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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?"
"If it can be made out of black plastic, make it out of black plastic!"
(I had a crack in my radiator - sure enough, part of the manifold for the radiator was made out of black plastic as well. Surprised the engine block itself isn't black plastic, at times.)
Weight and cost savings. Nothing new (my car is a '97 Saturn; alive and well with 160k miles and between 30-40 MPG city).
This amuses me to no end, and I've heard it repeated from people at the Budget rental place as well as talking heads on TV. What possible use is seeing over traffic if you're still stuck in it? Are you following too closely and not paying attention to your surroundings or something?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Hybrids get their benefits in two ways: reclaiming power that would otherwise be lost during braking, and the fact that electric motors have a flat torque band. You generally can't do either that with an internal combustion engine alone.
However, there are a few ways to do both the above without an electric motor. One way is to have a flywheel connected to a CVT on the drive shaft. When you hit the brakes, the flywheel spins up. You can then release that power again when you accelerate. The flywheel will also act as a gyroscope, so you need to have some way of tilting it so you can go through corners with it spun up (which has the side effect of increasing handling). This method is being put on F1 cars soon.
The other way is to have an air compressor, which again is run off the drive shaft when you hit the brakes. On acceleration, the compressed air could either run the drive shaft, be dumped into the intake to increase boost, or dumped into the exhaust manifold to eliminate turbo lag. This is probably easier to design than a tilting-flywheel system, though it won't make handling better.
The compressor could also run off turbines using inlets around the car's body that are opened when braking. This particular use is probably illegal for F1 and other types of race cars (which often ban variable body shape systems), but could easily be used in road cars.
Both the above don't require any particularly exotic materials (though carbon fiber or nanotubes would be nice for the flywheel), and shouldn't be as heavy as an electric motor/battery system.
Not a typewriter
A lighter car means a smaller and lighter engine, which works on two factors to reduce energy consumption.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
Honda adopted the "racing car" model when it designed the Insight. This was the first hybrid to hit to US market (2000-2006) and it was both very lightweight (1900 lbs) and aerodynamic (drag coef of 0.25). I own a 2000 model and get about 60-70 mpg on the highway (depending on speed and prevailing wind). The hybrid electric system gives virtually no benefit during highway cruising so that awesome MPG rating could presumably be acheived by a lower-cost reincarnation of the vehicle that lacked the expensive hybrid mechanics. Of course, part of the car's premium pricetag (~$21k) was due to the use of higher-priced aluminum instead of steel in many components.
I agree, my last car was a 93 Civic (manual). Personally, I got between 35 and 40 MPG; why does it take a hybrid to get that kind of mileage today?
And yes, it had an air conditioner, even!
Why? It ALL revolves around safety requirements. Give up air bags? I don't know how much weight they add... air backs, ESC, ABS, enhanced crumble zones and passenger cages... collectively I expect they add quite a bit.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I read that somewhere too... I believe it was car and driver sometime last year? I find it amusing because; without the extra 500kg x speed squared of momentum your car probably doesn't need a thousand pounds of airbags/crumple zones and an extra liter or two of engine to lug 'em around to keep the occupants safe.
And we should, of course, abolish all laws. It's not like the other manslaughter laws have prevented manslaughter from happening, right?
Manslaughter is generally defined as (depends on country, I'm sure Slashdot's legion of lawyers will be here to quote the exact definition for your jurisdiction) death due to an avoidable error on the part of another. In other words, where you're responsible for someone's death but didn't intend to kill them. So, for example, if you accidentally kill someone by trying to scare them by driving your car towards them, only to slip up and run them over, then that's generally manslaughter.
What, I believe, the GP was getting at was that if you're going to make the decision to drive an SUV, a device that's the definition of "unsafe at any speed", you're exhibiting willful negligence in the process. It could be argued, strongly enough for the government to be within its rights passing a law to make it legally unambiguous, that if you made the decision to arm yourself with an SUV, and killed someone as a result, you committed an act of manslaughter because you intentionally drove an unsafe - difficult to control, more damaging in accidents - vehicle.
And if such a law is passed, and car dealerships are required to tell customers "There is a stronger possibility that you will be involved in an accident driving this vehicle, and also that the accident will result in a fatality, and under Florida State law, you will be held responsible for that death due to your decision to drive this type of vehicle, and will face up to ten years in prison once convicted", quite a few customers may chose to buy something else.
And those that buy SUVs anyway - well, hopefully they'll be a little more careful when driving.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
- One that I only drive to and from work, maybe grab a 12-pak of Diet Dr Pepper®
- One that has ONE seat, maybe 2 in tandem for carpooling, thus a narrower front for lower drag coefficient, maybe a tripod
- One that gets a55-load MPG, on regular gas
- One that is enclosed against rain, maybe even snow.
- save weight by removing the automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, Bose Stereo, the GPS, the air bags, spare tire. Make the tank small enough to weigh little and still get me through the work week without refilling
- Actually, remove ALL safety features except the brakes and the brake lights! Save weight. no OnStar, no Lojack, no side curtains.
- Cut us some slack on emissions. Yes, commuters are the bulk of the problem, but not if we are burning half of the fuel that we would have been.
- it has to be CHEAP! Like $2000. Cheap to insure. Cheap to replace panels if we bump each other. Easy to park.
- if you want to get REALLY froggy, give us tax breaks, or our own LANE on the freeway. Watch people buy em like hotcakes.
Ok, so I just described a 1982 Suzuki, full face helmet and a rain suit, except for the 3-wheel stance.My point is really this. We need a small, commuter-only vehicle, unfettered from the legal burdens that add weight and reduce gas mileage. And yet still capable of highway speed and 200 mile range. Take an F1 car, make it 3-wheeled with a Jet cockpit. End of problem. It's not rocket science...
What about not driving absolutely everywhere? I see a lot of people drive from my apartment complex to the convenience store next to it. Total time to walk is about 2 minutes. When you add up going to the underground parking, starting your car, exiting the underground parking, waiting for traffic to turn onto the main road, drive down 30 feet of road, and then wait for traffic again as you drive into the parking lot of the store. It takes more time to just get to the store than if you walk. Sure that short drive isn't going to cost too much in gas, or cause too much harm to the environment, but the whole attitude of having to drive absolute everywhere is just terrible.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I did a UI course back in 2002 and we happened to be talking about steering wheels as the UI input device. The prof happened to be a Psychology/Comp. Sci. cross, and he went off on a tangent wrt a certain thought experiment:
The hypothesis says: the higher the chance of death, the lower your speed. If the chance of death in a moving car were 100%, no one would drive. If the chance of death were 0, then everyone would drive as fast as the car could go.
What happens if you put a spear sticking out of the steering wheel aimed at your chest?
I own two cars designed with the exact same goals in mind and built in the same factory 45 years apart:
1963 Mini - 1300lbs, 850cc engine, 37hp, ~55mpg.
2008 MINI - 2600lbs, 1600cc engine, 98hp, ~42mpg.
So the weight doubled, the engine capacity doubled to make up for it - and surprise, surprise, the mpg got worse. It ought to have been a lot worse than that - but engine technology, drag reduction, drivetrain friction and other things improved.
While the modern MINI is 2 feet longer, more than a foot wider and nearly a foot taller - there is actually LESS rear legroom than the '63 model. Trunk capacity and front legroom are comparable. Handling is comparable. The modern car also has a radio! Safety, top speed and accelleration improved immensely over 45 years - handling stayed about the same (which is remarkable given that the weight doubled!), comfort improved a little.
The trouble with adding weight is that more weight means that you need more engine which adds yet more weight - your fuel consumption gets worse so you need a bigger gas tank - and when it's full, that's more weight. You have to absorb more energy in a collision - so you need more structure - which adds more weight. It becomes a positive feedback situation where increasing the weight by a little bit ends up increasing it a lot.
But the good part of that is that stripping out a little weight saves more weight which saves more weight.
Funny you should say that. I live in Canada and there is now a government fund dedicated to getting older cars off the road. If you trade in your car that's 1996 or older and buy a new one you get a few hundred dollars as a reward. The government claims this is to get older, less fuel efficient and higher poluting cars off the road. After reading the posts here it seems like maybe the government fund is meant to make people buy new cars to get more money into out economy and that's it!
The concerns are real, but I don't know if they're valid concerns when I looked at the actual crash stats. What I've seen in the stats is that SUVs and trucks were statistically more dangerous to ride & drive in than a mid-sized car.
It's the weight and the high center of gravity that play against the safety of the trucks. The mid-sized cars can swerve better and brake faster, and the cars are far less likely to roll over than trucks & SUVs. Basically, while trucks & SUVs can better protect the passengers in the event of a collision, they're more likely to get into collisions.
Just like for trucks - make heavy cars/SUVs/whatever have slower speed limits on all roads, and fine heavily for going over it. That way, when people "need" to use their SUVs they can still use them- in the snow, hauling furniture, etc. Average Joe who uses his SUV for a commuter car in Los Angeles, will not want to use it since he can only go 50 MPH, and everyone else will be passing him. Obviously there are better examples than L.A, since average traffic speed is about 12 MPH.
..........FULL STOP.
