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University of Wisconsin Wins FutureTruck Competition
carambola5 writes "No, this isn't a dupe from a year ago. The University of Wisconsin-Madison team has taken the FutureTruck title for the second year in a row. The overall goals of the competition are to modify an existing Ford Explorer (make and model dependant on year) to improve fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining or exceeding customer expectations. The University of California-Davis team took 2nd, with Michigan Tech, Georgia Tech, and Penn State following close behind. Speaking as a member of the winning team, I am quite sure that all of the students and advisors from the participating teams are well-deserving of appreciation after those many, many hours of preparation." Too bad Ford isn't actually using any of this hard work. One thing to note: The FutureTruck website still has to be updated with the winning info.
Too bad Ford isn't actually using any of this hard work.
Too bad the average American is willing to talk the talk, but will not pay the price that many of those modifications require. Ford, like the other vehicle manufacturers, only sells what the people want. And at present, even those nice wonderful and green hybrid vehicles only make up a very small percentage of vehicle sales.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Popularity of 'em. It shows what could be done to improve something big, ugly and gas guzzling.
Not to be a troll, but Michael's comment "Too bad Ford isn't actually using any of this hard work" is typical Michael. He is a liberal and seems to have an axe to grind with the automakers, oil producers, Christian right-wing organizations, which is fine. But please don't let this disort your judgement.
The fact that Ford sponsors this tournament means they, at least, acknowledge this is a problem. It also takes years to incorporate ideas into production automobiles.
Ford is developing Hydrogen vehicles and do have hybrid cars on the market.
It just seems like no matter what Ford or any other automaker does, they will be viewed by some as pro-pollution and "get all the money they can at all costs to humanity".
in FuturaTruck's website it talked about 13% improvement in fuel efficiency, 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions etc etc.. but i couldn't find info about the cost of achieving these results.
will this be another "advancement" that is easy to achieve but difficult to implement? like solar-power car, hybrid cells etc?
Because they couldn't fit enough hamster wheels in the trunk of the sedan to give it some real kick.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
CU team ready to truck into SUV hybrid vehicle competition (Ithaca Journal)
I think that instead of really cool but really expensive and impractical solutions, it would be much more useful (at least in the short term) to just make current designs more efficient. Kudos to the teams using biodiesel.
Okay.
RANT MODE ON
You can be MUCH more eco-friendly by using alternatives to cars. Public transport, bicycles, walking - why are so many people fixated on lugging around a huge steel box with them whenever they go anywhere?
I think the obsession with your own car is particularly strong among Americans, who see it as a symbol of freedom and wealth, and they associate public transport with poor losers. This is re-inforced by car and oil company marketing.
In a final irony, said marketing makes a token effort toward awareness of the problem, hence the website this story is about.
RANT MODE OFF
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
Because different people need different vehicles. Yes, you may do just fine in a sedan, but the person down the street may need an SUV. Thus, it only makes sense to provide an efficient vehicle that can still provide a good amount of performance in an intelligent manner. If you just focus on small cars, you ignore those who live in rural areas and need a vehicle that has a large towing and hauling capacity. Trust me, when you are 30 miles from the nearest decent sized town, you want a vehicle that can provide power and towing capacity, so you don't have to make that trip any more than you really need to.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I can see several sensible reasons why the teams were given an SUV to modify (and thats not counting their apperant popularity in the US).
Space: If you outfit a vehicle with what is basicly a prototype propulsionsystem, it'll take more room than a productionsystem will do at some point in the future. Thus, the system they can shoehorn into a SUV today will fit a saloon in two years time, and your motorbike in a decade.
Weight/power ratio: If you can develop an engine powerfull enought to push a two ton box at a sensible speed, it is certainly powerfull enought to move a lighter and more aerodynamical vehicle too. The opposit is not always true. If the teams had been tasked in modefying a Ferrari or something, it would have been way cool, but for a system to achive production status it must be applicable "across the board".
Ease / cost of modification: A large car gives you plenty of space to fool around, letting you use equipment off the shelf instead of having to get everthing made espesially for the prototype. The enginecompartment in my Rover 200 is packed thight while the one in my fathers Opel Astra has plenty more room, and a SUV would be a ballroom compared to thatg again.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I'm trying to imagine the original conversation:
"What if there were a form of transport that was really green and didn't damage the air and stuff?"
"You mean, like... some kind of SUV?"
"Yeah! Of course!"
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Why is it every slashdot article needs to have nearly every word linked? We don't care what the University of Wisconsin's website is.. don't bother linking it.
Having to guess which word takes me to the article is insane. (In this case, it's "team". All the other links are extraneous).
This site has all the relevent information.
