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Ford Shows Off Recyclable Car
Opspin writes "MBDC (who wrote the book Cradle to Cradle) write in their
January Newsletter about a Ford Concept Car that includes Bluetooth technology as well as Cradle-to-Cradle design strategies. Read the MBDC press release, and the Ford Motor Company press release."
I'd like to have the opportunity to throw away a Ford Focus. Sure it probably has all of the proper bullet points, but there are lots of very nice cars out there with the right price/feature ratio that actually have a _soul_!
Now if we could just get a Mr. Fusion to power them!
Unless it hasn't been possible to melt down old cars and make new products out of them until now?
Just keep buildin' and buyin' and throwin' away... keep the economy ticking over, keep the boys employed, keep suckin' up those natural resources... mm.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I must say that it's a great concept, but my first impression is that the thing is really ugly. I wonder how many people rank the look of their vehicle in the list of priorities for buying. If they do, will the look of this one negatively affect its sales?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Photos in Google's cache can be found here.
Of all the cars I've ever had - the Ford was the worst. What's so new about his one?
Called the Cheverolet "Whim" if I recall correctly. The article's not on the website right now unfortunately. Go buy the books. :)
I read bot the MBDC and Ford releases -- not much in the way of specs. Certainly nothing about maximum and minimum speeds. Maintenance requirements and/or torque/pulling power.
I mean, I like the idea of supercharged hydrogen (Hindenburg accidents excluded) -- but I would think these are issues Ford would want to publish as it markets this 118hp vehicle against one of its own 590hp monsters.
--- have you healed your church website?
Maibatsu Monstrosity!
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
In all honesty, how many people do you think actually recycle? Fine, a new disposable environmentally friendly car is developed. But, last I checked, most recyclable items still ended up in trash and ultimately in land fills. I can't imagine what would happen if you could throw away a car that often
It doesn't help that the President now wants to provide tax incentives for certain types of SUV owners. Face it, beneath the green rhetoric, the US is a society that lives on pig iron and fossil fuels.
From the article:
- Corn-based roof canvas
- Bio-materials, including soy-based foam and tailgate, sunflower seed-based oil, corn tire filler
if you run out of other uses for it, you can eat it too!
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
They are quite progressive about this subject. Here is a research paper on the German law.
For decades the automobile has been the most recycled consumer product. First a discarded automobile is stripped of its vauable parts. Ever attend a 'all-you-can-carry' day at an automotive salvage yard? A huge crowd of people disassembling autos for the parts they need. Doors, hoods, dashboards, engines, alternators, seats, anything....
Also note, that the majority of stolen cars are stolen for their parts.
After striping, depending on the car and its arrival condition it can be anything from a stripped shell to pretty much intact. At this point the car is crushed.
The crushed car is then put through a shredder, then through various processes the metals are separated and depending how advanced the facility, the plastics and other materials.
BTW, under consideration in europe for auto recycling has beena dismantling approach. Where the automaker takes the car back and actually diassembles it, rather than using a crusher and shreadder.
Even if one is displeased with the actual amount of automotive recycling, the fact remains, it is higher than other consumer products.
20th century innovation: Mass-produced cars!
21st century innovation: Multi-function tailgate!
Yeah!
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
Aren't all cars already, for the most part, recyclable? (just ask someone who regularly visits a junkyard)
The difference with this car is that many parts are biodegradable.
Somehow I don't think that's what they meant.
a Ford Concept Car that includes Bluetooth technology as well as Cradle-to-Cradle design strategies
-- Adam
Seems that a car like this should be more geared twords business or people who buy on a leese. For the general buyer, a throw away car will not be all that hot of an idea. Having monthly payments on a limited income is what you try to avoid. While this idea really isnt new, im suprised that Ford is one of the first to actually come out and say "Hey, this car wont last x yrs and its not made to." One other thing, how enviromently friendly is a car like this anyway? Ya, it cuts down on emitions and fuel consumption but havning an entire car get retired and destroyed after a short period of time isnt all that great. The car will still have to be gutted, crushed, recycled back to workable material, all this generating waste and other nice byproducts. Looks like we might just be creating the same amout of toxins and waste just in another area.
Don't forget that Ford really sucks.
Chris
Manufacturers come up with outlandish concept cars like this all the time, and this one is nothing special. Where in the press release is the promise that ANY of this recycleable technology will be in the showrooms?
