X-Prize team is looking for advice
 

Hello fellow Ecomodder forum users.

I have been lurking on this website for sometime now and am convinced that there are some very enterprising and resourceful people here.


My brother and I are debating to enter into the X-Prize competition. We are convinced that we have a much better way and concept for transportation than what is currently being developed and offered. As many of you know the X-Prize is mainly about finding the best business model that mets their preset technical goals(4 wheels, 4 passengers, 100MPG, low emissions, cargo room... etc).

It is our intention to make all of our research and technology open to the public. We are not interested in creating a business, as we are in creating a community devoted to new concepts in transportation. We are determining if an open, communal approach to designing a vehicle is a realistic possibility.

The types of technologies that we will be utilizing are improved fluid dynamics, energy recapturing technology, lightweight composite recyclable materials, and simplicity. Our goal is to make a car as easy to assemble, upgrade, and repair as your home desktop computer. We are currently in contact with several manufactures and engineers that have agreed to support us technically.

My brother and I have been developing a technology that we feel would offer a new paradigm in vehicular transportation efficiency. It is our hope to showcase this technology in a vehicle at the X-Prize competition. We still have some legal issues to resolve before we unveil our concept but it mainly involves a unique but not uncommon motor and brake design.

We are looking for individuals who would be interested in donating their time and talents. We are not car designers and there is a huge amount of work that will have to be done to even get this thing off the ground. I am just looking to see who is interested in helping out a communal effort to create the best vehicle in an open source environment. Even if it is just offering us your advice or sage wisdom from your years of experience. Mainly we are looking for individuals with mechanical, electrical, and plastics engineering expertise. We are also looking for artists, software and computer engineers, and business (marketing) minded people. If you are a gifted writer or an English major I would appreciate your help in editing and proof reading documents. There are probably a 100 other odd jobs that we could use your help with.

If you are interested in knowing more about us and our project please reply below or send me a message through this forum. Any advice on how best to proceed with an online collaboration of this sort would also be useful, as we are not only planning a web site but also a large scale meeting space to have real-time communication on what we are working on.

I again want to thank the forum and its administrators for their work and dedication to our common cause.

Sincerely,
Brian Shircliffe

P.S. I would also be interested in a wish list of features you would most want in an X-Prize winning car.

Hey there and welcome to the site! I'm a little strapped for time now (need to head to class soon), but I'm sure that we'll have some good input for you on the type of car we see as being able to accomplish this kinda of task.

Anywho, what were you thinking already as far as design?

Best of luck,
Ben

well simplicity is our main goal... Ideally we are hoping to have a base plan of specifications that can be modified with different body types so that changing the design or shape of the outer body would be as easy as snapping in a new cover.

One of our supporters is on the board of the National Composites Lab in Dayton OH, and we are looking into composite plastics for most of the body other than the frame which will most likely be aluminum or perhaps a carbon-carbon like substance. Though they do have some exciting composites that offer the strength of steel all from recycled plastics.

The first renders I made were of a tear drop shaped body with a raised boat tail at the end... most of our ideas for the aerodynamics are coming from aerospace texts but basicaly the look is of an upside down wing shape.

Though I want to point out that the propulsion system and energy recapturing unit that we are working on should enable even an average car to increase its economy with out any changes in weight or aero dynamics... infact we are hoping to see our technology being used on locomotives and large trucks with out too much significant change to their design.

This is a project we have been both working on for a number of years for fun, but there is a major change in technologies that is finally being realized that should make our concept a practicality thanks to new small scale nano devices.

I am more than happy to answer any other questions too.. please feel free to call me
However I got to run and replace my front struts on my car this morning.

Brian

An Aptera shape with Tata simplicity?

I like the idea of non-petroleum based plastics, like Henry Ford's soybean/hemp composite.
http://www.hempplastic.com/newSite/h...cs_fordcar.htm

Brian -

It seems like you're off to a good start with the aero and whatnot, what goals do you have to meet in terms of cargo capacity, safety, and other things that might affect the shape?

Also, what kind of power specs do you think the car will need to meet your goals?

Glad to have you around,
Benj

Here are the preliminary specifications that must be met according to their draft guidelines.


As you can see most of the other teams will automatically be only able to compete in the highly competitive alternative class (Apteva and other 3 wheel cars) We will compete in the Mainstream. I anticipate the cars will most likely be hybrid drives and efficient fuel consuming technologies. I am eager to see if the compressed air vehicles will be able to compete in the mainstream, as I feel they have the best chance to be able to make a case for a wide spread re-fueling infrastructure.

95% Percentile man is a lil hard to determine.. but I think they mean that the car will have to be able to hold 4 215lbs men. I am assuming that the other specifications are with only 1 driver. these are very challenging goals, especially the accessories... We have solutions for all of these including a very lightweight electric air conditioner. Ideally we would like such a modular system that if a user wants an air conditioner, they would just install one in the summer time and take it out in the winter and replace it with a heater coil... we have several ideas about everything... but simplicity is our main goal. Unfortunately I feel that even with the best engineering and number crunching we will just not be able to totally determine the exact specifics of braking, acceleration, and handling until a prototype is made. I know the major car manufactures now mainly rely on computer models and crash testing that we will simply not be able to afford or design in time.

We have already thought up some very interesting ideas for replacing the electrical system of the car... one that we hope will leave the judges thinking "why didn't anyone else think of this?" All of which is current technology that everyone already understands. Once we get the green light from our legal guy that our original ideas are protected for this competition we will post a website where many of our ideas are will outlined and we will be asking for comments for each accessory and component.

BTW I love the idea of using hemp plastic since hemp is such an amazingly fibrous plant... but our concept would be taking different types of plastics that typically don't like to play and mix with each other and using them in the design. This isn't main stream technology yet because it has been too cost prohibitive due to the high research and development. All of the other American car manufactures have been looking and experimenting with this concept for years, but all but Ford have abandoned their research... probably due to poor sales.

Like I said about the aero dynamics earlier... we would like the car to be very aero dynamic to be able to get an edge over other vehicles on the actual course... but the technology we are planning on using.. which is a radically different type of regenerative braking... means that we will hopefully only be compensating for the loses due to friction, heat, and drag... The technology is scalable but we feel that one of the major reasons people don't work on their own cars is because they are dangerous to work on due to the cars weight mainly.

What is the fuel you are looking at using? I don't see you coming out anywhere in your post and actually saying "Gasoline" "Electric" "Water" or "hybrid" .

well this is a good question. We plan on using a totally electric system. However instead of conventional batteries we plan on using super capacitors... here is a wikipedia link for anyone who wants to know what a super capacitor is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor

Here is another link to a similar power train

http://www.killacycle.com/about/

These are the types of technologies that we will be utilizing... except modified and tweaked for increased efficiency.

Supercaps! How much storage can you get out of those?

here is some more information... I have been trying to contact this company about getting some samples and I have yet to hear back from them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor

Are these the supercaps I've heard so much about?

Edit- Too late on the trigger. And yes...

Ooooo, eestor! I've heard a bunch about them recently, good luck with that.

Got any sketches for us to look at? Aeroporn!

There are other companies and universities that are working on other combinations.... basically we will just pick whatever has the best cost/performance ratio... assuming that the product can charge quickly. The thinking is we will have a matrix of these.. some will be charging while other are discharging. A computer will cycle through which caps are charging and which are ready to discharged.

So once these caps are charged they will keep their charge as long as we are able to recoup energy lost from accelerating, drag, and accessories.

Another major technology will be special struts that are able to convert kinetic energy back to electrical and that are able to damper the vibrations in the suspension.

Yet another idea is to use a special paint that is photovoltaic to help aid in energy efficiency. This is an exciting new technology that we should all see in the upcoming years in small devices like cell phones and mp3 players.

so mileage will be dependent on the size of the vehicle... the weight of the cells... and how much you want to trade off weight for capacity. I am sure we will find a sweet spot as far as power vs weight vs cost.

Also we should start seeing super caps replacing li-ion batteries in nearly every field especially light devices like cell phones.

What kind of price goal are you looking at?

I'm don't have enough fingers to tally the money, :)

quite honestly we have not been thinking as much about what a final sales price would be.

We are going to follow the PC model for parts and assembly. standard sizes and specifications but with a degree of flexibility. With several different manufactures competing for customers the market place will drive down component prices just like they do in the PC market.

The notion is that when you want to "build" a car you would choose which options and features you want installed. The parts would be ordered and shipped to you for self assembly. Or the product would be assembled by professionals and delivered or picked up at a store. Much like Dell pre-assembles computers and ships them out.

