Everybody lost their way a long time ago
 

I don't even think typing anything more is necessary. We as a society are one giant failure.

The link to the past:

Streamlined Vehicles

well......aren't we all upbeat and cherry today!!!!;)

failure
 

After ranting on one occasion,a fella told me," Well now that you've defined the problem,you can get to work on the solution."
I'm willing to cut the auto makers some slack,as it wasn't until Mussolini and Hitler got the Auto Strada and Autobahn going, that aerodynamic liabilities would really tell on themselves.
I do look forward to the time when the annual styling change is limited to the 'inside' of the vehicle,and we move on to new business as has been done under water and in the air.
The up-shot is that we can do,as individuals,what remains to be done in industry.And we can plant seeds in the minds of everyone who sees our creations,an intellectual phalanx besieging the public mind.
Who knows where it will end?

Don't know how old you people are but let's say I'm over 60. Old enough to remember that by now we were supposed to flying around out of our driveways by now. There has been no progress. It's 2010 already. In my neck of the woods they cannot make a train station where people don't fall between the train and the platform! They make the train station CURVED and the 90 foot long cars are STRAIGHT!. People might call themselves engineers but they sure as hell are BRAIN DEAD! Flat fronts on trucks and motorhomes? Square backs? Cars without full body pans underneath? Even Hitler got that right and how long ago? All you have to do is look at the pictures. You know they dropped the ball a long time ago. It's disgusting. Why are we even using windmills? Why aren't we using microwaves beamed from space where the Sun SHINES ALL THE TIME?

Hey, soon I'll be dead. I'm not going to see this futuristic world that was promised by the BRAIN DEAD engineers. They were making ELECTRIC cars and trucks way before I was born. What is that supposed to be the sum total of their "inventiveness", a car with a battery? Tesla had to have been so tormented with all of the idiocy surrounding him.

Well now that I have that out of the way, I'll get back to trying to streamline my giant square box of a motorhome. By the way, my research happened to make me stumble on that web page. If I'm allowed I may type out what I have been doing for the last 35 years saving energy. Way before this "GREEN REVOLUTION".

Here is an interesting read about the fight between engineers, stylists, marketing, sales and management over automotive styling in Detroit in the 30's:

Auto opium: a social history of ... - Google Books

It is worthwhile starting at the beginning of the free pages and reading the whole thing.

Fordism: cheap, utilitarian, mass produced, they were forced to copy GM's style strategies, annual body changes to keep customers updating
Streamlining: at first aerodynamic, later pure style with no aero testing

woodydel, I turned 60 yesterday and share many of your beliefs. I guess the main difference is I have spent some time and a considerable amount of money to get a Patent on my design. The number is 7677208 US issued earlier this year.

I believe that the obligation of us older people is to try our best to solve the problems we face. Some people like to believe failure is inevitable, but evolution proves that failure is a part of the process. You are old enough to remember when gas was less than 15 cents a gallon and there was very little incentive to really improve efficiency. It should have been done when we became dependent on imported oil, and also when we realized the consequences of pollution.

The planet has absorbed our pitiful efforts at really changing the transportation costs in the past, but I personally think that the future will produce some fantastic results. It is sad that such actions could not be preemptive, but that does not mean we are destined to fail.

regards
Mech

Here is an optimistic review of automotive aerodynamics:

An Illustrated History Of Automotive Aerodynamics – In Three Parts | The Truth About Cars

Happy belated birthday, Mech!

One party who is prominently to blame for the lack of streamlined cars is the car-buying public. They're a vain, shortsighted, ridiculously wealthy group, without whom the SUV never would have taken off. They have many priorities, and fuel economy is generally near the bottom of their wish list. Even for customers who value fuel economy, gas is cheap enough that 40mpg satisfies them.

While engineers can be incredibly naive because so many of them are only book smart, don't put it all on them. It's the Marketing Dept and management that call the shots, and they think they are giving the customer what they want. If mgmt demands that the engineers build something stupid, that's what they'll get. See Dilbert for an eerily accurate overview of the profession.

We're not all brain dead. Marketing and purchasing make all of the decisions without any thought of implementation. So many times there is nothing we can do but push ahead with a bad idea.

Space is an absolutely brutal environment to operate in, solar radiation, meteors, repairs are impossible. Think of all the repairs that have had to be done to Hubble or the International Space Station, then picture a solar array that is several square miles in size.

EVs would be much further along if big auto management weren't fighting them all the way. Take the EV1. Many Engineers pored there heart and soul into it and created a great car, but because of GM politics it got defective Delco batteries so never lived up to it's potential, saddled it with incompetent marketing and advertisement, lots of misinformation, and lawsuits to repeal the ZEV mandate.

Anyway Engineers have to do the best with what they got...which most of the time isn't much.