Any interest in a whole forum project vehicle? - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

Electric Frenzy · 05-20-2009, 04:26 AM

I'm a firm believer that individuals are better car makers than bean counters and with that I've been wondering about the possibility of us a a collective group building our own vehicle. (long sentence)

With the accumulated knowledge and skills on this forum I can't imagine it being very hard to pull this off. It could also be a GREAT voice for our brood to get attention on a national level.

If even 25% of members here contributed money, time, knowledge, etc I'm sure we could come up with enough assets to pull this off. I know I can't offer much in the way of knowledge but I'm a decent fabricator and would be happy to donate money or supplies. The end result vehicle could even be auctioned off and proceeds donated to charity or some cause.

Is this something anyone else would be interested in doing? No rush, just a collaborative experiment that could change the world.

Frank Lee · 05-20-2009, 04:54 AM

Who gets to drive it?

NachtRitter · 05-20-2009, 12:13 PM

Trying to understand the idea... is it to come up with a common design and then supply the parts they are good at making to those that want to assemble it?

Would want to understand the logistics, if that's the idea.

MetroMPG · 05-20-2009, 12:38 PM

Personally, I'd be inclined to support a "forum project vehicle" project already in progress, except this one started through the EVDL: The Sunrise EV2 Project

As described in this thread: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...again-151.html

Electric Frenzy · 05-20-2009, 04:07 PM

My thinking was that we'd have a large discussion about several factors and decide on the vehicle type:

already produced or built from scratch?
3 wheel or 4 wheel? (no 2 wheels due to less people able to drive)
electric, gas, diesel, etc??
solo or mutli-passenger?

After choosing the critical bits of info we'd start the design phase and vote on the outcome (hey it works for american idol).

Once we have a design we'd get some CAD plans in place and start the fabrication process of the chassis (if needed) while someone starts the body work (again if needed). While this is going on another group could work on the powertrain assembly and parts gathering so that once the chassis is ready we can start installing it all.

This is a tall order, I know, but I fell it can be done with the dedicated people we have here. People could volunteer to help tow the vehicle from one point to another pick up point somewhere else. It's a great way to help out and meet some other members not in your area. I wouldn't mind driving from AL to GA, TN, MS, AK, FL, etc to pick up a vehicle and deliver it to another area for someone else to work on it. I actually like that sort of 'adventure". We could take pictures of all the places the vehicle went to display in a scrapbook or website chronicling the build process.

The vehicle would/could be driven by anyone that wants to drive it. Think of it is a learning tool. If it's staying with you for a week before being sent to someone else take it out as much as possible and let friends/neighbors ride in it. This can be much more than a fun toy. It can be a "nagare"....the first arrow shot into battle sent to signal the start of a war.

dcb · 05-20-2009, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electric Frenzy

3 wheel or 4 wheel? (no 2 wheels due to less people able to drive)

You have to be able to drive on two wheels to get a motorcycle license to drive a 3 wheeler, aint no way an aptera is gonna fit through the cones.

I'm interested in general, but not in this particular instance. Didn't see a check box for that so don't take the "too difficult" part too seriously (poorly worded poll).

Frank Lee · 05-20-2009, 04:50 PM

Maybe we should do a virtual one first.

Bicycle Bob · 05-20-2009, 05:17 PM

There's some chance I'd do bodywork, but only if the consensus on the specs were close to my own ideals, and we were doing a significant demonstrator for others to copy. Or, we might form a commercial partnership. If good business managers had worked for good inventors the way inventors work for good ideas, instead of working for "good" investors, we would not be having a climate and economic crisis today.

The Cabin Scooters group is discussing a group project, and the fate of the OScar, whose design committee sounds like a herd of cats. We'd want to hammer out a single vision and spec first off.

"The essence of modern management is to make individual strengths productive, and individual weaknesses irrelevant." - Peter Drucker

Piwoslaw · 05-20-2009, 05:53 PM

It's a great idea, but I wonder whether this many people can agree on one idea to go with. I hope we make the right compromises, and the only arguments will be constructive. Good luck!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electric Frenzy

already produced or built from scratch?
3 wheel or 4 wheel? (no 2 wheels due to less people able to drive)
electric, gas, diesel, etc??
solo or mutli-passenger?

My vote is 3 wheels (2 front, 1 rear), 2 passenger tandem seating with some trunk space, biodiesel-electric series hybrid. (That's just the Christmas wishlist I've been sending to Santa for the last 25 years.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electric Frenzy

The end result vehicle could even be auctioned off and proceeds donated to charity or some cause.

This cause could be funding for building a second forum project car.

NachtRitter · 05-20-2009, 06:00 PM

Seems like we've already got several vehicles on this forum that fit the idea of a "spokes-vehicle" for fuel efficiency or alternative energy sources... Aerocivic, Firefly, Forkenswift, etc. Not sure another single vehicle could accomplish much more.

I do like the concept of an "open source" designed vehicle though, similar to (or based on) the Sunrise EV2 project mentioned above...