So initially the price will be high but the cost should significantly lower assuming that this business model is successful.

I know that the auto-parts and car repair industries are much more profitable than the actual car design industry... imagine how much simpler and cheaper parts would be there were only a few standards and parts were interchangeable from one make or model to another... so you could easily take a Nissan engine and install it in a Ford chassis with a Porche transmission.

We will be most likely versioning our standards so that a Ver. 1.1 engine should work in a 1.0 body etc... If we have alterations or evolutions in design we will diverge probably with either a new Version number like Ver 2.0 or just with another type and start the Version process over. The car designers do this as well and they just change the version numbers with car years... same concept but independent of year models.

This might be pie in the sky thinking but it will most likely be our strategy for the X-Prize preliminary round.

ideally i would like to keep the cost on the very low side of the car scale... somewhere between the cost of a motorcycle and a sub-compact car. Of course with simpler lighter parts the cost of shipping and construction should be kept to a minimum.

Also we want to introduce the concept of upgrading to the car industry... so if you want a faster motor or more mileage capacity you merely upgrade your car much like you would upgrade the ram or CPU of your home computer.

You have heard a lot from EEstor in press releases but not through personal inquiries because they don't actually have them working yet. It's just a concept. If you plan on entering for the prize soon, supercapacitors most likely won't be ready in time.

Many larger capacitor designs also leak energy. We have to wait and see where the new technologies go, but the ones testing at many universities leak power (exponentially, as capacitors always discharge).

we have yet to actually see EEstor's caps however we have seen Maxwell's and they seem to be the real deal. They are readily available... albeit expensive. They leak only about 1-5% every 72 hours... though I would be happy with 1% leakage per hour. The Caps main role in our thinking is to act as a buffer to a battery pack, at least at first.

Here is a link to a very capable supercapacitor.

I wonder then if you are planning for the solar to be enough to recharge the caps en route or if you will be stopping to recharge them?

Oh these arent panels... its just paint that will be able to provide some energy back into the system... it is just an idea to help out with economy.

most likely they will only be able to run the radio or some smaller accessory while the car is running... or it can be recharging the caps when it is parked outside.

The specs of the paint show that it is good at converting light even at low intensity and off angles into usable energy... I think thats why it is so intriguing. These could be efficient even on a cloudy day.

here is an article about it from a quick google search.. im sure there are other sites where you can look up this information.

Do the documents on leaking tell you at what capacity they were charged to while testing? The fuller the capacitor in relation to its max charge, the faster it will leak.

How are you dealing with performance issues since capacitors power output varies significantly with charge? I = C dv/dt for DC power. Capacitors discharge exponentially so you will be at 2/3 power after one time constant. With batteries this is fine since you will only be using a specific portion of the capacitor, but I've never understood how you can get reliable performance out of a system built without batteries (or fuel cells). Hopefully you can help an electrically deficient mechy understand.

Those are some good points and quite honestly we do not have all of the facts of different products to give you a good answer other than to say that capacitors in general are just as efficient at storing energy as a battery. I am not saying that we will not have a battery or fuel cell or some other technology available, but we believe that these ultracapacitors are Key to our energy recapturing techniques.

I believe the data sheets expressed the leak as a ratio of charge... but it really is minor.

Yes the discharge and charging characteristics are very different from batteries... however it is not hard to regulate the power draw from these devices. our biggest concern is losses from wires and other components from resistance.

I don't know your experience or anything... But from my own experience, be very careful with those super/ultra caps.... Look funny at them, and they're dead...

Do you plan on using boost converters at a lower cap array voltage? Or making the output of your cap banks at working voltage?

just depends on the requirements of the motor we are using. We are talking to some engineers at Siemens about what type of motor would best work for what we are trying to accomplish. in fact we might be using 2 or 3 smaller motors to accomplish what we want to do as far as acceleration vs coasting vs regenerating...

We are planning on using a polyphase motor so that complicates things 3x as well.

There's actually a chop top electric metro running several motors (I think it can run up to 8) that's been posted some where around here. What's the advantage of 1 v. many?

well the main advantage in our thinking is we can use them all for increased torque and acceleration and decelerating.. fewer for coasting. It might be that we use one up front and one in the rear. or perhaps one or two per wheel... it is all still up in the air as to what will work best. But then again we might just use one big honkin efficient motor...

it does seem that larger motors are more efficient than smaller....