What car makers *should* be doing!

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

Originally Posted by trikkonceptz

Neil, what would be better .. send this email off to car companies or politicians with the promise to support or ban those that do not that do support our thoughts....

Both! I have sent it to all my congressional reps, and I have sent it every car company I can think of and find an email for.

And you can/should do the same, too. And letters to the editor...

[mfor4x4]

I don't post here much, I just like to read what all of you guys say but here are my 2 cents.

Make a car with less horsepower, this is one of the reasons why the Metro gets such good mileage.

Make a light car, once again the Metro is a perfect example of this.

Make a car with a Camless engine. I don't know how many of you guys have heard of this, I would imagine most of you had.

Here is a good camless engine link: Browser Warning

Transmissions: I have little experience with the new CVT (Constantly Variable Transmission) I got to drive a Dodge product with this transmission in it but the car seemed fat and heavy, typical of most American Cars.

We got in a discussion at work about the mileage of new trucks, the guys at work were saying how these new trucks get the same mileage as trucks from the past. I pointed out that these new trucks are weighing a lot more and have at least 2 times the horse power. Imagine a new truck with only 150 horse power and a reg cab long box, I wonder what kind of mileage this combo would get. This would mean though that the truck wouldn't be able to pull 10,000lbs without slowing down going up a hill.

[Bicycle Bob]

Bicycles can carry ten times their own weight, so I think that cars should be completely redesigned around a goal of not weighing more than their useful load, and be sized all the way down to single rider models. Simplicity and uniformity of controls would help people choose the right size from a vehicle co-op instead of always driving around with seats that are only filled once or twice a year.

As others have noted, streamlining can improve. We should aim for ratings in the teens, not the twenties. On average, getting the most out of a small-engined car is more fun than looking for opportunities to let a musclecar flex for a few seconds at a time. Nobody needs more performance than a loaded cube van for practical reasons. Engines can still benefit from variable valve timing. With wider gearing, it can be as good as variable displacement. There may be opportunities in variable compression devices. Exhaust heat can provide electricity and/or air conditioning. Tires should be designed for economy, with good handling and ride qualities; extreme traction is almost never used to avoid accidents, while playing with it can encourage them, and make them worse. Drifting is fun at any g force.

[Frank Lee]

Yes, I've long thought it is more fun to drive a slow car fast than to drive a fast car slow.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

Here's another thing that car makers could do: use a composite wheel/tire that has low weight, very low rolling resistance (by being strong enough to stay round), and low aerodynamic drag, no worries about inflation -- and re-tune the suspension to work with said wheel/tire.

[trikkonceptz]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Both! I have sent it to all my congressional reps, and I have sent it every car company I can think of and find an email for.

And you can/should do the same, too. And letters to the editor...

Believe me, I'm in Scion's ear almost daily and involved in alot of their meetings to discuss the "Future" of Scion. I'm always discussing the balance between edgy and Eco, trying to convince them that this push will come from the younglings not their parents ..

[Big Dave]

Comments on Neil’s updated list:

Combining rounded front and active grille:
Keep in mind that litigation concerns mean that manufacturers have to design cars for the worst case scenario – prolonged idling in Death Valley in the summer without overheating and the air conditioning working OK. That said, the active grille is something the diesel pickup truck community has been crying out for. Diesels take forever to warm up without substantial load. Closing off the grille would allow for quick warmup and active opening would allow it to adapt to Death Valley conditions when needed and be more aerodynamic the rest of the time. Another thing to add: Normally closed ducted brake cooling inlets that open when the brake lights come on.

Sealing seams depends on size of the seam. General aviation people have found that gap seals work well on 150 knot aircraft but don’t really help 130 knot aircraft. So you see gap seals on Mooneys but not Cessna 182s. Cars are even slower so the gap would have to be enormous (the gap between pickup beds and cabs) to be worth bothering with.

Floor pans are OK, but you have to take under-body servicing into account. Don’t make the poor mechanic miserable or your repair bills will be astronomical.

More gear ratios are good and I’d add that the torque converter has to go. CVT works for small, low-powered vehicles but is a flop for anything bigger. The new dual-clutch sequential gearboxes are a step in the right direction.

LRR tires are good but keep in mind their lesser traction. I’d like to see rolling resistance coefficients more widely published.

I used to have a Pontiac Grand Prix that had a MPG display that was on all the time.

Tire pressure monitors are available on Hummers. How accurate they are…I don’t know.

I like the idea of video cameras to replace side mirrors but state and federal regulations would have to be changed to allow this.

Right now, I don’t see a lot of scope for lower coefficients of drag. People have expressed a preference for an upright seating position and that more or less dictates a “hedgehog” vehicle shape and few people are willing to live with the additional length that a true boattail requires.

Wheel skirts area good idea, but they service issues have to be addressed. A skirt will be hated if it requires ten minutes work to get it off long enough to check air pressure in the tires.

Lighter cars are possible, but with collision standards what they are, that entails a much more complex and expensive structure. Cars are at the ragged edge of being unaffordable as is.

[Frank Lee]

Pretty much agree with Dave's summary.

But, in my case, I think I'd like a wider gear ratio spread on my 5-speed rather than more gears. I do enough skip-shifting the way it is. In fact I think that if I had a 3 or 4 speed stick tranny with a tall enough top gear, I'd find that satisfactory. About the only time I go through all the gears is when I'm accelerating at a higher than normal rate, or if the car is heavily loaded.

Disclaimer: I am a flat lander so maybe the Hill People need more gears.

[lunarhighway]

maybe a clever systems based on what most big trucks use might be interesting.

basically a two gearbox system where one gearbox is in series with the other
if you'd place a two speed gearbox in line with a 3 speed you could have 3 low and 3 high gears.

i admit someone will need to do some serious number crunching to get the tight ratios and there'd have to be an well thought off mechanical or electronic linkage so that the average person is not confronted with a frankenstein's lab array of levers .

another thing i'm still rather intregued by was when i heared of something called a variamatic transmission.. i believe it was used by volvo a long time ago where basicaly some sort of belf was put over a pulley that consisted of two opposed conical pieces. to change the ratio the cones would simply move closer together makeing the effective pulleys diameter bigger or they'd move appart makeing the diameter smaller.... sounds like a simple method that gives you infinate gear ratios.
and it could be well addapted to makeing a semi automatic with manual inputs to up or downshift to give you manual like controle over the revvs, but at the same time withing such a virtual "gear" the computer could still make small adjustments so you can't lugg the engine. better still such a system is easily coupled to software maps for sport and eco modes etc, and if carmakers are really serious they'd allow for some "custom setting" or better still learnig mode that seeks for patterns in your driveing and adjusts the map to thos preferences but at the same time "bad" habits could be pointed out to the driver and more econimical prosedures advised...

[groar]

Originally Posted by lunarhighway

another thing i'm still rather intregued by was when i heared of something called a variamatic transmission.. i believe it was used by volvo a long time ago where basicaly some sort of belf was put over a pulley that consisted of two opposed conical pieces. to change the ratio the cones would simply move closer together makeing the effective pulleys diameter bigger or they'd move appart makeing the diameter smaller.... sounds like a simple method that gives you infinate gear ratios.

CVT ?
Continuously variable transmission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Denis.