But the McLaren is expensive. Carbon fiber is great for low production, but production is too slow and costly to scale up well. There are people working on that problem, but it will take a major investment to convert production as well.
How about a rally car? Granted they aren't "most" subcompacts, but, unless you're driving an H1, they'll take any road your presumably stock SUV travels to task that doesn't require an extra inch of ground clearance.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
The only reason why this is is because we were sold on the idea of living in the suburbs 50 years ago and the cities funded most of that movement of their tax base to the suburbs with all the money there were supposed to spend on infrastructure. cities like seattle that never spent a dime outside of its own city limits have an amazing infrastructure. we were sold a consumerist dream and bought it hook line and sinker. now its time to pay up and we're going to have to go back to the way we were before this whole fiasco and live in the cities close to our works and stay the hell out of other peoples business.
Odd - slashdot managed to eat my post during preview.
In any case, here's the equation you want: E=0.5m*v^2. Know that the weight of a Miata is 940 Kg and that of an excursion is 3261kg. For the Miata to have the same kinetic energy as the Excursion at 30 mph, the Miata has to drive at 55 mph.
Who is the idiot who is driving 55 in a 30 mph zone?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Smart car crash test...
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1NHXiGd0rQ
Which driver suffered more?
No sig today...
Many of them weigh around 2000lbs...I have two of them, a quick little 4-seater (well the rear seats are a joke, to be fair) sports coupe that barely seems to use any gas (over 40MPG highway with careful use of the gas, 50 is possible with hypermiling techniques, it's only had a slight lightening), and a 4-seater 4x4 that goes over anything, and gets ~34MPG combined, even though it has the aerodynamics of a washing machine. Combined weight? 4200lbs. Combined displacement? 2.9 litres. Both very affordable cars in their day. They certainly don't have any advanced materials in them, they don't use any advanced construction techniques, and they only have one powertrain each. Imagine if they had EFI systems instead of carburetters!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Are the best performers the biggest and heaviest vehicles on the road? Not at all. Among the safest cars are the midsize imports, like the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. Or consider the extraordinary performance of some subcompacts, like the Volkswagen Jetta. Drivers of the tiny Jetta die at a rate of just forty-seven per million, which is in the same range as drivers of the five-thousand-pound Chevrolet Suburban and almost half that of popular S.U.V. models like the Ford Explorer or the GMC Jimmy. In a head-on crash, an Explorer or a Suburban would crush a Jetta or a Camry. But, clearly, the drivers of Camrys and Jettas are finding a way to avoid head-on crashes with Explorers and Suburbans. The benefits of being nimble--of being in an automobile that's capable of staying out of trouble--are in many cases greater than the benefits of being big."
Seriously.
I don't know why people don't make the connection, but corporations thrive on inefficiency. It makes more money.
The caloric value of a gallon of gas would get you a ridiculous amount of mileage if you used your legs on a bicycle instead, and it would save our society resources because you'd be healthier for it. The only problem with this kind of transportation is that you're not using enough stuff. No brake pads, transmission fluid, tires, stops at the Kwik-E mart...
The real flaw of American capitalism is that corporations have corrupted and infiltrated the government and created totally unnecessary wants purely to make a profit. Remember GM and the tire companies buying and dismantling mass transit after WWII?
Just think about this. According to popular convention, these are two different entities: Road and Highway Budget: Necessary for the maintenance of our infrastructure. (In fact, a transportation subsidy.) Mass Transit Subsidy: Government assistance given to subway systems. (In fact, a transportation subsidy.)
And what are subsidies? The result of a radical idea that money collected from taxpayers should be used to benefit taxpayers! Totally communist/socialist/liberal bed-wetting propaganda if you ask me! These lies and half-truths are marketed to us by the media, because the media's TRUE clients are corporations and their advertising revenue. Corporations win, everyone else loses.
A few years ago, my father was in just such an accident. He was approaching a bend on an icy road, and a jacked-up truck came spinning out of control from the other direction. The back of the truck actually ended up going through the windshield -- that was the first point of contact.
Luckily, he got away without any permanent injury, but I still hate those trucks.
Ass hats.
Oh, and because I was pleasantly coasting along, when I was withing 30 - 40 yards of the light it changed green and I stuck it in third and moseyed on my way, but the truck had come to a complete stop and had to start in first again. MOMENTUM is a powerful thing.
Kudos to you for maintaining efficiency in your truck. I acknowledge your sarcasm, but I also must say it's no miracle you get upwards of 20 mpg. It's just that you use your brain (:
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Ah, no. A flywheel has this generally useful but in this case, harmful tendency to tend to remain in its plane of rotation. So you can't mount it directly in a vehicle. You could mount it on 3D gimbals, but the cost and complexity and maybe the flywheel tend to go through the roof.
