Cars To Be Assembled Atom By Atom

Roland Piquepaille writes "In a new article, the Detroit News says that the adoption of nanotechnology by car manufacturers will produce safer, lighter and cheaper vehicles. While GM is already using nanocomposite materials for several vans, Ford is developing new nanoengineered catalysts to replace platinum. The newspaper gives other examples, such as auto-adaptive suspension systems, scratch-resistant paints or nanocoated windshields which will not crack. In fact, all parts in a car can be improved by using nanotechnology, according to the article. And if automakers are only going to introduce limited amounts of nanotechnology-related products in the next few years, their usage should be widespread within ten years. More details are available in this overview."

Comments

Errm....

[Haydn Fenton]

Excuse my ignorace, but surely nanotechnology would produce safer, lighter and cheaper (depending on the meaning.. I'm assuming consumer-side cost) everything?

Re:Errm....

[idiot900]

Yup, but trying hard enough to make a car using nano-technology will probably result in vast amounts of byproducts small enough to get into your cells and subtly kill you.

We already have plenty of "byproducts small enough to get into your cells and subtly kill you". Smoke, alcohol, really any poisonous compound - these are all made of up things called "molecules" that can potentially get into your cells and cause damage. Sadly, your tinfoil hat may not protect you from all of these "molecules".

(Before you mod me Flamebait: as long as there has been life, there has always been pathogenic matter that exerts its effects on a subcellular level. What's unique about this situation?)

OpenSource Nanotech?

[nurb432]

At what point then could we just download 'plans' off P2P and just 'grow' our own car, house, dinner....

Re:OpenSource Nanotech?

[josh3736]

You'll be able to do it, it just won't be legal! (Hence why you have to download the plans off P2P.)

You see, if you grow your own car, you'd be infringing on the car company's copyright. (The car companies have have a non-expiring copyright on all Cars®, you see.)

Furthermore, growing your own car will be a felony punishable by a $1,000,000 fine and 30 years in Federal Pound-Me-In-the-Ass prison under the DMCLFMBBC (Digital Millenium Copyrights Last For a Millenium to Benefit Big Companies) Act of 2007.

Oh, and you might as well not even bother to try and download a car since your computer will just blow up anyways.

Too Good to be True

[powera]

By the time we get to the point where we can build AN ENTIRE CAR atom by atom, I want to be flying around Earth in spaceships at 10000mph. Seriously, which is more difficult to do? Make available technology we already have somewhat, or assemble TRILLIONS of atoms.

I think this is "reporter getting carried away by 'nano' buzzword". Nano is NOT the holy grail. Maybe some parts will have nano coatings, but those aren't even assembled "atom-by-atom".

Re:Too Good to be True

[dotslashconfig]

I think you're missing the point slightly... The main advantage of building these cars "atom by atom" is the use of nano-devices to check structural integrity of the vehicle. The main hope for these nano-devices is that they'll provide more accurate measures of stress tolerance in an impact.

One of the other added benefits from using nano-technology in this field is that certain devices could be used as a warning system, or sensor. In that sense, implanting these tools in the framework of the vehicle can be considered going "atom by atom" to choose the most likely places an impact will occur, and using the nano-machines as information relay to the vehicle's on-board computer. This way, instead of relying on crush sensitive technologies to deploy air bags and the like, we can use more precise measuring devices to help improve safety in vehicles.

Of course, the one trade-off of this is that as these technologies allow for more driver error, there is the potential we could lean too hard on these devices to protect human life. It's a very dangerous idea to have a vehicle that is so protective of its passengers that the passengers become careless... but I think we're a long way off from that.

Re:Too Good to be True

[Dun Malg]

I think we're already there. The majority of accidents I've seen or heard about lately involve a soccer mom or someone else in their SUV that felt so safe in that they were careless.

Those soccer moms aren't more careless because they drive SUVs. They've always been careless drivers. The problem is that those large, heavy, tall vehicles, while arguably safer when in an accident, are less forgiving when trying to avoid an accident.

