The *Ultimate* Aerodynamic Car? Dave Cloud's "Dolphin"

[Bicycle Bob]

Originally Posted by bheadrick

I'm trying to wrap my brain around how all that could have been done for $3k. At $50 each, you'd spend $3k on 60 batteries alone. I'm amazed that I don't see anyone asking the question - how in the world was all this accomplished for $3k - unless that's just the body mods alone.

I'd like to know some more details on the mods that were done to this vehicle and how they were accomplished for the stated amount. I might not want to go quite as extreme as this, but I'd certainly like to employ some of the methods here.

The batteries were used, even salvaged, and no carbon fibers were harmed in the making of this vehicle. Dave Cloud is a wizard in the workshop, but I don't think he counts shop rent or his own food as expenses.

[NeilBlanchard]

I think that Dave Cloud had those batteries "sitting around" so yes, I think they were not counted in the cost of this project. I know that they are used batteries, which makes the ~200 mile range of the Dolphin even more impressive; as lead acid batteries lose their capacity relatively quickly in this sort of use.

By the way, I had zero luck with the wind tunnel in Garry's Mod -- there is no "real" control on the speed control of the air. In other words, you can vary the speed, but it is an arbitrary scale. The two other obstacles are getting a SketchUp model into the program -- my son picks this stuff up quickly, and he was not able to get it done. The last challenge is how to see the air flow -- if you could model realistic tufts, that would be best; or if you could model smoke trails, that would also work. But until I can get the model in, it doesn't matter.

Has anybody on the forum been in contact with Dave Cloud, or seen the Dolphin in person? I emailed him a little while ago but no response yet. I may give him a call ... I'd love to hear any updates on the Dolphin!

[bheadrick]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

By the way, I had zero luck with the wind tunnel in Garry's Mod -- there is no "real" control on the speed control of the air. In other words, you can vary the speed, but it is an arbitrary scale. The two other obstacles are getting a SketchUp model into the program -- my son picks this stuff up quickly, and he was not able to get it done. The last challenge is how to see the air flow -- if you could model realistic tufts, that would be best; or if you could model smoke trails, that would also work. But until I can get the model in, it doesn't matter.

Has anybody on the forum been in contact with Dave Cloud, or seen the Dolphin in person? I emailed him a little while ago but no response yet. I may give him a call ... I'd love to hear any updates on the Dolphin!

Care to send that model my way? have you used the valve plugin to export it as a vmf/smd format already?

[NeilBlanchard]

Sure, do you want the Dolphin model and/or the CarBEN EV5 model? Do you have Dropbox?

[bheadrick]

I was mainly interested in the dolphin model, but i'd be interested to check out the carben as well. I do have a dropbox account, though I can't share a folder w/o an email address, and I'm too new to be able to view that kind of info.

[bheadrick]

Here's my first attempt at importing this into garysmod. i think I might have done something wrong when compiling, but also, I found out that the model has a small leak. Going to try patching that up, making it a solid object, and trying again - maybe this weekend.

[HHOTDI]

wow, i am about 5 hours away from Dave Cloud...i'll have to contact him and try to meet up when I head over there next. Keep up the awesome work men, love it! I'm already thinking of trying something like this on my TDI Beetle and seeing how it fairs. I recently made a Bonsai trip to Texas to pick up my Son returning from Afganistan. I fought 30-40mh head/side winds nearly the entire way there. I had the CC set at 80MPH and still got 45MPG with my little TDI Beetle. It was an 83 hour round trip, 4490 miles and most of it at 80MPH. I had one tank from Oklahoma down to Ft Hood Tx with no winds at all, where I managed 52.1MPG still at 80MPH on the cruise control! I started the trip with four Mooney Discs and ended the trip with none. The side winds, 80mph speeds and huge pot holes claimed them all! LOL :{)

[MetroMPG]

Changing to a better battery would be a good idea, BUT...

One Prius NiMH battery pack only holds about 1.3 kWh of energy. The battery pack in Dave Cloud's aerodynamic car holds about 32 kWh! (According to Dave Cloud's Rally Car range x Wh/mi calcs.)

That's a lot of Prius packs.

[Xist]

Apparently the 38 individual cells in the Prius pack are pretty small. I am going to familiarize myself with the other ones mentioned in this thread.

Thanks for the clarification!

[MetroMPG]

(FYI, moved the Jetta/Prius discussion to a new thread - http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ius-22489.html )