/. editors really fall for the 'new model-T' tag line that Ford wheels out for a large portion of it's press releases?
Did the
Even the headline "Hydrogen ICE plus Hybrid Electric Powertrain" isn't much of a breakthrough, you can already buy half a dozen different cars that are more encomical than this one would be if it ever went beyond the 'mock up and press release' stage.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
is in my driveway. It's a 1985 Mustang, and it is naturally decomposing.
"...I'll need guns" --Chow Yun-Fat in 'Replacement Killers'
It says a lot of the market here (or what Ford & GM think of the market) that Ford is greener in the EU than in the US. There's a 50+ mpg Ford Focus selling in the UK, there's a Volvo (owned by Ford) diesel sedam/stn wagon that has more oomph than the most poerful gas version with 40+ mpg, and Merc and BMW have hotrod diesel sedans in regular production over there. Think about it, a doubling of fuel efficiency of they'd sell the same thing here, with no war, no pain, no massive infrastructure changes, almost nothing. OK, maybe $1k more for the more expensive engine, but consider how we'd all pay more for a V6 vs an inline 4 cylinder.
DIsposable cars, I mean isn't this a prblem waiting for a solution? Cars recycle better than most things right now, the major component steel, becomes structural steel for buildings.
In this respect I have to say Toyota and Honda are the most serious about improving our environmental impact. While they pay all due homage to hydogen fuel cell and interchangeable bodies and other "cool" concepts, they're selling practical highly efficient vehicles like the Prius and the Impact (there's a 5 door version out now, don't know what they call it). Of course, there's always been the 50 mpg Jetta if you really look. And all 3 companies have not a trace of US ownership.
It's about time they started making the things from carbon fibre (or even glass fibre), which is easily repaired, lightweight (therefore more fuel efficient), and totally immune to corrosion. The attitude that a car is a disposable commodity, to be tossed in the trash every couple of years is daft. I would rather see manufacturers offering upgrades to existing vehicle as an alternative.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Hopefully better than those old bio-degradable cars!
Dang, I left it in the rain JUST ONCE! And off I have to go to the dealership again.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
If this sounds familiar, this may be why. (pointing to archived site as theonion.com seems to have done some housecleaning....
This is a concept intended as "proof of concept", and not for production.
If it were intended for production, there would be a lot more refinement of processes, materials, and even design elements involved, and a lot more details fothcoming about such elements. If it were intended for production, there would at least be focus groups involved in such things as its marketability in its current form (such as it is). Not to mention lobbying for the infrastructure necessary to get a car like this produced and feasably useable (hydrogen-refill stations, for one).
Instead, this seeks to prove that something, in theory, COULD be done. Recyclable body panels are nothing new (Ford had an aluminum concept several years ago, and the new Jaguar X-type owes its many production delays toward the use of aluminum). Even subassemblies can be salvaged. And Hydrogen fuel cells have been in limited use and testing for over a decade.
What's interesting about this, is the use of new materials for fluids (arguably the most cancerous of all automotive components) and plastics. I'm not a chemist, but the testing of new corn and soy-based polymers for everything from interior materials to fluids is fascinating to me. At the very best, if pursued such processes could finally wean the US (and manufacturing in other sectors outside of the auto industry) off petroleum-based plastics and fluids, which would be a gigantic leap forward for industry, without question.
The "modular interior/ exterior" BS is all just marketing of design concepts. That's there to show that designs can lead themselves toward being more eco-friendly in a subtler fashion. Going back to the salvage industry: It's a lot easier to find salvage parts from platform-sharing cars Cougar/Thunderbird/MarkVII, Cavalier/Sunfire, Chrysler K-car, etc etc etc) than it is for one-offs. This concept I think seeks to carry over that mentality on a larger scale, tho with the public's demand for unique vehicles I doubt we'll ever see swappable parts on a grand scale.
It will be years if not decades before something like this can be driven off the lot, but it's good to know that the ideas are being tested. This concept should be good for new materials processing if nothing more. The only trick will be to keep Ford and other companies pursuing this, as opposed to saying "Great, we know it's possible, now go mothball that POS in a barn somewhere and let's forget it ever saw the light of day".
~~~
"The slave thinks he is released from bondage, only to find a stronger set of chains" - NIN
Excellent points all around. Your thinking argues for an entirely different strategy.