Could you help me?

[Rylfaeth]

I'm out of gas and I need directions to the nearest gas station so I can spend $2 a gallon on an antiquated and crude fuel to make my futuristic nanocar run.

Thanks!

-Rylfaeth

Re:Could you help me?

[zephc]

Well, give the US auto industry enough time, they'll find a way to reconstruct dinosaurs atom by atom, then kill them, put em in the ground, and turn them in to oil. Yay, another 50 years of oil and it only took a trillion tons of biomass to die to do it!

sub-microscopic assembly lines

[Anonymous Coward]

...I, for one, welcome our -

ahh, scrub it. People will still find a way to drive like idiots, even in super nanotechnologically advanced cars.

This is surface chemistry, not nanotechnology

[Animats]

Most of this is just good surface chemistry, not "nanotechnology". Lately, we're seeing the term "nanotechnology" applied to fine powders, coatings, catalyst surfaces, and such. That's not about building large structures out of individual atoms; it's just surface treatments for ordinary bulk materials.

Good technology, just too much hype.

You have got to be high...

[caffeineboy]

if you think that a cheapskate industry like the automotive industry will be all up in nanotech.

Manufacturers are too cheap to do things like hot dip galvanizing body and frame, but they will use a bunch of nanotech? Ironic. Something as simple and low-tech as galvinizing cars that would double or triple their lifetime are left out as too expensive...

Let's start with the simple stuff please.

I bet I know where they got the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

From that commercial where they build that car from legos.

More perks?

[andy55]

What wonderful news! So in a few years, when modern industrial society has seized up and American life as we've known it comes to halt as a result of the rapidly diminishing fossil fuel supply, our cars will still be shiny!

I apologize for being off topic--mod me down--but the American car/suv/prettiness craze has gotten way out of hand...

More seriously, I urge people to plug into the facts and realties of the worlds fossil fuels, and how the American way of life and economy is presently overly-dependent on this resource.

Harry J. Longwell, executive vice-president of Exxon Mobil, made an unprecedented admission recently when he wrote: To put a number on it, we expect that by 2010 about half the daily volume needed to meet projected demand is not on production today... Even the necessarily conservative International Energy Agency (IEA), in its World Energy Outlook, 1998, concurred for the first time that global output could top out between 2009 and 2012, and decline rapidly thereafter.

We can only hope to elect policymakers that have the courage to make the right decisions and foster international cooperation (rather than, say, invade and occupy oil-producing regions).

/rant

Re:More perks?

[mpn14tech]

If/when we get to the point where we can build cars atom by atom, I think stringing together a few carbon and hydrogen atoms from renewable resources will not be much of a problem.

Atom by atom?

[Eudial]

Somehow i feel sorry for the poor people assigned the job of actually putting them together.

Yet meeting California emmissions will bk them

[Ars-Fartsica]

I'm amazed to hear that the major autos makers can figure out how to use nanotech to build car parts yet the 30% increase in efficiency demanded by new California emmissions guidelines is apparently beyond the scope of all known science and apparently will bankrupt them, according to a suit they filed to render said guidelines illegal.

Re:Yet meeting California emmissions will bk them

[aiken_d]

Yeah, because if you can keep a windsheild from cracking with a new coating, you must be able to reduce emissions by 30% with about the same amount of investment (and therefore final product cost increase).

Logic, people, logic.

-b

Re:Yet meeting California emmissions will bk them

[Dun Malg]

Where is the flaw in logic?

It's the "if they can put a man on the moon..." fallacy. It assumes that the problem they solved is as hard or harder than the one they didn't solve. Development of a nano-coated windshield does not logically suggest that they could've reduced emissions by 30% by applying their resources there instead.

Re:Yet meeting California emmissions will bk them

[Herkum01]

Logic, Ok then, how about everytime they come up with a new regulation to improve fuel efficiency or reduce pollution from cars we get two reactions.

