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Electromagnetic Automobile Suspension Demonstrated
cylonlover writes "Last December at the Future of Electric Vehicles conference in San Jose, a representative from The Netherlands' Eindhoven University of Technology presented research that his institution had been doing into a novel type of electromagnetic vehicle suspension. Now that a test car equipped with the suspension is about to appear at the AutoRAI exhibition in Amsterdam, the university has released some more details about the technology. For starters, it is not only electromagnetic but also active, meaning that it doesn't just mechanically respond to bumps in the road, but is controlled by an onboard computer. It is claimed to improve the overall ride quality of cars by 60 percent." That seems an awfully exact figure — I'm not sure any two people would ever agree even about the exact same car's "overall ride quality."
But isn't the Bose system that came out years ago fully electromagnetic? http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/automotive/bose_suspension/index.jsp
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Mechanical throttle cables?
Yeah, I remember them. When you tap the accelerator, the engine revs in time, with no delay due to slow actuators on the low-mid range end of the market.
You're ignoring the down side to those same cables. Flooding of the carb, back fires, carb damage, excessive gas being dumped and flowing out the exhaust resulting in much more exhaust waste, cooling of the catalytic convertor preventing proper operation. Not to mention, on a lot of vehicles, the inline actuator is part of a safety system which reduces throttle when traction or control is lost. Thusly, for most drivers, direct cable is far more dangerous to everyone.
Basically, it was more reactive because it was so wasteful. Now throttle response follows a consumption and efficiency curve rather than a dump, waste, and foul curve.
If you want a more responsive throttle, simply changing out your air filter can make a big difference; as well as making sure it remains clean. Something like a K&N filter can make for big differences. As can a new exhaust pipe. Basically, on many small displacement engines (really, many engines but especially so on small displacement ICE), their intake and exhaust are artificially restricted; with the intake much more commonly so by the air filter. Remove your air filter and conduct some quick throttle response tests. For many economy cars the difference in throttle response is noteworthy. If this is true for your vehicle, a K&N (or any other high flow filter) can make a big difference.