But how many people actually need an SUV? The average high school girl certainly doesn't, and at the school I graduated from, there were as many girls who never had any passengers driving them as anyone. Sure, large families might need an SUV for seating, but do they actually NEED something the size of an Expedition or a Suburban? Part of the problem is that people perceive greater safety in a larger vehicle, when the reality is that all they are doing is transferring the danger from themselves to someone who actually picked a vehicle of the size that they needed.
15 student teams will optimize a conventional Ford Explorer into a lower-emissions vehicle with at least 25% higher fuel economy without sacrificing the performance, utility, safety, and affordability consumers want.
Don't you think it's scary that highly paid, proffessional engineers who design and upgrade this car every year MAKE IT POSSIBLE to upgrade fuel efficiency by 25% without sacrificing affordability? How BROKEN is the design in the first place, if _students_ (which aren't even paid for that work) are able to make it at least 25% better? IMHO Ford should fire all his "designers" (basis: Sabotage-quality work) and employ these students in their place.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Ford's profit margin for the past twelve months is 1%; two of the last 4 quarters they've lost money. I think it's simply unrealistic, given that, to ask them to sell a more difficult to produce product for the same price out of altruism.
;)
I've worked in the auto industry for the last 5 years. While, yes, Ford's overall profit margin for the last 12 months is 1%, that's an average. Each unit doesn't have the same margin.
Car companies make high margins on *some* lines, and *lose* money on other lines. Typically, the small car market is a loss leader for the American auto companies. They sell the car for less than it costs them to produce it. The idea is to have something to sell to younger people just starting out (and hence have lower incomes) -- get them hooked on the brand early.
On mid-sized cars, the profit margins vary, some lines can make good profit, while others just barely break even. But in the luxury car and SUV market segments, the margins are typically much higher and that's where almost all of their profit comes from.
This profit model has existed for quite some time. In the 1970s, the car companies were hit especially hard because people stopped buying the luxury and high-end sport models due to the oil embargo of that period.
So it's a much larger problem than you outline here. Sure, the market has *some* bearing on this, but the car companies have screwed themselves by setting up a profit model that never took into account the idea that the costs to produce some segments may end up larger than they realized.
The only way to make hybrid SUVs viable is for the companies to spread their profit margins across lines a bit better, raising prices a bit on all of their lines, but probably not quite as much on the SUV segment.
Of course then all the liberal class-warfarists will be up in arms saying how Ford, GM and Chrysler cater to the rich and bend the working class over.
My journal has hot
Ford does not necessarily implement all the ideas found in the designs of the students for mostly economic reasons. Some parts and solutions still simply cost to much to implement in anything more than a prototype vehicle.
/truck and few spare parts, Ford gets engineers fresh out of college who already have a few years (give or take) experience frankenstineing together their parts to build new and better cars.
What Ford is really after from these competitions are the students. I was a member of the UW-team in the mid to late nineties when we worked on the futurcar project. Our team took first place for a two-year running back then as well. And I would say about 7 out of the 10 core members were hired and now work in the R&D area for Ford.
Ford is not sponsoring the competition for new tech, they are using it as a cheap (relatively) job training program, and for the cost of a car
Who do you think is designing and building the hybrid-Escape? The engineers who were leading the future car teams during the competitions back in 96-98.
I'm going to make a general statement, but it can't be too far off. Ford just needs to offer a 6 cylinder turbodiesel in all of their products, not just heavy duty trucks. The 4 cylinder turbodiesel VW Jetta and Golf get an average of 55mpg, while my 5 cylinder turbodiesel Mercedes gets about 31mpg (much heavier and automatic transmission). Look at your european vehicles and it doesn't take much to get economy up there. The new Mercedes CDI engine (well, new to the US in 2004) has amazingly low emissions and outstanding power, doesn't "smell" and sounds like a gas car. Diesel is available at more gas stations then it's not and very available on the freeway for long trips.
4 J: www.womanmotorist.com/technology/ford-focus-ulevii -diesel-01.shtml+ford+focus+diesel&hl=en&ie=UT F-8
Why don't US car companies adopt a highly-efficient, low-emmission, and still high-performance diesel engine? Well, there's definately a mental image people associate with diesels (from the 80's gas shortage experience). I think our younger generation doesn't have this negative image and the timing is getting better everyday to release a mainstream diesel car. I'd think the Ford Focus (to stay with Ford for the example) would be an outstanding car to release a diesel model of. There's no reason other models of cars big or small can't have a comparably-sized diesel engine for them.
I did a little Google search and Ford does have a Turbodiesel Focus planned for 2007 that even meets California emissions!!!
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:9C_1zNFnwZ
See, you talk long enough and someone listens!
-m
http://www.invisik.com
So what is the point of the competition? IMHO, after 4 years of participation, the intent of the FutureTruck competition is to provide college students with a real-world engineering competition. It is also a way to evaluate next-generation technologies like biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen fuel cells. It certainly is not a way to give schools the means to one-up GM and Ford by producing a SUV that beats the stock vehicle in fuel economy, performance, and emissions.
Now that I've said that, it's time to plug Georgia Tech.
GT won the Best Acceleration, Best Consumer Acceptability, Best Emissions, and 4th place awards. Our dynamic scores were top-notch; we ran in our hybrid mode in every event. Yet when it came to the static side of things, we got destroyed (as usual.) Why? If you re-read the aforementioned reason this competition exists, you'll understand. GT's methodology has always been KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and manufacturability. But the organizers don't want that; they want cutting edge, more-likely-than-not poorly functioning technologies. Because that can't be implemented in the near future.
OK, time to get off my rant horse. If you're still with me, here's the wrap. This was a fun competition, and I strongly encourage schools to participate. Real world experience in the automotive industry while still in college is hard to beat. But if you do join up, keep your eyes and mind open. The most feasible design won't necessarily be the winner.
OK, I know there are many cynics out there about the competition itself... as well as the number of links in my post. So here are some explanations:
Links: So I put a few too many links in there. Jeez, sorry. But don't the mods think it's a bit overkill to mod up more than one post that mentions this?
"Why an Explorer?": The goal of the competition is not to make the most fuel efficient car/truck (it used to be a FutureCar contest in the '90s) possible. The goal is to make the most fuel efficient car/truck given a certain make and model. There are very good reasons for this. As most of you know, the number of SUVs sold in the US is around 50% of all vehicles sold. Seriously, what would be the point of the teams developing a one-seat solar car that requires the driver to lay down? The competition is in place to attempt to ease the general public into a more fuel- and environment-friendly vehicle. You can't simply stop people from driving SUVs. But you can get them to drive better SUVs.
"Ford sucks/doesn't care/etc": First of all, the competition switches between GM and Ford vehicles every two years. Because of that, Ford and GM donate one car to each of 15 teams every other year. In addition to that, Ford sent each team 15 advisors from their own engineering pool to visit the teams. Ford also held the 9-day competition at their proving grounds. And yes, they are trying to incorporate these modifications. Unfortunately, it takes time and money to introduce a new technology which is vital the operation of the vehicle. We, as a university team, may do some optimizations, but Ford would take them to a level we couldn't achieve.
"Ford should use students": They do. Many of the graduates from our team go on to work for Ford or GM. And the posts about firing engineers and using free student labor are stupid. We do this for the recognition of our school... and for our resumes. We won't work for free for our whole lives.
"How much would it cost?": Well, our (UW-Madison) truck, IIRC weighed in at over $500.000 since it was a prototype (probably a lot more). But our analysis shows that putting all of our modifications into a stock vehicle would increase the cost only about $5000-6000. Oh, and I use the term "weighed in" loosely. The actual weight, including electric motor, batteries and other mods was below stock weight.... For UW at least.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Too bad Ford isn't actually using any of this hard work.
3 /
Too bad is right. Some fun facts to know and tell:
* Ford currently gets LESS gas milage now on it's 25th aniversary than it did with the original Model-T. Model-T got 25 mpg. New Explorer gets 16. You don't even WANT to know what the Excursion and Expedition get.
http://www.motortrend.com/features/news/112_news1
* According to the 2002 Highway Safety Insurance reports: You are significantly MORE likely to get into an accident (i.e. unable to detect or avoid an impending accident) if you drive an SUV. You are significantly MORE likely to DIE in an accident if you are in an SUV. The fatality rate per 1000 vehicle accidents was much higher for SUV occupants than it was for car occupants. The main reason for this is that the rigid ladder frame of most domestic SUV's will not absorb any of the impact (i.e. crumple up), thereby transfering all of the impact force to the occupants, which equals massive internal organ damage for you.
Have fun in your Ford SUV's everyone!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I would like to see SUV's treated as passenger vehicles and not trucks. They would then have to abide by the same safety criteria small cars do. Currently, they do not.
As far as banning SUV's, state and federal governments already decide what you can and cannot drive (state inspections, etc). I don't _personally_ want to decide what you drive, but if your huge SUV is a hazard to others on the road (which it is), then the appropriate governing body needs to review whether or not that risk is offset by your desire to drive such a behemoth.
I think every road should be an HOV lane based on vehicle weight/passenger weight - you should be allowed about 3000 lb of vehicle for the first passenger and 750 for each passenger thereafter.
I'm no greenie, but if people are serious about cleaning up the environment and lessening our reliance on fossil and/or foreign energy sources, things like this will be the norm, not the exception.
PS: Mini's weigh about 2570lbs dry, and are as tall and wide as my wife's 2000 Mitsu Galant. It's two feet shorter, though ;-)
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.