BOOK: Ingenious: Behind the scenes of the Auto X-Prize.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

The trouble is the market is "created", the prius for example made its own market over time. So we are just being short sighted.

Automakers make what the know will sell, or what they hope will sell.
Convince them something like VLC or Seven will sell, and they'll make it.
If they don't make it, you can bet they aren't convinced it'd sell.

Heck, I don't think I'd buy a VLC.
The rolling V4 prototype looks far more like a VCC, very cramped car.
That's even before they add a shell around it.

Shaving 200 kg off the VW up! would bring it down to around 630 kg.
It's been done on a (bigger) Golf: -30% weight.
Edison's VLC - if it ever gets produced - will be heavier than their X-Prize vehicle.


Toyota took a serious plunge with the original Prius and never made any money out of it - on the contrary.
But they thought they had something good, and accepted the initial losses.

Yet it's still a very conventionally shaped car.
The original was a small bland sedan, the later ones had a classic Jap Liftback style (on gen II and III), 4 wheels, not podded.


Tesla is selling it's cars, even at their high prices.
It's also a very conventional, good and sporty looking car - aside from the unconventional propulsion.


So, you can get a new propulsion system on the market and get it accepted.
You can get a new vehicle concept on the market as well - MPV, SUV , X-over, ...

But apparently, you can't do both at the same time.

Also $3 a gallon fuel is ungodly expensive!

Don't ever go near a European fuel pump then :roll eyes:
It'd be sheer blasphemy @ 5,46 euro / 7,40 per US Gallon.
Used to be more expensive - our fuel prices have come down as well, just not as much (most of the price is taxes).

[freebeard]

Reality check : it WON'T happen anytime soon.
IMO, it won't happen at all.

IMHO it falls somewhere between inexorable and inevitable. Of course if humanity fails to shake off the parasites, it could go down with everything else. But I have faith in people.

The traditional car shape has some serious advantages

The shape is an aerodynamic consideration, but the real action is in parts count and suspension attachment points.

Here's a car with composite quarter eliptic springs integral to the chassis:

http://http://blog.2modern.com/2010/03/the-open-source-car.html

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

When I start seeing gas get back down to pre recession levels ($1 a gallon)...

Which recession is that?? I haven't seen fuel prices in my area below $2/gallon since 2008! I don't think it's the recession that is the cause of our gas prices.

And yeah, you'd have a heart attack if you saw gasoline prices in Europe.

-soD

[Frank Lee]

I don't know why $1 gas would be a good thing. It's already such a small expense at $3+.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Here's a car with composite quarter eliptic springs integral to the chassis...

Broken springs happen; I'd rather have to bolt on a replacment.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by some_other_dave

Which recession is that?? I haven't seen fuel prices in my area below $2/gallon since 2008! I don't think it's the recession that is the cause of our gas prices.

And yeah, you'd have a heart attack if you saw gasoline prices in Europe.

-soD

I was buying e85 for $0.85 a gallon in 2006, we had stations here and there around a buck a gallon in 05 for ethanol free when the great climb started. Back then $1.50 was intolerable. Still is but nothing you can do about it. (save an ev)

From as far as I can tell the recession started late 2001 and seems to have continued to this day, just because stocks have gone up does not mean that the mode income of people has gone back to anywhere near what it was in the mid to late 90s, at least in this state.

just because there are a handfull of successes the failure rates in this state have more or less increased and the number of full time, moderate paying jobs has continued to slide or stagnate. The overall number of small brick and mortar has died, downtowns are vacant, as are the malls and even the strip malls.

i ran a small family business for many years and for me and everyone I know the party stopped in 2001, we had a few up years after but times where better the further you go back and it wasn't just me, a lot of folks retired because they thought the 90's had too poor of sales, sheesh, good thing i now "work" for somebody else for a living and don't try to make for a living anymore. I occasionally will go out once or twice a year as a hobby but people around here don't have disposable income, they will buy frivolous food purchases but are on the thrift store mode for anything else. you would be amazed by the skyrocketing number of long term unemployed and the number of homeless is on the rise.

Cheers
Ryan

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I don't know why $1 gas would be a good thing. It's already such a small expense at $3+.

it would be a good thing because it would mean we are using so little fuel that there is an oversupply of the stuff.

Also i didn't say $1 gas was a good thing, just that gas is too expensive for me, but personally I would rather buy no gas, even if its $1 a gallon.

if everyone thought the way I did we might use less fuel and not make frivelous SUV purchases because the fuel dropped a whopping $0.10, ah well.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by freebeard

The shape is an aerodynamic consideration, but the real action is in parts count and suspension attachment points.

Shape is a practical consideration first and foremost.
Aero considerations are added if the above allows for it.

One of Hucho's points is that aero development has slowed down / virtually stopped, due to official testing methods not taking into account aero drag.
NEDC tests are run on a dyno .

The moment the testing goes real-world, we'll see aero taking a greater roll, and full belly pans / air dams / wheel fairings / wheel spats will be an almost instant standard feature.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

it would be a good thing because it would mean we are using so little fuel that there is an oversupply of the stuff.

It'd instantly lead to more (ab)use of it, increasing prices again

[NeilBlanchard]

Jason Fagone has a well written article up on Wired:

Big Automakers Won't Build the Car of the Future, Small Inventors Will | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

Here's my comment from that article:

A part of the discussion that is missing is a chicken and egg thing - expectations of buyers and the willingness of car makers to build something new and different. Witness the fact that most/all EV's have a "grill" even though they don't need one. This is partly because many EV's are conversions, and partly because most buyers are squeamish, and won't even consider something "weird.

All design is compromise, and with less available energy onboard an EV, aerodynamic efficiency is far more important when you need the range. Gasoline is so energy packed, that it has made engineers lazy, in my opinion.

The design of an EV also has to start with the placement of the battery, for Cg considerations and for making it work with the needs of a practical car. Other important pieces in building an EV is heat for the defroster and keeping the people inside warm. There is a HUGE excess of heat on every ICE - indeed this is the red flag pointing to their horribly low efficiency.

EV's need direct heating windshield defrosters, like Ford and others had in the 1980's: a molecule thick coating of gold on the glass that defrosts it in seconds. Heated seats and/or heated vests (like motorcyclists use) can keep the people in the car toasty warm for just a few 10's of watts, instead of 1,000's. Also, thermal insulation in the body can go a long way to reducing both heating and cooling loads.

Really low aero drag requires that the boxy mold be broken. The EV1 and the VW XL1 have narrower rear wheel tracks. Tapering the sides of the car can save as much as 40% of the overall drag. Covered rear wheels *at least* is also required. And covering the front wheels is also very helpful - see the 1938 Schlörwagen aka "Pillbug". ( Schlorwagen Photo by NeilBlanchard | Photobucket ) It has a Cd of 0.18 and that would be considerably lower with an electric drivetrain; because of the much lower cooling required. This can save up to ~10% of the aero drag.

I know of at least two awesome cars that were being built for the X-Prize that didn't get to compete; for various reasons including the rash of regulations and paper work:

Dave Cloud's 'Dolphin' is an aerodynamic wonder forged from a heavily modified Metro, that has two seats and goes over 200 miles on *lead acid* batteries.

Ken Fry's 'The Zing!' is a tandem two seater tadpole trike built from scratch, and is a true serial hybrid.

I'm looking forward to seeing both Jason Fagone and Kevin Smith (of Illuminati) and Seven next Monday, the 9th at MIT!