Elio Motors, The Next Big Thing?!!...

[doclees]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I was not aware of the Slingshot's classification difficulties. It was my understanding that other tadpole trikes (ex. Morgan, T-Rex) with "automotive" seating and steering wheels were "motorcycles" in all 50 States.

yeah the CT law reads non-enclosed engine or seating. Not sure what engines are fully enclosed. I get the seating part.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by doclees

I thing all these auto regs are crap to engineer a society. Seriously a car needs crumple zones, airbags, seat belts while I can become bug spatter on my motorcycle? Why do I have that choice but not the choice of no air bags? Don't say safety from big brother. If that was the case every first time DUI should have their license revoked for life. Sorry I digress.

Gotta have to agree with you. I'm actually favorable to ABS brakes even in motorcycles, but I don't really care about airbags. Crumple zones? Not so bad at all, but it sounds like another excuse to make cars heavier and offset any improvement regarding powertrain efficiency...

[Grant-53]

I spent the seventies following the auto safety debates as a mechanical engineering student. True, dead men pay no taxes nor do they buy new cars. The ethics and politics of safety can get counterintuitive at times. The basic reality is that sound standards and designs save 10,000 lives a year in this country alone. A crash resistant chassis must be carefully designed but does not have to be massively heavy. This is the 'lead sled' fallacy. Geometry and material selection are critical to a robust design. A trike or streamlined motorcycle can be agile and provide a great deal of crash protection using materials such as honey comb aluminum, foam, and steel tubing. Consider that many legislators are lawyers by training, not engineers. They rely in industry societies and consultant studies to help write the laws. It is up to us to give input on what is the state of the art in efficiency and safety as well as quality and convenience. The classic American car was 2 tons, long wheelbase, low rpm V8 because that was a comfortable touring car as in 'See the USA in a Chevrolet' and gas was cheap. Now we fly for any trip more than 500 miles. We are still overcoming the Hell's Angels stereotype and the cyclists are hazards to navigation mentality.

[niky]

Considering Mitsubishi can meet crash standards with a 900 kilogram kart, it's obvious we're not completely hamstrung by crash regulations.

It's just that people come to expect so much more from their cars than before that the smallest car that people feel comfortable calling a "car," the Fiesta, weights 200 kilograms more, with much less space and efficiency.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Grant-53

A crash resistant chassis must be carefully designed but does not have to be massively heavy. This is the 'lead sled' fallacy. Geometry and material selection are critical to a robust design.

Have you ever heard about the Brazilian Gurgel BR-800 SL from late-80s to early-90s? It had a steel-tube space-frame that is very light yet better crash-resistant than many modern subcompacts with their unibody structures.

[freebeard]

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr -- I could really see that with the air-cooled rear engine, or an EV conversion. Can you find a picture of the bare space frame? I'd like to see how reproduceable it is.

Grant-53 -- The Edison2 demonstrated excellent performance in the 40% offset frontal collision test because the front suspension was designed to crush and absorb impact while the main cabin suffered a glancing blow.

I preferred the Edison2 design to the Elio (for whatever good that did).

[Frank Lee]

I'm still waiting to see that $5,000,000 worth of knowledge...

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr -- I could really see that with the air-cooled rear engine, or an EV conversion. Can you find a picture of the bare space frame? I'd like to see how reproduceable it is.

It had a front-mounted flat-twin engine and RWD. The chassis does look easily reproduceable.




This is the front subframe of the Gurgel Delta, which was never officially available because Gurgel bankrupted while this model was under development.

As you can notice, its suspension layout has a simpler and more easily-reproduceable layout than the BR-800.

[Xist]

A friend just tried to convince me that now that she will have a second child, she needs to trade in her Corolla for an SUV with three rows. Sure, another friend has an SUV with three rows for two kids, but she is 6'1", her children are supposed to be much taller, and I really like her!

The friend with a 90 Civic just finished her first semester with some new college program that has the students deal with life skills before actually starting college material. She complained about needing to discuss needs versus wants and I told her that I had just tried discussing that with her!

So, again, I mention the person who orders their meal saying "I need six Big Macs."

Do you understand what "need" means?

[niky]

The issue with a two-row car is the difficulty of fitting two child seats in the back and two strollers in the trunk.

That said, I wonder what people think the other two ISOFIX positions in the rear bench are for.

And I wonder why people automatically scream "SUV" when there are perfectly usable minivans and MPVs out on the market.