The Quest for the Car of the Future

Lux writes "Where will the car of the future come from? It's unlikely to come from anywhere you'd expect it to. Wired's money is on the car of the future coming from NASA. 'New technology that promises to revolutionize the automobile as we know it is emerging from research institutions and startups — and these innovations won't set you back $100,000 like a Tesla will... One experiment involves small electric motors located in the wheels of the CityCar, a tiny, nimble and practically silent vehicle with wheels that turn 360 degrees, enabling it to slip neatly into tight urban parking spaces. Others are looking to revolutionize the automobile's engine, not replace it.'"

Comments

Simple

[LWATCDR]

Take a modern TDI engine from Europe and add it to a plug in hybrid.
Run it on biodiesel when available and put solar cells on the roof of it.
Ok the solar cells may just be for cute factor but my car sits in my office parking lot all day in Florida. It might give me enough power to run the AC on the trip home.

Re:Simple

[drinkypoo]

Ok the solar cells may just be for cute factor but my car sits in my office parking lot all day in Florida. It might give me enough power to run the AC on the trip home.

The AC on an average passenger car can consume as much as 5HP and is horribly unlikely to consume less than 3. that's 2.2 to 3.7 kilowatts.

You're going to need at least a couple kWh for one hour of using the A/C, and almost certainly more...

Re:Simple

[drinkypoo]

Biodiesel's not a viable alternative to fossil fuels. We can't grow enough to both feed and fuel or society.

That is a bunch of nonsense. Besides hemp (as suggested by a sibling comment) there is algae, which can be grown in salt water and which requires nothing more than agitation of the pond it grows in. You don't even have to stock it; research done at Sandia by the USDOE suggests that using carefully cultured algae is actually counterproductive because it will not do as well in your environment as the local, naturally selected algae that will colonize your ponds for you automatically, by virtue of being carried in by the wind.

That same report said that biodiesel from algae should be profitable by the time diesel fuel hits $3/gallon. Guess where it is now! And that was using the techniques of over a decade ago.

Topsoil-based fuels are incredibly fucking stupid and, mark my words, Brazil will be suffering horribly from it within our lifetimes. But that's not the only way to produce biofuels.

The real car of the future

[the_kanzure]

The real car of the future may in fact be no car at all. Might it be possible that there are methods of living that do not require us to live distantly from useful and necessary services? Looks like we can get services to our computer fairly well, right?

Motors in the wheels

[drinkypoo]

Motors in the wheels are okay when you're moving at low speeds and/or over extremely regular pavement. So they're fine for city-only cars that will never go over 35 mph. But while you might be okay going up and down the hills in SF, get on the freeway to scoot across town and you're fucked.

Why is that? It's because one of the greatest enemies to handling is unsprung mass. The "sprung" mass is everything sitting on top of the springs, hence the name. But the unsprung mass is the weight that's not sprung, which in practice means directly or indirectly attached to the wheel and moving up and down with it.

Thus, the problem is one of inertia. When the road sends the wheel upwards, the tire deforms more and it takes longer for it to rise, when there is more mass to move. When the wheel returns, the spring has to push against the greater inertia of the more massive suspension member, so it takes longer to make the first part of its motion, but the spring conspires with gravity (which has more to work on with more mass) to push the wheel back down. The falling wheel has more inertia than it would if you had a lighter unsprung mass, so it comes down harder, compressing the tire more (again). All this excessive compression of the tire makes handling inconsistent.

This will actually negatively affect handling even in most cities, when cornering quickly. And it is often necessary to do so, or be stuck behind long rows of people.

Re:Crash tested?

[DavidpFitz]

Love to see the stills of a simple 20 mile per hour crash, let alone higher. A four wheel drive would literally drive right through it without slowing at a guess.

Then we should get the 4x4s off the road.

Or, just get a huge JCB/Lorry/Truck/Juggernaut type vehicle to crush the SUVs. Bigger is better, eh?

D.

Re:Crash tested?

[drinkypoo]

Love to see the stills of a simple 20 mile per hour crash, let alone higher. A four wheel drive would literally drive right through it without slowing at a guess.

I don't know about any of the rest of these but the SMART car is supposed to be quite excellent in a crash and not that it's on this list but VW alleges their new ~230 mpg concept is safer than an F1 racer (it's built on some of the same principles and provides an enclosed cockpit, unlike an F1 car.)

There is nothing inherently uncrashworthy about a small car, although it IS likely to be substantially more expensive for the same level of safety.