervision of Ashok Bindra, editorial director of Power Electronics Technology and RF Design; and David Morrison, editor of Power Electronics Technology.
Bindra is a 23-year veteran of electronics industry publishing who has an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering and a Master's degree in physics. Morrison also is an electronics publishing veteran with a degree in electrical engineering.
Ward's Auto World is part of Ward's Communications, a family of publications and data services tied together by a premium Web site, WardsAuto.com, and written and edited by automotive journalists with gasoline running through their veins.
Power Electronics Technology and RF Design both are leading technical publications aimed at electronics design engineers.
At first glance, it may not look like we have much in common. But the same could be said of internal combustion engines and electric motors.
WAE is an experiment we hope will perform a unique task in the automotive industry. We hope it, too, will become synonymous with innovation and efficiency.
It's innovative because it's a new tool for electronics design engineers and managers in the automotive industry to learn about developments specifically in their field at a new level of detail. It's efficient because WAE is so highly targeted that it allows advertisers to engage this specific audience with their message like no other publication.
Extraordinary technical expertise combined with the unparalleled reach of Ward's into the automotive world. That's Ward's Auto Electronics, a new kind of hybrid.