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Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybrids
Gordonjcp writes "A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains. In this article on the BBC News website, Professor Gordon Murray explains that a weight saving of 10% in a normal car would make more difference than switching to a hybrid engine and motor combination. Could this be the next nail in the SUV's coffin?"
Because they're afraid they'll be crushed to a fine pulp when they get hit by a big honking SUV.
People are still buying SUVs, and really, I still prefer the idea of an SUV than a minivan or station wagon to try and haul people/stuff around. Maybe I'd feel different if I had a few children to get in and out, but I don't see the SUV going away anytime soon. Plus why not just make a lighter SUV?
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I'm just saying...
It might be helpful.
What's wrong with the idea of making cars lighter AND looking for alternative (and cheaper) fuels? Is there a reason for either/or, or can't we just build lightweight hybrids?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I like bigger autos. I'm 6'3" with a family history of back problems. I DON'T want a car, I want a fuel-efficient pickup/SUV/Crossover that doesn't bounce around like a jeep and I don't have to deal with the up-and-down motion of getting in and out of. I like hauling crap around. I like being able to see OVER traffic.
GM is on the right path with the Hybrid Silverado they are making, but I would like to see something a little smaller, along the lines of a Ranger or S-10/Sonoma (I LOVED the 1994 Sonoma I drove through college). Americans are going to buy small cars in the near future, but the REAL money will be made when we can drive larger SUV's and trucks that get 30+ MPG's.
Lighter cars use less gas? What's next? Telling people that they shouldn't live 200 miles from where they work? I heard a kind of a funny fact this morning on BBC, average energy consumption per capita in North America is double that in Europe. It's not like the standard of living or climate is that much different, it's all about the culture.
One could hope that the coming oil problem and the focus on energy use will spill over to the general public's energy use. We have up to know, had almost unlimited energy and we've thrived in that environment. But now that we see a huge energy resource shortage in the oil markets we're starting to rethink this policy of unabated energy use. Hopefully in the coming years there will be more focus on energy efficiency in all aspects of life.
How about this. You force people to walk more, and you solve two problems at the same time :)
As soon as women stop screwing men in big fast cars, and men stop buying big fast cars to get laid ... we'll have no problem. As if that will ever happen. It's no the tech, it's the human.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
The majority of "SUVs" are light pickup trucks, and they are the lifeblood of the working class. Landscapers, yard cutters, painters, plumbers, etc etc all require pickups.
I feel like I'm re-living the past. I am old enough to remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, and how that quadrupled the cost of fuel. For a short time, it was all windmills, car pooling, public transportation, and econo-box cars, then it was right back to the guzzlers.
I also remember fuel prices dropping, very briefly, in early 2006. The sales of SUVs spiked right along with the fuel cost drop. If fuel prices drop during the election, the same thing will probably happen again.
Those who don't remember the past, yadda yadda.
Haha - gotta love mass hysteria.
How come nobody is freaking out about heating oil?
- That's 4.50/gal in my area.
Granted, we don't really need it now, but in a few months...
Gas @ 15gals per fillup vs Heating oil at 300gals per fillup.
I can change driving habits pretty easily, but I can't stop heating my home. I keep the heat as low as I can with an infant in the house, and use a programmable thermostat.
Oh my god! Death to the oil fired furnace - long live wood!
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
most people dont daily drive on highways for any significant amount of time.
instead they take their BOXY but easy to get stuff into vehicle to Wally world to get shit for the kids, Best Buy (et al) to get the newest DVD's / CD's, the local mega mall to let the kids wander around, the local soccer field to drop off the kids, the local grocery store to get the food of life, the local fast food joint for dinner, etc.
so aerodynamics plays a lot less of a part then simply not mashing the gas pedal to the floor when taking off from every red light in town.
aerodynamics for vehicles are highly over rated for the large majority of driving time.
and yes, i drive a full size pickup, with a setup for towing, and the associated gearing, and yet, I'm able to somehow, miraculously get 19-20 mpg when driving said vehicle from Iowa to North Carolina three times over the last year.
aerodynamic brick that it is.......
All other things being equal, a driver in a heavier vehicle will always fair better than a driver in a smaller, lighter vehicle in a crash. Simple physics.
Come live in Europe. Americans pay on average $4 for a gallon of gas. That comes to about 2.5. In Europe we pay 6 for the same amount. No wonder you're all driving SUV's. At least in the states you can afford it.