You want true automotive recycling? Pursue greater modularity and standard across automakers. Decrease black-boxiness of parts (make them mechanic repairable as they once were).
Of course these goals, as always, are probably at cross purposes with others.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Recycling is only part of the whole point anyway. What's also at issue here is the process used to create the car, in how it effects the natural environment, the workers, and the end users of the product. Regardless of how recyclable a material is, MBDC doesn't like it if it exacts too high a cost to produce. Hence the car roof made out of simple biomaterials. They also don't like materials that off-gas potentially toxic chemicals -- for example, "new car smell", an enticing mix of plastics, glues, solvents, etc.
Get an old car, mid to late 80s, for example. It will be really cheap. When it breaks, get bits from the scrapyard and fix it yourself, or get your mate who knows about fixing cars to do it and buy them beer.
...about car manufacturers who boast about their cars being easily recycled instead of their cars being engineered to last a lifetime?
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
C'mon people, get on-topic here! In this case, F.O.R.D. should mean:
Fix
Or
Recycle
Daily
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
"We only serve the finest edible automobiles"
Lawyers
Did you get sick after eating an automobile. Well contact the law offices of Shady and Shadier. We'll get you money. Etc...
1. Bad signature
2. ?????
3. Profit
Paper
Plastic
Glass
Unleaded
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
As usual, we (the British) and the US are two nations separated by a common language.
... :-p
UK Pavement = US Sidewalk
US Pavement = UK Metalled Road (or more generically, a paved surface, presumably because most US roads are poured slabs of concrete, unlike the tarmacadam surface prevalent in the UK).
Don't even get me started on bonnet/hood, boot/trunk, nappy/diaper, tap/faucet
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
This is more than just appeasing environmentalists. By designing and building a car that is easier to recycle, they reduce the cost of recycling. Which reduces the price of recycled materials. Which reduces the price of making new products from the recycled materials. If the US requires auto companies to take back and recycle their products, Ford has already reduced their cost of complying. There are already products in the US that manufacturers are require to take back for recycling.
...from Ford: "New! 10 year, 100,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty!" Now *that* would be real news. Fords are alerady disposable. I'd love for a really, really good (ie: able to compete with Toyota's and Hondas) American car to be built. Unfortunately, I really, really doubt that I'll ever see that in my lifetime.
You know Bud's going to end up with that Dodge.
Or is that reuse?
Damn, I wish I could mod this guy up.
Better yet, it might be wise to bring back the days when cars were built almost entirely out of steel, not out of plastic and sheet metal like they are today. Those old cars could withstand collisions with just about anything short of a tractor/trailer (lorry for you Brits), and sometimes even then. You could actually walk away from a 20mph crash, instead of having to call for an ambulance.
If you can make a new car as crash-resistant as an old one, without using steel, that'll be great. If not... well, I care more about my safety than I do about miles per gallon. I agree that most people don't need gas guzzlers such as SUV's, but the sacrifice of auto safety on the altar of the environment has been going on for way too long.
Utilizing magnetic schemata since
Back in the day, Henry Ford built a hemp-based car. Most of the body was made of hemp fiber, and it ran on hemp-based fuel. I say screw these new recyclable fibers and just use hemp. It's cheap, strong, and renewable.
Ashland Soy resin for body panels
Brilliant Technologies Headlight concepts
Dynatek Hydrogen fuel tanks
Goodyear Corn-based tires
Harman Becker Sound system
Makel Engineering Hydrogen sensors and controller
McLaren Hydrogen fuel rails and supercharger
Motorola Wireless technologies
Pi Technology Hands-free phone
Quantum Hydrogen fuel injectors
Roush Engine support and build
Sarnoff Collision avoidance systems
Sun Microsystems Vehicle electronics programming
SpeechWorks Conversational speech voice interface
TRW Four-point safety belts
USSC Soy-based foam for seats Visteon Exterior lighting
MIT Medialab Wireless switches
Univ. of Northern Iowa - ABIL Soy-based grease
....but I can't help wondering who's going to start the linux "CARdara" distribution. ;-)
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Cradle to Grave perhaps?
that most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels, and recycling takes energy...and there's also the tiny detail that the price of a disposable car isn't going to be much, if at all, less than a normal car made of real parts due to R/D costs and the fact that there aren't convenient hydrogen stations across the nation lining our highways.
