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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.
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?
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.
OLPC Australia
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.
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.
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.