Playing somewhat of the devil's advocate here, but it's been pointed out several times that increases in vehicle weight are directly caused by extra safety features. I'd say this is a prime example of correlation not equaling causation. What you're looking at is lighter vehicles that are lighter due to being older and lacking safety features, thus being less safe. Higher death rates aren't a function of weight, but a function of safety features (that is, the lack thereof). It simply happens that those safety features make a vehicle heavier, hence the correlation of lighter = less safe.
That doesn't mean that lack of weight is fundamentally unsafe, just that we need to reduce the weight of all those safety features (and the rest of the car, while we're at it) without compromising, uh, safety. Probably a tall order tho.
Nobody expects the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
"Significant" meaning "Redesign lots of towns more or less from the ground up".
A wise asian person (me) once said(5 seconds ago) that you don't need a sledgehammer to put a thumbtack in the wall. likewise, you don't need to commute to work by yourself in a 5000pound 6 person SUV. sure you may need your 6 person suv people carrier when you and your buddies go out, but not when you're commuting to work. we as commuters need to realize that the size of the car should reflect the number of passengers. why isn't there anything in the market for a 1 or 2 person enclosed commuter car with a 500cc engine? a commuter vehicle doesn't need to go 0-60 in 5 seconds and have a trunk capacity of 100 cu ft. it just needs to go 0-60. commuters in europe and asia have already realized this with submini's and kei cars. why are us americans so thick in the head?
You completely misunderstood what the parent poster is saying. He's saying that SUVs cause more of a problem than they solve. If everyone were to drive cars (and thus collide with each other, in cars) the probably of death as the driver of the car would be the same as the probability of death for the driver of the SUV in SUVscar collisions. However-- and this is the important part-- the probability of death increases if you are driving a car and you are hit by an SUV. Thus, SUVs increase the net likelihood of fatal vehicle collisions. This should make sense on an intuitive level. More massive object at the same velocity == harder to stop.
the obvious stupidity of Professor Murray's statement that removing 10% weight will reclaim what advanced hybrid systems do? So by those calculations, I suppose I'm losing something like 35% gas mileage when I have one fat passenger in my Honda Fit? Of course, I'm talking about Hybrid Synergy Drive and not GM's pathetic "mild hybrids" that hardly beat a 4-cylinder. Clearly lighter cars is a good thing for efficiency. But let's not get our information from someone who lost his grip on reality. The 10% figure is nonsense.
Small car=less crumple zone=faster acceleration=more stress on the occupant. A heavier car will de-accelerate less and so reduce the g force on the driver, try rolling a 1lb ball into a 2lb ball and see which one goes backwards.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I can assure you, living in the SE of the US, like in New Orleans, AC is not a luxury...pretty much a necessity if you wish to arrive at work, or anywhere else, and not look like a sweat soaked beggar. Most professional offices kind of frown on that.
Hell, down here...you turn on the AC at home basically in early April...and it really doesn't go off again till November.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
problem is, this guy has no knowledge of real world driving, formula one cars spend all there energy accelerating and decelerating like crazy and have ridiculously low drag coefficients. Because of this weight effects them tremendously. Many times more than any average car.
-How's that Fiero work out for carpooling?
/shrug.
Good enough to car pool my neighbor and I on a 60 mile round trip commute. Sure, it's not going to haul 8 people, go rock crawling, haul sheets of 4'x8' plywood, or tow the horse trailer, thus the reason that I also have a Golf TDI, an '87 dodge raider, and a '97 F250 super duty. A car is a tool and I use the best tool for the job. I'm not going to use a nail gun to help my latest IVR application, and I'm not going to use nUnit to fix a squeaky stair.
-Would you be willing to crash test it vs a Suburban?
I'd prefer not to, I'm rather fond of driving it. But I feel no less secure in it than in any other car from the same generation. I'd much rather crash while driving it than driving the other cars I've owned from the 80's. My '06 Golf has air bags, but structurally it performs no better than the Fiero in a front impact.
-Where do you put your children?
I put him in a car seat certified for his weight with a 5-point safety harness and seat latching mechanism. Since I don't have air bags there is no major threat to having him in a "front" seat, and with the Fiero's ample crumple zones and space-frame construction, the likelihood of him being injured in that seat is about the same as his spot in the back seat of the '06 VW Golf.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs