China has finally agreed to open negotiations with the Trump administration as the tech industry warns that tariffs could soon spike Americans' costs for the 10 most popular consumer technology products by more than $123 billion annually.

On Wednesday, the Chinese Embassy in the US announced on X (formerly Twitter) that "China’s lead on China-US economic and trade affairs," He Lifeng, will meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from May 9 to 12 to open talks. For those talks to go smoothly, China's Ministry of Commerce told reporters Wednesday, the US must "demonstrate sincerity" and come ready to "correct its wrongdoings," including facing "the severe negative impacts of its unilateral tariff measures on itself and the world."

Previously, China had demanded that President Trump drop all tariffs to begin negotiations, which Trump refused while seemingly holding out on making a deal on TikTok to keep the potential bargaining chip.

While tensions don't exactly appear to be dissipating, these talks are the first sign that the trade rivals could reach a resolution after Trump raised tariffs on some Chinese imports as high as 145 percent. And they come just as Americans expect to soon feel the sting from tariffs in their wallets.

According to the Consumer Technology Association's most recent estimates released Tuesday, Americans risk paying much higher prices for any Chinese imports that are not exempted from those 145 percent tariffs. They also face potentially higher prices from other tariffs the Trump administration imposed, including a baseline 10 percent tariff on all imports from all countries and reciprocal tariffs that kick in July, which would add an additional 11 to 50 percent tax on all imports from 57 countries.

For example, non-exempted video game consoles—perhaps less than 1 percent of which are produced in the US, industry analysts estimate—could soon cost more than $1,000 on average, up by about 69 percent. And as the price goes up, the CTA warned that supply chain disruptions could cause shortages since "shifting the large quantities of Chinese production to other suppliers would be very difficult given the volumes involved."

Even some of the seemingly less painful smaller price hikes could "rob" the US economy, the CTA warned. For example, headphones costing Americans up to $5 more or speakers costing up to $60 more could drain wallets nationwide by more than $2.5 billion, the CTA estimated. And an estimated 11 percent increase on imports of non-exempt China-made TVs—which only account for a small share of total US TV imports—could significantly hurt the US economy by "forcing consumers to pay $1.9 billion more than they otherwise would for the televisions they continue to buy," the CTA forecasted.

Meanwhile, "buyers of smartphones, laptops and tablets, and connected devices would likely feel the greatest impact," the CTA said. In 2023, China accounted for 87 percent of video game consoles, 78 percent of smartphones, 79 percent of laptops and tablets, and 67 percent of monitors imported into the US, and there is still very little US production of those goods. On average, laptops could soon cost more than $1,000, tablets nearly $600, and smartphones nearly $1,100, while connected devices could cost up to 22 percent more, the CTA estimated.

Overall, Trump's tariff regime threatens to "shrink the US economy by $69 billion annually" from price shifts of just 10 popular tech products, the CTA warned.

To prevent this, the CTA has been advocating on Capitol Hill for more exemptions while urging the Trump administration to stop using tariffs to force production into the US, echoing other analysts who have long warned Trump that shifting supply chains into the US cannot be done immediately.

"The effort to reshore manufacturing through higher tariff rates on imported goods comes at a cost: the research shows that consumers would lose about $16 in spending power for every $1 gained by domestic producers," the CTA reported. And that loss of spending power, the CTA noted, means Americans have less money to spend on things like groceries or other essential goods that are also impacted by tariffs.

Ahead of talks, China signals the fight isn’t over

Although the US-China talks likely won't trigger changes on Trump's tariffs impacting other parts of the world, China's role as a hard-to-replace global production hub has left many tech companies eager to see trade talks resume.

As consumers brace for sticker shock, tech companies' revenues could be hit hard if sales significantly decrease. That seems likely, as the CTA is already forecasting drastic drops in consumption of video game consoles (down by up to 73 percent), laptops and tablets (45 percent), and smartphones (nearly 50 percent). For low-income families, the smartphone price hikes could hit the hardest, the CTA warned, which would be especially burdensome since imports triggering price drops only recently were credited with making smartphones more accessible in the US.

