Automotive X-Prize: "The Very Light Car" (also very aero) with conventional engine

[sheepdog 44]

I manged to get some questions answered by Oliver Kuttner himself:

Originally Posted by rayfellow

I sent Oliver the questions and - here's his reply.


Originally Posted by Sheepdog 44
Q: Why does the rear of the main body not end in a point like the wheel pods, but instead is flat?

A: We use the rear for the cooling. There is a lot of work going on there and it is very delicate. In the end the answer is that if you want low drag you try to disturb the air the least possible and if you d for the smallest amount of interference. In other words create disturbance as late as possible.
The VLC has a GM aerolab measured drag CD of ,160. That is by the new SAE standard which is much tougher. In CDA it is exactly ½ that of the best cars on the road which are identical…. The Prius and the Volt.
Those numbers are not the manufacturer claims but measured numbers.

In XP we had cooling issues but only because we give away nothing for free… Ducted ari is a big parasite …

Q: Can you tell us about the new engine being designed? What displacement and how many cylinders? What fuel type?

A: We design nothing engine wise again. We have partners and we have three engines which we may look at. One is a 350 cc two are 600 and 650 twins.
Incidentally a fiat twin aire in the VLC gets you 170 mph…
There is a great benefit if the car takes little energy to move…
In the end we are a platform company.

The car we see as the biggest winner is an electric with 8-10 kw battery which is 60 to 80 miles of range without thought and then a small ice for unlimited additional range.. in our case an engine of less than 200 cc, tiny with a highway mileage on gasoline sustained around 90 – 100.

Q: Will it have lean burn capability?

A: It can not be done if you also want to meet emissions. Meeting emissions took away about 15% efficiency to meet XP. In other words meeting emissions (which we were the only engine in XP that did) makes you run a richer mixture for cat lightup and transient gas burning. In time there was more to gain there but XP was on a very short time fuse.

Incidentally we got 109 MPGe on E85. We could have gotten 105 or so on MPG gasoline. However the E85 allowed us to cool the charge more and thereby allowed for more knock resistance. In XP we knew that 100 mpg was very hard. It is… and we left nothing to chance. That is why understanding the rules we went E 85. But in the end the efficiency was entirely from the platform.
For example our suspensions had zero scrub. The rolling resistance of an aptera is higher even with 3 wheels because they had normal suspension…
Incidentally the only other zero scrub suspension is the beam axle on trucks… it is there for the same reason. Fuel efficiency is important to fleet operators especially when you are at 6 MPG… Our patented in wheel suspension is something that can increase FE and reduce weight in any car…
Your “friend” PW did not understand this when I offered it to him.. but he did not understand a lot which I think you guys have seen…

Q: WHEN, it gets produces do you intend the car to be hypermiller friendly? Such as the "Sailing mode" of the XL1 where the engine can shut off and glide in neutral at highway speed down hills. This technique is part of "pulse and Glide" that drivers can use to beat their epa mpg. Will you incorporate features with this in mind, or maybe automate some of the processes?

A: We are anti feature creep it is our goal to make a simple light car.. that said this is something that I do believe in but it is more difficult than meets the eye for production so maybe later….

Q: What's it like driving it in the snow? in crosswinds? What is the grip like in those conditions?

A: Snow I have not done but should be ok as long as it is low snow.. the next gen car has no0 issues there . X wind – we are at a weight where that can become a factor.
In effect we actually have the luxury that we have to add weight for this reason.
Our production cars will be 1200 lbs fully optioned (the E-vlc is 1163 with HVAC and 4 seats and fiberglass non vacuum bagged body (same as aluminum or plastic). This weght can only be achieved with our unique architecture.

Q: How do you jack up the car to change a blown tire? are there any jacking points? Is the car light enough that this paradigm doesn't exist on the VLC since theres nothing under the car to service, and the engine is in the back?

A: The cars have 4 tow hooks and they can handle a jack.
Tire change requires dismount of wheel pods (3 screws). This is going to be easier on next car…
By the way light cars have fewer tire issues… in xp we were unable to get the tires to wear away the mould marks while some teams ended up changing worn out tires…

For a car than can achieve 100mpg, i think even a minor bit of electrification, say just half the battery capacity of a Prius, would skyrocket it's mpg into the 150 mpg range. So why did you chose a Smart engine VLC over a 1st gen Honda Insight drivetrain? Would it not "fit" in the car? I'd expect better performance and much higher efficiencies over the smart engine.

We love plug in hybrids with long e range (80 miles - it goes more but I do not like the limits even though they are adjusted conservatively). But in the end it is user dependent. The VLC will be available with different range options and mixes. The good news is that depending on your target a very small range extender can give you big numbers (at a low cost) and you can get a bigger one.
Rough numbers:
10 kw pack plus 1 kw unit gives you 180 + miles for a day of work without plug in.
10 KW pack plus 2 kw gives you up to 260 + miles day
10 KW pack plus 4 kw gives you almost unlimited.
10 KW plus 6 kw givesy you essentially unlimited range in practical terms…

If you get the double pack then
20 kw gives you 150 miles +
20 kw plus 1 kw unit gives you 230 per day. Etc..
These range extenders are tiny and do not kill the trunk. The operating cost becomes trivial
And the battery pack is still small enough that the car is low cost. 10kw set is $4000.—NOW.

Because the car is light all the parts become light and because of that they are low cost and low charge time…

Q: Can you give us an instant mpg chart of the Xprize VLC? What mpg will it get at a steady cruising speed on level ground from 0-75mph at 5mph increments?

A: I do not know but this may help because in the end fe is HP and as you go up in HP the Break specific efficiency went up so actually in the higher numbers the ICE was better…

There is also an event tommorow where you can see the VlCE and hear a talk by Oliver, Also a link for everyone else to watch online.

Originally Posted by palmer_md

ok, assuming that Oliver gives the O.K. then I'll stream the event at Fantasy Junction live on Ustream. The videos are then archived for later viewing as well, so if you miss it it will be there for a while. Also there are commercials overlayed onto the Live stream, so you may miss something, but the entire event will be available afterward with commercials inserted and not overlayed to the content.

When: Saturday 10/6 from 11 to 1ish (pacific saving time)

Fantasy Junction
1145 Park Ave
(between Emery St & San Pablo Ave)
Emeryville, CA 94608
(510) 653-7555
Fantasy Junction: Brokers of Fine Collector Automobiles and Vintage Race Cars

I'm probably not going to film two hours, just the main speech which I understand is about 40 minutes. Perhaps some discussion afterward, if I have the camera ready. And if I have enough battery!

Below is the link to the channel :

Just ignore the test video...nothing to see here. haha.

Edison2-Oliver Kuttner at Fantasy Junction on USTREAM: . Educational

I hope this works out ok for those who cannot attend. Oh, and sorry I don't have twitter or facebook, so the live chat and such will not work for me. I'm not sure if the users can use the social media section if the owner of the channel does not have it.

[freebeard]

sheepdog44 -- I'd been following the Edison2 VLC thread in the Aerodynamics forum. I found the competition at Local Motors before I found this thread so I will quote myself here:

I stopped by Local Motors and saw that there was a design competition to design the door handle for the VLC:

https://www.localmotors.com/edison2-...re-in/2012/09/

They offered $6K in prize money to the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place winners, with 10 entries. For the door handle. Not bad odds.

Does anyone know how much it would have cost to design the door handle themselves? Does this represent a savings? Did it result in a design nobody would have thought of otherwise?

[XprizeRoadTrip]

I road-tripped with Oliver from Denver to Virginia. Along the way, Oliver wanted to unload the car for a few photos.

We drove through Grinnell, raced down down a dirt road and back, took several photos. Car does great on dirt. Really fun stuff!

[sheepdog 44]

Thanks for posting! Keep us updated with any info you gather. It's good to have first hand accounts of a spectacular vehicle.

[HydroJim]

That's the first time I've seen that license plate cover. That's a very unique approach. I wonder that the cops think

[freebeard]

HydroJim -- That caught my eye too. It would make sense to make it retractable. Otherwise why not extend the entire vertical edge?

Motorcycles can turn their license plate 90°, why can't cars?

[XprizeRoadTrip]

Originally Posted by HydroJim

That's the first time I've seen that license plate cover. That's a very unique approach. I wonder that the cops think

At the shop, they referred to it as the license plate "fish tank".

Oliver has a photo he took of the VLC pulled over by a cop at night, flashing lights. Pretty cool. I think they'll get it up on Facebook eventually.

Speaking of, if you guys haven't done it, get to the Facebook page and hit "like". It's been getting updated more often.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ediso...146132?fref=ts

[2000neon]

That car is so cool! Never seen it before, fantastic design.

[freebeard]

Re-reading upthread I see that

We use the rear for the cooling. There is a lot of work going on there and it is very delicate. In the end the answer is that if you want low drag you try to disturb the air the least possible and if you d for the smallest amount of interference. In other words create disturbance as late as possible....In XP we had cooling issues but only because we give away nothing for free… Ducted ari is a big parasite …

In the pictures the back of the main body is solid but there are vents on the trailing edge of the pontoon fenders. Is that where the cooling air is exhausted?

And how did the $6K door handle turn out?

[NeilBlanchard]

The ICE powered VLC that won the X-Prize has the cooling exhaust out the central tail fascia. The VLCe obviously does not need very much cooling.

The trailing edges of the rear fenders are the taillights.

They started out intending to design a "power agnostic" car, and they did end up with a very, very efficient chassis; with low aerodynamic drag and low weight. But, it was designed then for an ICE power plant. The cooling intakes (the NACA inlets) are a carryover; and I don't know where the battery pack is located. Electric motors are relatively small and easy enough to locate, but locating the battery pack is something you need to start out to solve first and foremost in the design process.

The VLCe is an amazingly efficient car, and it seats four people. It shows what is possible, and it shows that the car itself is the most important thing. The power plant is very important, but if the chassis is ordinary, then you can't have a very efficient car.