So unless something magically makes Ford decide to get with the oil companies and convert the stations while swapping their pricing model to something a little cheaper (say, 2 to 6 thousand dollars US), then I am quite sure that Henry Ford is rolling in his grave as they compare this to his Model T, because the Model T was nothing if not successful and affordable.
So until this all comes to pass, I think I'll stick with my Crown Vic, content with the fact that it doesn't keel over and die when I pass 100,000 miles on the odometer and the fact that I have only had to do non-preventative maintenance once.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Actually asphalt as it's called here is getting to be way more common now and I don't believe that's the better choice either. Concrete tends to last longer and require less care over time. Concrete is also more expensive then Asphalt. An asphalt road can be done very cheaply, but unlike home owners and their asphalt driveways, the govermnet does not take the time to seal them. They usually just open them and when it gets to a certain point of disrepair (potholes every where), they will grind the top layer off and add a new layer. After so many layers, they total reconstruct it as happened the last two summers with I-70 going thru Columbus. They tookup all of the asphalt down to the dirt, regraded the roadbed and repaved with asphalt. Concrete is still commonly used as the road surface on bridges though. They also have started mixing in used car tires into the asphalt mix and I think I heard there was a study that said the new mixture even lasted longer then anything else. Things always change.
While the car they present is a typical almost ugly concept car(I kind of like it), it is a good idea. I am not a typical enviro freak. I say if you can make something that doesn't cost a whole lot more and is environmentally friendly it will sell. If it costs twice as much and you'd get half as much performance out of it, who would buy it? Research should still be done because eventually they will make a electric car that is green friendly and will perform as well as a gas car. Projects such as this car should be done so that the real R&D can be tweked and more efficient ways of building it can be figured out. 5-10 years down the road, we may have a electric car that will be just as good as a gas car. If they don't spend the money, this will never be found.
Gorkman
Because of the European take-back regulations, BMW and other automakers have been designing their cars to be taken apart and recycled faster and easier for several years now.
Back in one of my environmental engineering classes, we saw a film on one of these take-back plants. It took a couple people just an hour or so to strip a BMW from all its recyclable parts, including stuff like draining (and saving) the fluids, pulling off all plastic parts, etc.
And BMW is always watching and feeding back into the design process. They've reduced the types of plastics used to have less bins and sorting involved. They've reduced the use of gluing, welding, and riveting of parts on and replaced with mechnical fasteners (screws, bolts), making it easier to take apart. Instead of a taillight assy having two types of plastic (lens, backshell) being glued or rivetted together, now its one type that may snap together.
German car fetishists may voice concern that stuff like this may reduce the quality or performance of their favorite vehicles, but to me that means they aren't as purist as they claim, they don't trust the same engineers that designed their favorite cars in the first place.
Also note, that the majority of stolen cars are stolen for their parts.
This is not because the parts are more valuable than the whole, at least not in the obvious way.
By stripping a stolen car for parts, the stolen materials become that much harder to track. The vehicle's VIN might be stamped on the engine block and the dashboard, but the muffler and the seats and the tires and the catalytic converter probably don't have any unique identifying marks at all. Once those are sold, the owner of the car has NO chance of recovering them.
This is very true. I live in New Jersey, a state that can be admired for its colorful drivers and its amazing road system (we take our roads very seriously). Take for example, the NJ Turnpike. The parts that are older concrete are in great shape (but you get that *thump* when you hit a gap every 40'), however the paved sections have to be redone constantly because of the number of cars/trucks that NJ pumps down the Turnpike. The seperation of the truck/car lanes between exit 17 and 13 helps a lot as well. Also, the Parkway is always under a state of repair to keep it in its immaculate shape. However, the Parkway has the benifit of not allowing trucks to tear up its surface.
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
And backwards, it says:
Driver Returns On Foot!
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
It's bad enough that PC users are seeing their neighbor's keystrokes on their own screen due to imperfectly-designed wireless keyboards... it's bad enough that Fast Lane toll transponders are going dead because certain digital cell phones activate them and run down the batteries...
The possible unintended consequences of allowing components within an automobile to perform wireless communication boggle the mind. Backseat driving is one thing... accidentally driving a car next to you in an adjacent lane is another.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You are correct; working for a major automotive supplier, I've participated in several concept surveys due to my youthful perspective, and no one should think that a vehicle's appearance and the "proud-to-own" factor don't play a significant part in determining what comes to market.
However, with such eyesores as the Chevy Avalanche, the new Impala, Toyota Prius (which means 'injured turtle'), and the stomach-churning Pontiac Vibe all selling well, it's obvious that Americans do not weigh appearances 100%. Or else it's the simple notion that one man's treasure is another's trash.
I'm just wondering where I'll be able to find a local hydrogen pump.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
He did not stutter, the concept is in fact called Cradle to Cradle. It's a concept presented in a book by the MDBC founders called, Cradle to Cradle [slashdot], in which they claim, rather reasonably, that you're not -really- recycling unless the product you produce is of equal or greater material quality than the product you started with.
If you take petroleum, and make soda bottles, and then you take soda bottles and make them into seat cushions and polyfill for coats, blankets, etc, you've recycled the material only once, but you can't recycle polyfill into anything useful, so it goes into the landfill when you're done with it.
You've recycled the material once, doubling its lifetime. In a perfect world, you're reducing the waste stream by only half, by making every coat from recycled material, and new bottle with new material. Cradle to Cradle says, let's make that soda bottle out of a plastic that can be broken down and made back into feedstock for making soda bottles, and coats out of material that can be made out of coats. In other words, returning it to the Cradle. Assuming some wear and tear on the materials, you still could expect to recycle more than 95% of the bottle back into another bottle. Now, in a perfect world, 19 of every 20 bottles is made from recycled material, ditto for coats.
Cradle to Grave just means someone is responsible for the eulogy, which will eventually be ours if we don't stop dumping high-grade materials into holes in the ground.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
Back in 1989 or 1990 or so, I read in one of the car mags (I subscribed to several, so it was either Road & Track, Car & Driver, Autoweek or Automobile) of one of Chrysler's then-latest concept cars.
It was a 99% recyclable car called the Neon, which lo and behold was released upon the world four years later. Does anyone know how much of that held true about the recyclability (is that a word?) of this car?
siri
Since it runs on pure hydrogen, they could put Pinto gas tanks on it and let everyone drive their own personal Hindenburg.
~Chaltek
The Hindenburg fire was not a hydrogen fire.
It will turn into popcorn.
Isn't hydrogen explosive? What prevents these cars from exploding in crashes?
haha, the first time I went to England, my English friend made sure I didn't say "fanny pack" more than once (as I was wearing one), because fanny means something entirely different there
Eazy E had a song about a recyclable car:
"Now I'm rollin' hard now under control Them wrapped tha '64 around a telephone pole I looked at my car and I said,"Oh brother!" Thrown in the gutter and go buy another"
Don't write in this space.
OK
Don't Fords end up in the junk yard in a couple years anyway?
The Hy-wire name comes from the fact that it is a fuel-cell vehicle (therefore nominally "hybrid") with an entirely computerized control system (i.e. drive-by-wire). But what is exciting is that the Hy-wire is a real "back to the drawing board" resdesign of the automobile. Most of the features you see in a conventional car are gone. Instead the entire power train and fueling system is contained in a 12" thick "skateboard" chassis to which many different styles of body can be attached. Since the control cluster is connected to the rest of the car only by wires, it can be placed litterally wherever you want. The upshot is a car that is totally reconfigurable, with the potential for 100% visibility and improved crash protection. And, while the car is very "high tech", it is actually simpler than a conventional car and should be more reliable: compared to a conventional car, there are almost no moving parts to wear out or break. And although the Hy-wire concept car is not specifically designed for high recylceability, this same fundemental simplicity should make it a whole lot easier to design for recycling.
More Hy-wire information here.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
There's a lot about a modern car that's very difficult to recycle. Printed Circuit Boards have lead, plastic, and a myriad of other toxic things. Some kinds of plastic are expensive to recycle, and plastics with coloring agents are almost useless for reusing in the same type of product.
You also run into health issues (Like, did the previous owners let mold grow in the seats?)
What's this Submit thingy do?
Fords have always been fully recycleable. Just leave a new Ford outside for a few years and it will be almost completely recycled into iron ore and other carbonaceous goop. Motorcars are probably the most recycled things ever produced by mankind. You just have to look at all the scrap merchants to appreciate it.
Let me get this straight, Recyclable Cars from the company that sells pretty much SUVs that are definitely increasing the rate of global warming. What's the point? Why save resources when there probably won't be much left in 50 or 60 years.
I guess I shouldn't blame Ford that much, after all, they're not forcing people to buy them... but Bush's tax cut on SUVs will probably help speed up global warming a bit.
The goal was to create the Model T of the 21st century--a new type of vehicle specifically designed to be good to you and good for the world.
The 20th century Model T was by no means "good for the world". They were polluting and inefficient at best. Let's hope that they fail the goal of making this like the Model T, then.
Murphy was an optimist.
A quick search for 'built-in obsolescence' on Google turned this up. I like the idea of this (OK, I was always rather fond of the old Morris Minor). Check out some of the technical features
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Ok, lots of hype over bluetooth and though I haven't had a chance to use it, it looks promising. My question is, what on earth would a car need bluetooth for? Transmit mileage and other stats to a palm or something? Maybe (I'm not sure of the speed and bandwidth of bluetooth) bluetooth mp3 player? I don't know anyone know what they are using it for?
-Chris
Fucked Over Rebuilt Dodge
They've been recycling stuff for years [avoids rotten tomatoes].
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
My favorite part is the corn based tires.
Look, we already do a fabulous job at recycling automobiles. Over 75% by weight is recovered, either as parts to be reused or material to be refined and used. We did this, moreover, not because of any specific environmental mandate, but because it was economically advantageous to do so.
US automakers are sweating it today because the European Union, in adopting a German political initiative of the early 1990s, has mandated that automakers increase the recycling of automobiles, with targets of 80% to 95%, depending on how you read the regulation (recycled versus recovered).
However you look at it, the mandate is a sop to the environmental lobbies that fails to consider the real environmental effects of automobiles. Consider this: by defining the recycling targets in terms of mass percentages, the automobile industry has been incentivized to increase automobile mass, since there is a significant fraction of the vehicle that cannot be economically recycled. (Note: in the end, everything is recyclable - it's just that it gets expensive to do so; remember, it all started as rocks, petroleum, etc.)
So, even though we might want to increase the fuel economy of an automobile (something that starts with reducing the weight of the car), these recycling mandates point the automakers in the other direction!!
If you want to read some specifics, check these out:
I thought this was a car? Without pedals in it?
;-)
Then why do people talk about it being re-cyclable? I mean, I understand that you can cycle with a bicycle, but wouldn't using a car be classified as driving? And why is this concept of re-cycling such a big thing? I mean I have cycled many times on the same bicycle. What's the big deal? Can cars only be cycled once, and then only driven until it's time to scrap them? I guess that's why new cars are so much more expensive than used ones.
"Almost new BMW. Cycled once, never driven. 20% off."
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
If not... well, I care more about my safety than I do about miles per gallon. I agree that most people don't need gas guzzlers such as SUV's, but the sacrifice of auto safety on the altar of the environment has been going on for way too long.
I honestly hope you weren't implying that SUV's are safer than other vehicles. There's plenty of articles that state otherwise.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Looks like the bastard child of a VW Thing (link includes pictures from Playboy! click now!) and a Pontiac Aztec. Yuck.
Fiberglass is not so great. The Corvette is, and always has been at least partially made from fiberglass, allowing a rigid body and reasonable weight despite a 5.7L iron block engine (I am not 100% sure of the iron part, just to be fair). It REALLY sucks in crashes though, I think I heard about there being NHSTA investigations. Someone told me that Hummers have fiberglass in their chassis also.
Carbon Fiber is great, but like someone said, it's lack of deformability makes it difficult to engineer for collision protection. It's current price is about $12 a pound, though there are companies (BMW for instance) looking into getting costs down for mass production. The price for steel is like $.50 a pound or something like that, I forget exactly.
Carbon Fiber is GREAT for the roll cage, suspension parts, and lots of other little things like driveshafts.
Aluminum is sorta the wave of the near future. It has pretty decent crumple characteristics and is light and reasonably strong and low on corrosion. "Space Age" Bond and rivet technology specifically is the wave of the future for aluminum bodies. This can be found in the new Jaguar XJ (bigger than it's predicessor, but 440 pounds lighter, and stiffer ans safer), Most new Aston Martins (Brits again), and the Lotus Elise (Brits yet again, and this will be available in america in 2004!). Aluminum is also good for most car parts from engines to suspension, as long as it doesn't need to be super strong like transmission parts and some stuff like that. The Ford 427 (7.0L swept displacement) concept engine is all aluminum and weighs less than a Ford 5.4L V8 that has far less horsepower (590 vs. about 400 {in the mustang cobra R)
Another good thing about Bond and Rivet is that it will trasition well to carbon fiber and other materials when they become affordable.