China still appears to potentially have the upper hand in negotiations. Trump apparently had been pushing to meet with China's president Xi Jinping, seemingly wanting to be viewed as the sole dealmaker on tariffs, the South China Morning Post reported. But China refused, insisting on each country appointing special envoys, a concession that Trump appears to have granted in directing Bessent to meet with Xi's trade chief instead of leading the talks himself.

For China, refusing to deal directly with Trump is depicted as necessary to preserve mutual respect in negotiations. After Trump claimed China was engaged in talks that China denied and suggested that China was "doing very poorly" due to his tariffs, the president suddenly pivoted to promising to "play nice" with China.

Now China seems to be holding Trump to his word. Ahead of trade talks this weekend, China's Ministry of Commerce warned the US that China wouldn't resolve trade tensions without safeguarding its own interests, promising to keep fighting "if provoked."

"If the US says one thing but does another, or even attempts to use negotiations as a pretext to continue coercive and blackmailing tactics, China will never agree, nor will it sacrifice its principles or international fairness and justice to seek any agreement," the Ministry said.

For US chipmakers who are still waiting for Trump to release his semiconductor tariff plan, the trade talks will likely be watched closely. Ahead of talks, Nvidia, AMD, Super Micro, and Marvell have warned investors of potentially billions in lost revenue, with some postponing further investor guidance until after the tariff plan is revealed, CNBC reported.

Other tech giants both inside and outside the US are also reportedly scrambling, even if they aren't completely reliant on China-based production.

Despite exemptions on smartphones and a plan to shift production of US-destined products into India, Apple recently estimated that tariffs could add $900 million in costs in this quarter alone, the BBC reported.

So far, there are no clear winners in Trump's trade war. South Korea-based Samsung—which has a Vietnamese production hub subject to 46 percent tariffs—was expected to potentially gain from any Apple losses. But an executive on a recent earnings call warned investors that "there are a lot of uncertainties ahead of us," CNBC reported.

"Due to the rapid changes in policies and geopolitical tensions among major countries, it’s difficult to accurately predict the business impact of tariffs and countermeasures," the Samsung executive said.

And although trade talks could dramatically shift global markets again, the CTA warned that "ongoing reviews of semiconductors and downstream products in the electronics supply chain, copper, lumber, critical minerals, and other materials" could potentially add to cost pressures and trigger even more price hikes for Americans.

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As you may have already surmised, I enjoy taxonomies. And, sure, I only read the actual definition of “taxonomy” a few days ago and wasn’t really aware of the strong biological associations, but that won’t stop me from continuing to use the word to describe automotive categorizations. Today I want to tackle one of modern automobilia’s most blurry and contentious taxonomic problems: what is the difference between a minivan and vehicles that aren’t quite minivans, but also aren’t quite wagons? See, we don’t even really have a good name for this category! Something has to be done about this, and done now. So stop whatever you’re doing, parachute out of the plane, fling those dental tools to the ground, let that belt sander just launch itself into the shop wall, leave those customers hanging, let that baby cry, whatever it takes. Because we’re doing this now.

Fundamentally, here’s the problem, the problem that has caused long, drawn-out fistfights (and at least one mop-fight) at the last three Global Automotive Classification Summits, held every year in Zug, Switzerland: what do we call the strange and ill-defined space between station wagons/estates and minivans? Station wagons and minivans share a great many qualities: both are primarily passenger vehicles, designed to seat anywhere from four to eight or so passengers. Both can have two or three rows of seating, both are designed to hold considerable amounts of cargo, both have long been intended and used as family cars, both tend to have a generally two-box layout – they’re really doing essentially the same sort of jobs.

And yet, they’re quite different. A wagon is lower and has “longer” proportions, even if the actual overall length isn’t longer. Minivans tend to be taller, higher, but not necessarily any different in ride height or anything like that. A wagon tends to have a longer hood; a minivan’s hood is stubby. In character, even if they tend to be used in the same sort of roles, there are differences, and it’s possible these differences change over time and with changes in the overall culture. A minivan feels a bit more domestic and targeted at family use, where a wagon sort of retains a certain enthusiasts’ cachet.