Actually, VW/Audi's new automatic tranny, the DSG (Dual Shift Gate) is only slightly heavier than a traditional manual tranny and is more efficient.
It uses 2 clutches, a split fly wheel (inner and outer), and two input shafts. It can always keep 2 gears engaged with only 1 clutch engaged. Up-shifting takes a tiny fraction of a second as the two clutches switch states and the newly disengaged input shaft engages the next gear to be shifted into. Down shifts can take a hair longer, but are still in the sub-second range.
The down side though is that you can't (currently) feed it much over 250 ft-lbs of torque since the surface area on the flywheel is split between two clutches, you'll slip the clutch in no time with too much power and weight. But for a commuter car that isn't going to be taking a tuned engine and hard launches, the DSG is an amazing piece of engineering.
-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
The Audi A2 was a marvel in this regard. Made out of aluminum and whatnot. Didn't sell at a 20000€ price tage since no one wanted to pay that much for a small car, but got 80 mpg in the most efficient version.
The original Smart was also lighter (745kg), but they had to fatten the car by a whopping 60kg to pass US safety standards.
The problem is America picks heavy and cheap without bothering with the safe.
Take a look at this picture. Same speed. Same impact.
The Mini crumpled its whole engine bay. A total write-off. But the passenger compartment is barely touched.
The F-150 has a beautifully intact engine. It's unfortunately inside the cab where the people-puree would be oozing out.
Add on pickups having a consistently 20% higher fatality rate per million miles driven and you suddenly realize that stupid engineering combined with being in a hulking great target that can't get out of the way really doesn't compete with a small, light, quick to accelerate car that's simply not where the accident happens in the first place.
Case in point: About two weeks ago, my wife was in her Mini Cooper S in a parking lot, looking for a space. A Dodge (oxymoron if ever there was one) Ram (ah, far more accurate) reversed out without looking, straight at her. Had she been in an SUV, the back end of the Dodge would have gone through the side of it before the idiot had time to react and hit the brakes. The Dodge would have been trashed, she'd be dead or in a coma from the injuries. In the Mini, he put her foot down and was somewhere else while her SUV driving friend in the passenger seat asked, "How the hell did you do that?"
So, given the choice, I'd rather be in a well built car that folds the parts I'm not in when it gets hit, light enough to avoid more of the accidents anyway, than the hunk of American steel that deforms that steel in to right where I'm sitting.
I work in London, UK. Gas is $10 a gallon.
Our public transport is OK, not great, but it costs $15/day and takes 45 mins on the train, compared with $35 fuel, $15 congestion charge and $25 parking to drive - for 1 hour 50 mins.
(And the housing beyond insane - you could not buy a home of any sort for less than $1 million within 30 miles of my office)
You will get this eventually in your big US cities. LA is the size of London, and starting to run of space to build 10 lane highways. New York is probably already like it.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
This is the reason flywheel energy storage is not used in vehicles. The flywheels turn at super-high rpms, amplifying this issue. AFS Trinity (formerly American Flywheel Systems, I think...) worked on the AFS-20 as a prototype flywheel car back in the mid 90s. They never got it working. The problem is that when you are driving, and you turn, precession causes a large amount of friction against your flywheel bearings as it resists the turn.
Last I heard, they were working on magnetic bearings, instead of physical ones, but there's been little progress released to the public so far.
The main advantage of a flywheel is that it can handle rapid charge / discharge, but ultracapacitors are another way to gain that benefit without the disadvantages of flywheels.
And how many semis, pickups or full size vans did you see flipped?
I learned how to drive in a full size van. The thing was very obviously NOT a sports car. You took corners slowly. You were very conscious of what was around you because you knew you had some big honking blind spots.
People who drive SUVs seem to think they ARE sports cars. Rolling? The sixteen year olds in my home town used to roll their pickups on bad, gravel, country roads, usually when they'd been drinking. Soccer moms on the Interstate? Seriously!
Since gas passed $3.50/gallon, I started to see other bicycles. At $4.00/gallon, I see a bunch of them. Now, at $4.50/gallon, I notice significantly fewer cars, more bikes, and people actually riding the bus.
I live in Los Angeles, possibly the most auto-centric and bicycle/pedestrian unfriendly city in the US.
I also live in a community with a median income over $150k, where people can afford to drive their big ass SUVs, and often prefer to not associate with the "kind of people that ride the bus."
Commuting to work via airplane to me is a different story. I've done it myself at different times. It just shows an imbalance between resources and demand, and many of those things can't be resolved overnight. (In my field, it looks like it is only getting worse over time.)