Steel sucks, and automakers are looking to get rid of as much of it as they can. Though I must say, Volvo's use of Boron Steel for the XC90 roll cage is a good move.
Nothing will ever make a car last forever though. I think it'll be good for cars in the future to be more modular, so that you can ad new technology instead of buying a whole new car, without having to endure an expensive costumization progress. It's be nice to the left over parts to be recyclable, and to a large extent, they already are, as someone pointed out, cars are the most recycles products out there.
Hydrogen combustion engines seem like a great idea too. Hydrogen can combust a much leaner mixture than gas, making the engine more flexible (for instance, in a hybrid, a hydrogen engine might not have to be shut down and restarted since it can idle at an extremely lean rate). And you can just use the same fuel in a fuel cell and power all the accessories electrically instead of having a big heavy complicated accessory drive train, saving weight (maybe) and increasing engine smoothness.
Other than being too boxy and having a silly interior I like this concept. I wonder if it actually works.
you cannot dodge the quad laser. jumping is useless.
This brings a whole new meaning to the term "crumple zone".
Anyone remember the Hindenburg? Why not methane? I could about half the food in my fridge as fuel....
Ford F*ckus
Ford Exploder
Ford Excessive
Did I miss any?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Isn't this just basically the Renault Ellipse concept car, minus the solar panels? It's even got the suicide doors...
Coz we all know FORD stands for:
Found
On
Rubbish
Dump
Someone had to say it....
Burma?
There is absolutely no reason for this when you have fuel-cell.
Notice they only talk about "Carbon dioxide emissions are nearly zero" - but that's not the whole story...
There are three major components to car emissions: Hydrocarbons, CO2, and NoX (CO should not be emitted at all)
Hydrogen, last i checked, burns hotter than gasoline; remember now that they are not carrying an onboard oxygen tank, so there are other crap that gets sucked into the combustion chamber - this includes the Oxygen that we need, a little bit of CO2, and a whole mass loads of Nitrogen.
the higher the combustion temperature, the more likely the nitrigen will become NoX (oxides nitrogen, IIRC - including NO2 NO3 etc, hence the X).
NOX is a major contributor to acid rain and the like - however since there are no more hydrocarbon emmissions (or, very little - CO2 needs a whole lot of energy to break apart) - the catalyc converter can't do jack about the NOX; so instead of worrying about global warming, we will simply have something else to worry over.
Two ways out of this:
1) use fuel cell - painstaking and difficult, but probably the most environmentally friendly. besides if you get it right electric motors have more torque anyhow - and real drivers know that torque = acceleration, horspower doesn't
2) carry some liquid oxygen onboard (yeah right) - infrastructure won't support it unless something serious changed - but would be very cool... I will see amature rocketry explode because you can get liquid O2 and H2 at refuelling stations now! =)
still better (CO2 side) than using reformers, but damn... not there yet. gotta wonder though - if they already went with a hydrogen tank, might as well just go with a fuel cell - that was probably the biggest prob w/ fuel cell in the first place
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Replace the part, Repair the car.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I can't resist this opportunity to plug my site:
http://www.tgrigsby.com/views/ford.htm
I run a consumer advocacy/consumer rant page. I think it's really polite of Ford to create a car that can be recycled, since models like the Escort and Focus are in such dire need of being recycled right off the show room floor.
And let's talk about their Greenleaf program, in which they recycle parts that didn't make the "Q1" quality standard, thus making them ineligible for use in new cars. With Greenleaf those same substandard parts make it into your vehicle if you take it in to be serviced, and you none the wiser.
Yeah, Ford and recycling -- a match made in the hell of necessity...
Mod me up, baby, I know whereof I speak... erm... write... ?
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Many companies have learned to apreciate the value of being "green" but I actually think William Clay Ford Jr. is being serious about this one.
Read about the project here
William McDonough + Partners is leading Ford Motor Company's revitalization of its historic Rouge complex. The goal of this 20-year project is to lead the manufacturing world into the Next Industrial Revolution by modeling strategies for a sustaining future.