This wasn’t always the case; wagons were firmly in the family-use category until the re-emergence of minivans in the 1980s freed them from guaranteed domesticity, and a new breed of 4×4 rugged wagons pushed the wagon into more sporting/adventurer territories.

That’s not to say minivans couldn’t be used for many of these same sorts of activities; many could, and 4×4 minivans do exist. But conceptually, there was something of a split, where minivans took up a bit more of the practical, smart choice for a family mantle, and wagons became at least a bit more iconoclastic, if only because of the rising popularity of minivans for people who ironically sought to escape the domestic stigma of the wagons they grew up with.

Of course, the story ended up getting flipped a bit as a result. Regardless, there exists a space between the wagon and the minivan, and that’s what we’re here to talk about. Sometimes this category is called the MPV category, for “Multi-Purpose Vehicle.” Mazda even just named their almost-minivan the MPV, and it was a good example of this blurry category:

Proportionally, it feels very minivan-like. But it has conventional doors and the scale is a bit closer to a wagon. Is it a minivan? If intent matters, then Mazda must have felt not, because why else would they go out of their way to call it an “MPV,” when “minivan” was right there? There was clearly a decision made.

Personally, I think this strange, transitional category may be best represented by the Honda Civic Wagon, also known, in some markets, as the Wagovan. In fact, I’d like to steal that name for this whole general category, as it explains everything right there in that portmanteau.

The little Civic Wagovan had minvan proportions, normal hinged doors, a focus on interior space, a smaller-than-a-minivan exterior, and plenty of domestic practicality but also a certain amount of defiant charm. It was the ultimate melangé of wagon and minivan, not at home in either category, exactly, but I think better at being an example of this new in-between state.

There’s many more, of course; I made a chart of some of the better-known ones to get us started thinking:

The Wagovans deserve their own classification, I think. I don’t feel like I’m at a point where I can make some hard-and-fast rules defining entry to this category, so I think for the moment we’re just going to have to do what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart did with obscenity: know it when we see it. In our pants.

I’m open to some brainstorming to help define things here; remember, everyone is counting on us to get this right, so let’s do the best we can. These odd little half-van/half-wagons deserve nothing less.

The post This Is One Of The Most Poorly-Defined Categories Of Cars: The Wagovan appeared first on The Autopian.

For the past four years, enthusiasts across America have been living a nightmare after their states decided that their legally imported cars were no longer able to be driven on the road. Enthusiasts have banded together, working with their lawmakers to enact change. Now, fans of imported cars in Colorado might get the biggest victory against car bans in America since 2019. Colorado just passed a bill that would legally protect tiny cars imported from Japan from being banned by the DMV. Now, it just needs to be signed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

The folks of Colorado have been through a lot in the past year. Back in 2024, enthusiasts in the state claimed that the Colorado DMV had “shadow-banned” legally imported cars and trucks. The state didn’t have any published policy banning these cars, but enthusiasts reported that DMV offices simply refused to register their cars without explanation. Others reported being denied emissions testing, which meant that they could not renew their registrations.

Then, in December, the Colorado DMV decided to make its shadow policy a public-facing policy, but it was met by heavy pushback from enthusiasts. The state gave up on making its policy official and instead just went back to banning cars quietly.

Now, the rollercoaster might be coming back into the station because Colorado just passed HB25-1281. If signed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the nightmare will end for the owners of tiny Japanese Kei vehicles in Colorado. But this win will be even bigger than that. Since 2019, no state has protected imported cars by passing a law. If Colorado does this, it can be a signal that states are not interested in the bans being pushed by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, car dealer associations, and state police.

Colorado’s Doing The Right Thing

If Gov. Polis signs HB25-1281, Colorado will become the first state to pass a law that beats AAMVA’s harsher recommendations and do so without silly gotchas like the Georgia bill has in it. Colorado can also become a roadmap for enthusiasts in other states to follow, too.

Here’s what the situation is like in Colorado right now, from my previous report:

According to [Colorado Public Radio], enthusiasts are still reporting that they’re not being allowed to register or emissions test their vehicles. The effect of this is that the state is running out the clock on the registrations of Kei vehicles. This makes the cars illegal to drive since the owners cannot renew their registrations without a valid emissions test. The state also refuses to give these vehicles OHV registration, so they’re effectively banned from roads – again, car-sized paperweights.

CPR spoke with one Colorado JDM owner, Ryan Albarelli, who told a frustrating story about being able to register a 1990 Honda Acty, but the state subsequently refused to emissions test it. Other folks online report similar stories.

Sadly, this strategy of a quiet ban isn’t anything new with Colorado. Enthusiasts in some counties haven’t been able to register Kei vehicles for a long time. Others who did get registrations haven’t been able to emissions test their vehicles, which meant they eventually became illegal to drive even if registered. Enthusiasts have been calling this a “shadow ban” since the state doesn’t have anything official noting the ban.

CPR‘s report also found out who supports Colorado’s ban. Many readers have suspected that the side-by-side/ATV lobby is fighting for the banning of imported cars. Yet, at least in Colorado, major supporters of the ban have been the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association and the Colorado State Patrol. Colorado has attempted to legalize imported vehicles in 2015 and 2016, but both bills failed. Here’s what the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association said when it opposed legalizing Keis in the past, from CPR:

Both groups declined to comment on the coming bill from Hinrichsen. But Tim Jackson, former president and CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, said the arguments against legalizing kei vehicles at the state level boil down to two issues: pollution and safety.

“It does set up a two-tier system on both emissions and safety, and I think it contradicts everything that Colorado as a state has been trying to do,” Jackson said, referencing Colorado’s various efforts to improve road safety and clean up the state’s dirty air. Older kei trucks, including Albarelli’s Honda, lack modern systems like fuel injection that lower emissions.

Colorado’s current ban is also a bit harsher than other states. As of now, if you own a vintage military Jeep in Colorado, the state says you should not be eligible for registration for use on the road or on public trails. Meaning, if you own an old surplus military vehicle, the state says you can only use it on private property.

Thankfully, it seems Colorado has had enough of this nonsense. On February 20, HB25-1281 Title Register & Drive Kei Vehicles, was introduced into the Colorado House. The bill’s prime sponsors are William Lindstedt – D, Rep. Larry Don Suckla – R, Sen. Nick Hinrichsen – D, and Sen. Byron Pelton – R. Here’s the bill’s most recent summary:

A kei vehicle is the smallest road-legal, 4-wheeled vehicle in Japan and is imported into the United States as a used vehicle. The bill defines a kei vehicle as a motor vehicle for the purposes of the “Uniform Motor Vehicle Law” and the “Certificate of Title Act”. These acts govern issuing a certificate of title, registering a motor vehicle, and the rules of the road for motor vehicles. The bill authorizes a kei vehicle to operate on the roads and requires a kei vehicle to be issued a certificate of title, be registered, and obey motor vehicle traffic laws.

Driving a kei vehicle on a roadway that has a speed limit greater than 55 miles per hour or on a limited-access highway is prohibited.

For emissions testing, a kei vehicle is tested not using a dynamometer but using a 2-speed idle test. The vehicle must pass the emissions standards for the year it was manufactured.

The department of revenue, the Colorado state patrol, and the agents or contractors of these agencies may not require a vehicle to have an inspection because it is a kei vehicle or has the design or manufacturing parameters of a kei vehicle. And a kei vehicle may not be declared not roadworthy because of its design or manufacturing parameters.

Kei vehicles are included in the motor vehicle dealer and powersports vehicle dealer statutes, and this requires a person to be licensed as a dealer to sell kei vehicles at retail.

The bill would also create a new class B traffic infraction for driving a Kei vehicle on a road faster than 55 mph. One of the motivating factors in the bill is that the state has the opportunity to make some money. If passed, the bill will cost the state a one-time expenditure of $101,000 to reprogram state computer systems and to issue every Kei in the state a fresh 17-digit VIN. From there, proponents of the bill expect the state to make back $93,000 of that within two years on registrations alone and for the legalization of Keis to be technically profitable afterward.

The Cause Of Woe

I’ve been reporting on the car bans spreading across America since 2021. If you haven’t been following this saga, I’ll bring you up to speed. If you’re a regular reader, skip forward!

The United States government bans the legal entry of a car that’s under 25 years old unless that vehicle is converted to comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. That process is horrendously expensive and cannot be done by anyone. It effectively ensures that the average enthusiast waits more than two decades to buy their dream cars.

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a non-governmental, non-profit lobbying organization run by DMV administrators and law enforcement officials in all 50 states, Washington D.C., Canada, the Virgin Islands, and Mexico, has been waging a war against legally imported cars.

Tiny imported vehicles appeared on AAMVA’s radar back in the 2000s, when states began wondering what to do with the speed-restricted off-road-only trucks that people were importing. American officials call these trucks “mini-trucks” and they’re limited to 25 mph and were never intended nor imported for road use. Some folks drove them on the road, anyway. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash-tested mini-trucks and found that they weren’t as safe as compact trucks built to FMVSS. In response to research, AAMVA recommended members ban mini-trucks from their roads. Many states obliged.

The organization then apparently discovered that Americans are also importing Kei cars, or the smallest class of road-legal vehicles of Japan. These cars, trucks, and vans often have top speeds as high as 83 mph and are designed for road use. The newest Keis that are legal to import can even be found with airbags.

In 2021, AAMVA announced its strictest guidance yet. The organization recommended that its members ban all vehicles not originally built to FMVSS. That includes every vehicle, regardless of country of origin and regardless of actual size. It’s everything from Kei trucks and BMW wagons to giant buses. AAMVA also took a swipe at vintage military vehicles like WWII Jeeps and Humvees, too, and recommended that those also be removed from the road.

Maine was the launch state for the new bans. The state went through the process to pass a law banning every vehicle not built to FMVSS. Readers have told us that the state’s enforcement of the law has been poor, but the law is still on the books.

Since then, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and Massachusetts have either banned Japanese imports or have otherwise restricted them in some way. Enthusiasts have fought back either through lawsuits or by working with regulators. In 2024, Texas became the first state to win the battle against the new rules when enthusiasts successfully convinced TXDMV to reverse its Kei ban. Enthusiasts in Michigan and Massachusetts scored their major wins after.

Georgia is also on the cusp of something resembling a victory, as that state recently passed a bill that technically legalizes Kei cars. However, when you read that bill, you’ll realize that the state wants to make Keis about as legal as golf carts, which really isn’t a win in the long run.

The Importance Of Passing A Law

There is a sad twist to all of this, and it’s that while Texas, Michigan, and Massachusetts did score real, huge victories, the job is only halfway done. Enthusiasts in those states only succeeded in reversing DMV policies. Their states still do not explicitly allow Kei vehicles per their laws. As a result, a successive DMV administrator could easily just reinstate the bans in those states at a future date.

Even if your state doesn’t ban Keis, not having a law that explicitly allows imported cars means that your car is technically in legal limbo. Your DMV may one day decide to ban your car, and you’ll find yourself in the same situation too many of us are in right now.

As enthusiasts in Maine have learned, it’s much harder to overturn a law than it is a policy. So, it’s best to have a law that works in your favor than to have to fight a negative one. The end goal is to get imported vehicles explicitly allowed in law. In 2019, enthusiasts in North Carolina successfully lobbied for the passage of a law that allows both Kei cars and mini-trucks to access roads up to 55 mph. When AAMVA launched its harsher recommendations in 2021, North Carolina did not follow the lead of other eastern states.

Sadly, Colorado’s bill doesn’t help vintage Jeep owners, but it would still be a huge win. If Gov. Polis signs the bill into law, and he is expected to, it will be significantly harder to ban Keis in Colorado. Gov. Polis has reportedly said that he is “excited to expand consumer choice to affordable vehicles and looks forward to supporting kei freedom.”

If this win goes through, it’ll be another perfect demonstration of the power of collaboration. Instead of treating the government as an enemy to be destroyed, enthusiasts teamed up with their lawmakers to enact change. This method was pioneered by the folks in North Carolina and Texas, then proven to work again in Michigan and Massachusetts. So, if you happen to live in a state where your favorite vehicle is banned, consider getting a group together and reaching out to every lawmaker who will listen. That’s what we plan to do in Illinois.

The post Colorado May Become The First State In Years To Pass A Law Winning The Battle Against Imported Car Bans appeared first on The Autopian.

The world of shipping is a magical thing. The world is full of ships, aircraft, trucks, and trains working in concert to deliver the goods, regardless of whether they’re a simple letter or a ginormous power transformer. If you have a ridiculously heavy and large piece of equipment and you’re shipping it by rail, there’s a chance that it might end up on something called a Schnabel car. But this isn’t any normal railcar. The art of the Schnabel car is that it actually turns your cargo into a whole train car, where the cargo itself becomes a load-bearing structure complete with two dozen axles.

There are just under a few dozen Schnabel cars in the United States. Due to their rarity and their special use case, many railfans may never see a Schnabel car in action in years, if not decades, of chasing trains down the rails. For many railfans, catching a Schnabel on the rails in real life is like finding the holy grail.

Despite their rarity, Schanabel cars exist for a critical reason. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, this country is home to 12,538 power plants generating at least 1 megawatt of power. The American power grid is supported by over 500,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and another 5 million miles of distribution lines. That alone is mind-boggling, but there’s one more vital component to keeping the lights on and it’s the large-power transformer (LPT). These specially-constructed units, which can cost over $7 million a piece and weigh around 440 tons (970,030 pounds) or more, are used to step up or step down power along the line. If an LPT fails, it can cause an electrical service interruption and costly damage.

As Forbes reported in 2014, LPTs are made to order and are heavily customized, so there isn’t a supply of them just sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped. But when an LPT does need to make its way to an American locality, there’s really only one way to deliver it, and it’s by rail.

However, this presents a problem. As the United Pacific Railroad notes, standard flatcars are up to 89 feet long and can carry up to 202,000 pounds. For extra-heavy loads, there are also specialty flatcars and depressed-deck cars designed to carry up to 740,000 pounds of cargo. TTX Company, a railcar pooling provider, says these extra heavy-duty cars will often be used to support power generation, including: “Boilers, turbines (including wind energy hubs and nacelles), electrical transformers, pressure vessels, and shipments that frequently require special handling and train operations.”

But what if you have something that’s even heavier? Or what if you have something that’s so huge that it can’t fit on even a heavy-duty railcar? For those mammoth loads, you need an equally colossal, dedicated rail platform. That’s the Schnabel car, pictured above, and without it, American energy would be very different.

Nearly A Century Of Heavy Hauling

Finding history on the Schnabel car has been rather difficult, but reporting from Trains.com has helped. The Schnabel car appears to have been invented in the early 1930s in Germany. The word “Schnabel” comes from the German term “tragschnabelwagen,” which roughly translates to carrying-beak-wagon. Vintage tragschnabelwagens looked like two bird beaks connecting a large piece of equipment together and suspending it over a track.

The earliest image I could find of a tragschnabelwagen is the one above, which depicts a Schnabel wagon carrying a Karl-Gerät self-propelled mortar in 1945 during World War II. French forces also used Schnabel cars to carry their own heavy gear.

The earliest mention that I’ve found of a Schnabel car here in America is in 1958 from Westinghouse. That year, the company said that the Schnabel car was an important breakthrough as it allowed the company’s power transformers to grow large enough to handle 450,000 kVA. Back then, Westinghouse transformers weighed 250 tons and no other railcars were able to carry the gigantic beasts. That car was known as WECX 200, and it was built by Greenville Steel Car Company of Greenville, Pennsylvania in 1957. Railfans consider it to be the first Schnabel car in America.

How It Works

The concept of the Schnabel car back then was similar to how it is today. The railcar is actually two separate railcars with several axles. Attached to these railcars are two massive lifting arms. When these cars are empty, the two arms are bolted together, forming one giant railcar.

When it comes time to carry a load, the equipment is bolted to the lifting arms, and then the arms lift the equipment off the ground. Once the equipment is lashed up, the two Schnabel car ends and the equipment become one rigid railcar. In practice, it means that the piece of equipment being hauled is bearing a heavy structural load as if it were a railcar.

If, for whatever reason, the load cannot bear the weight of being a train car, there is an easy fix. An operator may insert a bridge into the lifting arms, pictured above, creating what’s essentially a super extra large depressed-deck car. However, there’s way more to a Schnabel car than that.

Since Schnabel cars carry hilariously huge and heavy loads, they’re highly specialized freight vehicles. The railcar can’t have what’s more or less a million pounds of weight centered on small patches on the rails, so Schnabel cars spread out the weight of the load across dozens of axles. The largest Schnabel car in the world, the WECX 801, built by Kasgro Railcar in Pennsylvania in 2012, has a total of 36 axles and weighs 880,967 pounds (399.6 tons) all on its own. That’s wild when you remember that these cars can then carry a single piece of equipment weighing in at a million pounds on its own. WECX 801 is so huge that it’s one of the largest railcars in the world.

One special feature of some Schnabel cars is that the arms actually sit on pivots and can use hydraulic rams. These allow the arms to move the load to the outside of a turn or help the train crew move the load to clear crossing gates, trees, signals, switches, or other obstacles that may be in the way. This is a bigger deal than you might think. A loaded Schnabel car may be as long as 300 feet or so, and that makes turns quite dramatic. If a load on a Schnabel car takes a turn on a line with two tracks, the overhang may be so huge that the load actually crosses over the entire second track during the turn.

WECX 801 is capable of shifting its load 40 inches laterally and 44 inches vertically. These movements happen shockingly slow, so slow that you might not even notice them happening.

Special Operations

If this sounds like a delicate and crazy operation, you’re not wrong. These cars also carry reactor containment vessels, generators, oil refinery towers, and anything else that’s way too huge and way too heavy to go onto a regular railcar.

BNSF Railway says that shipping something on a Schnabel car calls for a special operation. Schnabel cars are given their own special train consists.

These trains will have the pulling locomotive, the Schnabel car, and support and tool cars. They also commonly have a caboose for the train crews that need to monitor and run the train and the Schnabel car. That crew may also have mechanics and welders who can fix the train in the field if something goes wrong.

But that’s it. You won’t find a Schnabel car as a part of a regular freight train.

BNSF notes that the Schnabel cars it runs for clients permit a maximum height of 19’9″ and a maximum width of 13’1″. This substantial size means that the railroad has to plan anywhere from months to a year before a move can happen with a Schnabel car. During that time, the railroad will ensure that the load can actually fit under bridges, around curves, and through grade crossings without causing havoc. Routing is also cleared through the Railway Industrial Clearance Association.

When it’s finally go time for the move, the train will also go slowly. Some Schnabel car movements go as slow as 10 mph, while faster moves are still a leisurely 25 mph. Due to this slow speed, it can take a railroad a week or longer to deliver a load through a Schnabel train.

Other kinds of Schnabel cars include a one-piece lifting arm design that more or less “hugs” the load above the ground. There’s another one-piece design that has the appearance of a depressed-deck car that was scaled up in Photoshop. But these two other types are less common.

Chances are that most reading this piece may never see a Schnabel car. There are fewer than 100 Schnabel cars in the entire world right now, and their owners, typically private companies contracting railroads to haul the loads, use them only when needed. Keep in mind that a gigantic transformer moving at just 25 mph is going to slow down a railroad’s operation. Many other companies also get by just fine by hauling their loads on specialized semi-tractors or in much faster aircraft when such is possible.

Still, Schnabel cars fall into a sort of niche, but a very important one. They are just one major cog in the wheel of American power generation and heavy logistics. But, even if you ignore that, these railcars are also just seriously cool. If you’re a railfan or even just tangentially interested in trains, keep your eyes peeled. Maybe one day a Schnabel will roll slowly through your town.