• American manufacturers, spend millions in lobbying and advertising about how impossible it is to met these unrealistic regulations and big government is just interferring with a free market economy.
• Japanese manufacturers, they the meet the regulations or improve on them.

Seems logical to me, American manufacturers are better at whining than building cars. Maybe they are using that Nanotech to build the worlds smallest violin that people are always offering to play for them.

Have a Bigger P3Ni5 Using Nonatechnology!

[FFFish]

Etcetera. Sigh.

Re:Have a Bigger P3Ni5 Using Nonatechnology!

[Idarubicin]

P3Ni5

It kind of disturbs me that I at first read this as having something to do with a weird nickel and phosphorus compound...

Re:Have a Bigger P3Ni5 Using Nonatechnology!

[FFFish]

a weird nickel and phosphorus compound...

Definitely would be a hard one...

Nanotechnology windshields....not a good thing

[voss]

If my car is in a wreck or goes into a canal. If I cant open the doors I want to be able to break the windows and get out.

If Im dead...my beautiful windshield doesnt mean a damn thing.

Re:asdf

[zoeith]

Another movie quote that is ontopic. "Plastics! Plastics! Plastics!" from 'The Graduate'. It's about time to start screaming "Nanotech! Nanotech! Nanotech!"

wake me up ...

[torpor]

when the nano-vats can be powered by a few kilo's worth of any fresh bio-mass consisting of mostly water.

Scope of problem

[wombatmobile]

* Amenities like cup holders that can absorb or produce heat, keeping beverages at the perfect temperature.

I didn't realize that was such a big problem.

"Any part of the car that's made has the potential to be improved by nanotechnology," Messner said, "because ultimately materials and parts are made out of atoms and molecules."

Oh, right.

Unfortunately

[Timesprout]

The cars produced by nano technology are only 2 mm long at most so getting in to them will be a bit of squeeze.

Programmable use-by date?

[csirac]

Car manufacturers are hardly putting current technology to good use, let alone nano-technology.

Even if they could make anything for even equivilent cost, let alone cheaper, they'd probably still find some way of letting it break in 3-5 years.

Lacks imagination

[danharan]

"It's not going to change the overall vehicle to be unrecognizable from today," Hass [manager of physical and environmental sciences at Ford] said. "But the biggest impact may well be beyond anybody's imagination today."

The guy isn't clued in. The car is one technology that is ready for more than incremental improvements; it needs a fundamental rethinking.

There is a model out there, one that has been out for 10 years now: the Hypercar. It started as a concept by the Rocky Mountain Institute, and eventually a company by the same name (Hypercar Inc.) was formed. Slashdotters might find it interesting that Bill Joy is one of their investors.

It's amazing technology, and it would have far reaching implications.

This outlier was disregarded decades ago

[Ars-Fartsica]

Your concerns were outweighed by the need to keep glass from nicely shattering and shredding passengers decades ago. Go look at accident photos prior to the age of safety glass. Not pretty.

The chance of my car being submerged in water is maybe ten million times less likely than the chance a collision will press my face against the windsheild or door glass at a high rate of speed, in which case I definitely do not want to be able to shatter that glass on impact - if I do, if forms a guillotene that take off a body part when I retract.

Re:This outlier was disregarded decades ago

[pjt33]

Surely you do want the glass to shatter, but you want the entire pane to shatter into nice small circular chunks. This seems to be what current safety glass does nowadays, with the result that it causes lots of tiny scratches on your skin, but none deep enough to leave a scar. (I speak from the experience of a smash 4 years ago).

Safer?

[Space_Soldier]

I thought that nano-tech products from cabon are super strong. This will turn every car into a bulldozer. How will this be safer?

shouldn't they apply this to aviation first...?

[demonhold]

I mean, I've almost lost my life twice in near-crash plane accidents due to material-fatigue (I ignore whether this is the correct term). I mean in one of them part of the fuselage tore... in the other some piece of the hydraulic system caused some sort of havoc...

If nanotechnology allows us to check material integrity in both in the assembly line and in the periodic revisions as someone here has stated what are we waiting for?

