Quote:
Originally Posted by jime57
Apparently the aluminum monicoque chassis I saw under construction was indeed the v4. I just jumped to the conclusion that it was to have the usual steerable wheel fairings. It is a wider car, with more interior room. The double wall construction looks very strong and the aluminum cross members are going to make for good crash intrusion protection.
It is a very interesting operation, but a bit difficult to figure out where they are going with it.
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They can go a couple directions: License the suspension subsystems as one company; License the whole car as another company. It's up to them and their investors where they want to go.
From the research I've done on CO2 and MPG laws, both directions are viable solutions, and both would help OEMs put fleet average MPG and CO2 within compliance. The CO2 laws are a very big deal. Any cars that do not receive a certificate of compliance cannot be entered into the market, per page 263 of a 500 page document that came out October 15.
Getting fleet average MPG up or CO2 down is very hard to do. The EPA coordinated with an outside party to put together thousands of configurations of current MPG CO2 saving technologies, and how far each configuration will take an OEM toward compliance.
Bottom line, they're all lipstick on a pig (the decades old suspension/chassis designs we drive on) and adding them will force consumers to pay significantly more for cars. However, licensing an Edison2 suspension to an OEM car or fleet that has been modified to accept it, and/or licensing an entire Edison2 car may cost OEMs and consumers less in the long run, and would go a long way toward a cost-effective way of bringing OEMs into compliance.
Essentially, Edison2 is is some ways a giant Ecomodder that OEMs can put to work on their fleets. OEMs can "ecomod" with the new suspension, which removes a lot of weight and enables OEMs to design for better aerodynamics/handling/safety. Or they can offset their fleet MPG/CO2 averages by licensing (or buying) Edison2 cars.