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.

Comments

Too bad...

[davmoo]

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.

Re:Too bad...

[The Original Yama]

Too bad the fossil fuel industry receives billions of dollars in subsidies and preferential treatment from backward and corrupt governments (particularly in the US, but also in other countries). There is no incentive for manufacturers or consumers to switch to alternate energy sources (for everything, not just cars) or even to curb consumption because prices are kept artificially low. if the fossil fuel industry was forced to compete on a level playing field, they would be far less competitive in the market than they are today.

Re:Too bad...

[silentbozo]

Ford, like the other vehicle manufacturers, only sells what the people want.

Wrong. Ford, like other vehicle manufacturers, sell what is most profitable. SUVs were comparatively cheap to make, and sold for a nice premium. That they were in vogue only helped to make that market segment the most profitable for them. However, if you ask the average American, buying an unsafe, gas-guzzling automobile is probably not what they want. However, that is what they get when they buy conventional SUVs.

To sell hybrid vehicles to the American public at a competitive price, Ford would have to cut some of that nice profit and make less per vehicle. Ford and its dealerships/repair shops would probably also make less over the life of the vehicle, since a well-designed hybrid with an integrated electric motor (not those gas engines that GM proposed with the oversized 42 volt alternator) will likely have a longer service life - meaning less wear and less maintainence. After all, you are burning less fuel.

Why then did Ford and other automakers suddenly announce fuel-cell cars, and hybrids? Because someone actually started selling hybrids to the American public - cars that weren't styled too strangely or overpriced (due to low production volume.) Can you say fear of the Japanese again? Kudos to Toyota and Honda for actually putting THEIR money where the market is. Boo on Ford for announcing a hybrid Escape well over a year ago, and (evidently) pushing the release date back by another year... AGAIN.

SUVs retail for 20k to 40k. Your typical hybrid retails for around 20k to 40k. A hybrid Ford Escape that gets 40mpg for between 20k and 40k is definitely doable... and there's definitely a market for them. Standardizing hybrid-electric drives would go a long way to lowering the cost per unit. People want these kinds of cars. But they can't buy what isn't on the market, and no American auto maker is willing to upset a good deal and cannabalize their existing sales of pure gas autos. It's much cheaper for them to spend money on PR and lawyers than it is for them to implement a conversion and face competition in a new market

Re:Too bad...

[mlyle]

To sell hybrid vehicles to the American public at a competitive price, Ford would have to cut some of that nice profit and make less per vehicle.

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.

If the product is more expensive to produce for the same capabilities, it's going to have to cost consumers more for those capabilities. Either that, or there's got to be a compelling argument made that hybrid cars are going to be cheaper in TCO, which I don't think has been demonstrated yet. Overall, there are more complex systems in hybrid cars and the designs are newer, so I would assume they would be less robust. Time will tell.

Let's face it-- the current hybrids on the market are not moneymakers, but they are a good way to hedge the auto industry's bets and build new technology that may be viable in the future.

It's my understanding that the Escape will be entering the fleet dealer network within the next quarter. And a lot of the technologies that make hybridization easy and cost effective today simply weren't practical for mass market adoption 5 years ago, so I think overall things are moving at a reasonable pace.

The thing is, hybridization gets you maybe a 25% real-world efficiency gain, and it's the lowest hanging (and cheapest) fruit to improve fuel economy. If we really want to do more than that, either vehicles are going to have to greatly improve in price, there'll have to be a great technological breakthrough, or people wil have to settle for less features.

Michael's Agenda

[btakita]

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".

how abou the cost of building one?

[maliabu]

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?

Re:how abou the cost of building one?

[Zog The Undeniable]

There was a story about a year ago about a team that had redesigned the basic crank arrangement in an engine to get more power from the fuel. A conventional cylinder and crank design has to be carefully optimised so peak cylinder pressure occurs at the right point in the cycle (about 15 degrees after top dead centre) so that as much as possible of the force on the piston can then be translated into turning the crankshaft, without disappearing as heat (which is what happens to the vertical component of the piston force, which is of course resisted by the crankshaft bearings). Unfortunately the useful torque rapidly dimishes when the crank isn't at 90 degrees. The new design put an extra link in the conrod to increase the angle through which maximum torque is developed. There were fairly spectacular increases in economy (or power, if you wanted).

The other major improvement would be fully variable valve timing and lift using solenoids, which allows massive valve overlap (for power) at high revs but very slow idling in traffic. Mechanical variable-valve timing is more limited and is still based around physical cam profiles. The trouble is, both of these ideas, while not especially expensive, add a lot of complexity and increase the number of moving parts. No manufacturer wants to be at the bottom of the reliability surveys.

Re:Why an Explorer?

[fuzzybunny]

Because they couldn't fit enough hamster wheels in the trunk of the sedan to give it some real kick.

Article links

[pen]

Two WVU students from Greene participating in national competition (Observer-Reporter)
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.

Obligatory rant

[thelandp]

So, they are proud of a slight decrease in fuel consumption and pollution.

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

Re:Obligatory rant

[Obliterous]

Do what I do. Ride a nice motorcycle. (no, not a hardly ableson, I said motorcycle, not hog)

My motorcycle is 23 years old, and still has the power to out-accelerate anything with four wheels on the street, and it does it at no WORSE than 35 MPG. and that's after I tacked on saddle box's, a luggage rack, and a nice backrest for the ocasional passenger.

No, it doesn't solve every problem. Yes, I am more affected by inclement weather, but you wont see Me yammering away on a cell phone, or eating while I'm driving.

I get to use the carpool/HOV lane, and here in california, it's legal for Me to white-line/split lanes. My insurance rates are lower ($180 year, full coverage) My registration is cheaper($42) and My maintainance costs are lower. I also get prefered parking at the college that I attend, as well as many local shopping centers.

The down side is exposure to the weather, dumb-ass's in cars that dont pay attention, reduced protection in the event of an accident, dumb asses in cars that dont fscking pay attention, being harder to see for other drivers, and the dumb jackasses that yammer on their cell phones instead of paying atention to the road.
(yes, this is a pet peeve of mine)

Re:Why an Explorer?

[ocelotbob]

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.

Re:Why an Explorer?

[WegianWarrior]

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.

too many links these days

[prockcore]

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.

It's scary.

[SharpFang]

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.

What Fordreally wants.

[TnkMkr]

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.

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 /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.

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.