Re:WTF are you talking about?

[Dun Malg]

Real cities don't have problems like these.

??? Last time I checked, exhaust came out of cars in Boston too.

Last time I checked, you could hop in the T in Boston instead of driving.

What's the difference?

[roystgnr]

If you have to take into account nanometer-scale effects to design something, I don't think it's too far fetched to call the result "nanotechnology".

The problem is that to in most science fiction and speculative non-fiction, "nanotechnology" has been used primarily as a synonym for "nanorobotics", which would be infinitely cooler but is much further away.

what's it good for...

[whathappenedtomonday]

...as long as those nanotech cars still run on fossil fuels?

for those who haven't heard it yet:
tabloid style

overview

It will suffer the same fate befalling Software

[FreeUser]

At what point then could we just download 'plans' off P2P and just 'grow' our own car, house, dinner....

At the point where the ruling oligarchs choose to relinquish their architectures of control (patent and copyright law) and allow knowledge and thought to be shared freely.

I.e. not in the lifetime of anyone currently living, if ever.

Expect nano-designs to be covered by both patents and copyrights, much like software in America is today. And expect progress to be decimated as a result, and the best products to be created in technical violation of the law in many places, such as mplayer is today (though fortunately not in violation of the laws where its author lives).

And the latter, semi-optomistic note, assumes there are safe havens where free thinking people can still create ... probably far away from the United States or Europe. If "harmonization" succeeds, there will be no such place, and the only products and creativity that will exist will be the glacially slow change industry offers us ... assuming they don't see any threat to their current revinue streams in offering the new product. There will be no innovation from outside, and with government mandated monopoly markets, no competition either.

Safety glass is designed to break safely

[voss]

The nanotechnology glass as designed is designed NOT to break...that is not safe in case of collision or car going into a canal. This is not hypothetical, dozens of people in MY COUNTY ALONE died because they were trapped in their car when the car was submerged or burning. They did a special on it where people couldnt break the glass because they didnt have a simple icepick in their car.

If you make it out of nano, its also going to be an issue for paramedics to try and get into the car.

A seatbelt has a button to release it. There should be some safety measure built into nanowindshields that will allow them to be broken or removed in case of an emergency.

Call me a luddite

[panxerox]

but if you dont need !ANY! employees to make a car (and I assume by that time all other manufactured products) won't you like have a !DEMAND! problem? All you'd need to produce cars is a marketing dept and a black box that excreates chevys.

Banking on the new "IN" term

[poofyhairguy82]

This is just a ploy to wrap up investors that are captivated by the word "nanotechnology." In all probability the technology will probably just assure that future "American" cars will break down in exactly six years on the dot instead of the current relative time frame. Seeing as how for the last twenty or so years "American" (made in Mexico) carmakers have only been interested in making cars that will fail in ten or so years. "Planned Obsolesce" has become the mantra to drive the bottom line. "Nanotechnology talk" assures the investment capital need to do it.

The two forms of Nanotechnology

[fullofangst]

Two common meanings when people talk about using nanotechnology.

1. Using "nano" materials in construction - the more common meaning when people talk about nanotechnology, is when materials manufactured on the small scale give interesting effects and properties used to make a product better in some form

2. Construction on the atomic scale - this is the (in my opinion) real killer-app of technology, where products, materials, literally anything ... is put together atom-by-atom by a process - whether it be tiny machines with gripper arms, or a use of biotechnology to connect atoms together - using plain, simple, raw materials. Think carbon, oxygen, hydrogen rather than wood, steel, concrete.

It's the number 2 usage of nanotechnology that I'm waiting for. If it becomes possible to construct a motor vehicle using the atom-by-atom build process, you can build cars, trucks, whatever for minimal costs. It will of course, be interesting to see how the companies will handle the logistics and pricing strategies ...

And hot...

[leonbrooks]

...once the phosphorous got going, the nickel would act somewhat like magnesium. Is that a distress flare in your pants or are you just pleased to see me? (-: