Siemens Innotruck
 

I just saw a commercial for daily planet where they mentioned the Innotruck. Some quick googling led me to this:

Radical Innotruck showcases emerging transport technology

I haven't seen it discussed here, but definitely seems to push the creativity envelope! The bullet truck has some competition.;)

It looks sorta "lonely" up there in the drivers' seat of the "needle-nose."

As soon as I saw it I knew it would be a Luigi Colani truck.

I like the ones with the spinning three-bladed windshield wiper:
http://i.imgur.com/5Bbq5.jpg

Those look like some sort of hideous fish you would find at the bottom of the ocean... ;) Just my opinion though.

I wonder how the aero of those lends itself to better efficiency, if that's what they're going for.

That's freak, looks like those bimodular buses.

I don't know about Seimens' motivation' but with Luigi Colani it's being outrageously Italian first, with aero a close second. Look at some of his other stuff:
http://i.imgur.com/TFQ7R.jpg

Other truck companies have similar efforts; Peterbilt teamed with Local Motors for a design competition:
Peterbilt: Road Icon Generation 2
http://i.imgur.com/Wg8F1.jpg

And Freightliner has their Revolution:
http://i.imgur.com/oGcxE.jpg

Hello everyone,

we, the project team at the TU Munich, are basically doing research in the areas of system architecture, human-machine interface and energy management with the Innotruck. The design itself is not the sole purpose or a research topic, but it indirectly demonstrates that radical body changes are made possible via drive-by-wire systems. It also makes mapping of our "system modules", like the drivetrain module, much easier, since you can directly map them onto the physical vehicle segments.

You can also check out this Youtube clip with additional data in the video description:
EDIT: Ugh, the forum does not let me post links due to my low post count. Just type "Innotruck" in Youtube :)

Needs to be a hydraulic hybrid with infinitely variable in wheel drives.

regards
Mech

I don't think this is the video because it doesn't have additional data in the description, but I like it because it shows the truck under construction and good views of it turning.

You get to work with Luigi Colani?

In my browser, the crummy vBulletin software turns my perfectly cromulent link into a box that says I need to install a plug-in. (Ugh!) Can anyone else see a video? Here it is obfuscated: YouTube/watch?v=ewbWxRK5DPU

I'll second on that. Individual hydraulic rotors with a kind of a CVT for each wheel would be a good way to manage the traction in response to terrain variations.

No, that is the exact copy of our video without the explanation. The right version was posted by the "TUM Youtube Channel" and has an earlier date and more views.

I met Mr. Colani a couple of times on project meetings and events, but we are not working together.

Unfortunately, in-wheel motors are not the focus of this project, and will not be added anytime soon.
One of the reasons is that there are plenty of other active research projects with in-wheel motors in this region.

Very cool test vehicle! Was aero a major focus on this? Just wondering why so little attention was paid to the rear of the vehicle?

I didn't say motor, I said ROTOR. Have you never seen those Yamaha YZ-426F 2-Trac, WR-450 2-Trac and TT-600R 2-Trac which had a hydraulic rotor at the front wheel hub driven by a PTO in the gearbox? In a truck, a similar setup could lead to an optimization of the driveline positioning, which could decrease its weight and allowing improvements to the mass centralization.

I've got to admit I'm out of my league here, since my work is concerning HMI and driver assistance electronics.
I'll let the question slip into the meeting with our mechanical engineer next week.

Aero was not the major focus of our team (under Prof. Spiegelberg).
We are doing the engineering, electronics and software.
The aero came from Prof. Lugi Colani and it was not implemented 100% as envisioned with the original 1:1 mock-up, since it would make the actual vehicle production quite difficult.