The post Some Of The Wildest Trains Carry Million-Pound Equipment By Converting Them Into Gigantic Train Cars appeared first on The Autopian.

Motorsport has existed almost as long as cars themselves. It comes in all sorts of forms—there are rallies, circuit races, and even big smoky burnout competitions. China has never been a big innovator in this space, but I think that might be about to change. That’s because a new Chinese motorsport has been appearing all over social media this week.

The concept is simple, yet brilliant. Dig a big, conical pit. Line it with concrete. Fill it with slippery, foamy water. Competitors are then challenged to drive into the pit and attempt to make their way out. All manner of carnage then ensues. Vehicles slip, they slide, and occasionally over-rev to the point of major engine damage. I even spotted one glorious example of a G-Class ripping itself to bits in a desperate attempt to exit.

I don’t know what you even call this. The pit of without grip? Foamplay? Scrubba-dubba-don’t? It’s times like these I really wish I could speak and read Chinese.

This is great stuff. 18 minutes of low-grip glory.

Thanks to the segregation between Chinese and Western social media, it’s difficult to parse out many details on this sport.  My research indicates it’s a relatively new phenomenon—videos popping up across Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube have all been posted in the last few weeks.

Most videos appear to have been shot at an off-road show in Shanxi Province, China. The pit itself is referred to as the Shanxi Cornucopia by YouTube channel Tank Firing Gameplay, which has posted a number of videos from the colorful and eye-catching foam crater.

The infuriating thing is that everyone shooting this event apparently felt the need to use vertical video. 

The English narrator called this the Scrubbing Pan Off-Road Show in Shanxi China. I don’t think that’s what it was really called.

Escaping the pit is difficult by design. The foamy, soapy water massively reduces traction, meaning it’s very difficult to simply drive up the steep sides of the pit. After failing the easy route out, most drivers instead attempt to round the pit in circles of ever-increasing diameter, slowly climbing the walls. This can go amusingly wrong when the driver loses traction at high speed.

Many videos cut off before success. One presumes some drivers fail to exit and end up having to be towed out in disgrace.

Risks to the vehicle are numerous. Beyond crashing, there’s also a serious risk of hydrolocking your engine when driving through the water, particularly at speed. Overrevving the engine and causing damage is also plausible if one isn’t careful. Since escaping the pit usually requires high speeds, it can be difficult for drivers to stop before hitting barriers outside the pit, too.

What’s great is that vehicles of all types get involved. Videos show everything from chunky SUVs to tiny microcars getting in the pit. I’ve even seen at least one example of a semi-truck going down to taste the foam, too.

There is also a further enticing twist on this spot. There is apparently a version played in a muddy pit instead of a foamy one. YouTube videos showing this raucous variation appear to have been shot in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province. Given Wuhan’s enduring notoriety for other reasons, it might be hoped that the mud pit antics make it well known for new reasons.

After four minutes in the pit, this driver figures out the trick—driving in circles to get out. They make it over the lip of the pit… only to hit a dirt berm and slide straight back into the depths. It’s great stuff.

 

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Some drivers get out by going backwards.

Finding these videos is easy enough. You can just search “china foam pit” or similar terms. In the meantime, I’m just gonna call it foampittery until the Chinese government (or a dual-language speaker) advises me of a more realistic English term.

I don’t believe the sport of foampittery is officially sanctioned by the FIA or any other major governing body (I didn’t bother to query them as they don’t appreciate silly questions). This is more like Australia’s informal burnout contests, or the massed Altima racing of the United States.

This video notes the existence of mud pits in Chongqing and Guizhou. It may be that the muddy version of this sport existed prior to the concrete-and-foam variant. 

I reckon it’s a new grassroots motorsport China can be proud of, and perhaps even export to the world. Given how popular it’s been on social media this week, expect to see this at every mudboggin’ off-road show in years to come.

Image credits: My Country Life via YouTube screenshot, Tank Firing Gameplay via YouTube screenshot

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