Keeping the pressure on

[island911]

Originally Posted by jyl

Hey, I merely spent years working on severe car crashes. You've watched demo derbies, so I guess you know everything . . .

My knowlege base is not from just watching demo derbies--that is the least of it. . . .tho, it seems yours is from seeing the aftermaths of single collisions. --and likely arguing fuzzy physics.

[RWebb]

Wayne - that's 20% of a full charge while the car sits in the office parking lot...

Think about it. Not a complete gimmick. It's really not too bad.

And yesterday's high tech solar cell is tomorrow's (next years) run of the mill cell.

And, anything to help bring down prices and up the wafer yields on these puppies is FINE by me...

[RWebb]

John - don't waste keystrokes arguing with Island - he has some sort of psychological problem that you cannot fix.

[911pcars]

Isn't the big egg versus little egg scenario a little old?

It's a proven fact that the little egg comes out second best. Then why are people making this point in a Porsche forum? That argument would seem to be more appropriate on the many Escalade-Extinct Vehicle Forums.

In the best of circumstances, we'd all be driving approximate sized, safe, fuel-efficient vehicles with fewer over-sized vehicles in harms way (commercial trucks, buses, vans and the occasional monster SUV from years past).

A positive result of high oil prices is the eventual demise of enormous vehicles with enormous appetites for petrol which is, btw, also symbolic of our society's need to consume resources.

Sherwood

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by RWebb

John - don't waste keystrokes arguing with Island - he has some sort of psychological problem that you cannot fix.

It's an extremely well documented case on PPOT.

[Aerkuld]

The damage to an occupant in an imapct is due to the rate of change of velocity, otherwise known as acceleration. Of course we are talking about a negative acceleration here. You will ofter hear in an accident, particularly in racing cars because they have instruments to record this data, of a XXX 'g' impact. You know that 1g is the acceleration due to gravity which has a value of 9.81 m/s^2. The higher the negative decleration in an accident the greater the damage to a person in the accident due to the increased gravitational force acting on their body. It stands to reason that the negative acceleration will be lower if the imapct energy is absorbed slowly. This is what a modern car with a imapct safety system is designed to do. It takes the energy that the car has and distributes as much of it as possible over as long a time as possible, hence lower negative acceletation. A Ford Galaxy was never designed to do this. If it hits something it will stop very quickly, resulting in a very high negative acceleration and more damage to the occupants.
Now I know your next course of argument is going to be based on "...when the big car hits the little car". In this instance I suggest you find some data on fatal accident statistics*. You will see that a large majority of fatal accidents are single vehicle accidents and do not involve an imapct with another vehicle. Even with this information you may also want to think about the possibility of a big car hitting another big car. The truth is the smaller car is safer and not just for the occupants of the small car!

Please correct me if I have made any whopping errors in this explanation.


*I posted something about this in another thread. I'll see if I can find it.

[Jim Richards]

GM is busy, even though it's being battered in the (automobile and stock) market. Too bad the car is bugly.

GM readies Volt unveiling to shift focus from crisis
Reuters - Tuesday, July 8
By Soyoung Kim and Kevin Krolicki


Volt Concept - 2007

DETROIT - General Motors Corp is rushing to finish the production version of its Chevy Volt and plans to unveil a showroom-ready model of the heavily touted electric car in September, people familiar with the project say.

Battered by a deepening slump in sales and concerns about whether it can ride out the downturn, GM is counting on the Volt to break its costly association with gas-guzzling vehicles at a time when truck sales are tumbling and gas prices are near record levels.

GM is likely to complete the production version of the Volt by early August and plans to show it off in September, just when the embattled automaker celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding, people familiar with the plans said.

A GM spokesman declined to comment on the timeline for its next announcements on the Volt, which will include naming a supplier for the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack, the single most expensive element of the vehicle and the component seen as critical to its success.

"Everyone is waiting for the next steps," Rob Peterson, spokesman for GM's electric vehicle program, told Reuters. GM designers and engineers are "getting very close" to a production-ready version of the Volt, he said.

GM showed off a concept version of the Volt in January 2007 but has retooled the look of the vehicle significantly since then, in part in order to improve its aerodynamics, representatives of the automaker have said.

GM has already shown a near-production version of the Volt to a Los Angeles-area focus group of consumers as it pushes toward production of the vehicle by late 2010 under a development plan the GM board approved in June.

By unveiling the final version of the Volt at a centennial observation in September, GM will be looking to shift the focus for investors and consumers from its current sales slump toward the more fuel-efficient vehicles it has in development.

The automaker, which saw its stock hit a 54-year low last week, is expected to use the circuit of major auto shows that begins with Paris in October to unveil a series of upcoming vehicles that will underscore its effort to move away from a reliance on light trucks.

Those include the production version of the Chevy Beat, a replacement for the Aveo hatchback, and a replacement for the Chevy Cobalt, a small sedan.

VOLT: READY FOR ITS HOLLYWOOD CLOSE-UP

In a further bid to create buzz, the Volt is one of several GM cars set to make an appearance in the action movie "Transformers 2," scheduled for release next summer, a person familiar with the matter said.

GM was heavily involved in the production of the first Michael Bay-directed "Transformers" film, released last summer, and provided a concept version of its 2009 Camaro for a central turn in the movie.

GM is designing the Volt to run for 40 miles on a lithium-ion battery pack that can be recharged at a standard electric outlet. The Volt will also capture energy from braking, like a traditional hybrid, and feature an on-board engine that will be used to send power to the battery on longer trips.

GM is racing Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> to bring the first plug-in car to the marketplace and has already featured the Volt in its advertising, part of a bid to improve the public image of the fuel efficiency of its car line-up.

Just as the Detroit-based automakers once rolled out limited-edition performance cars to create a buzz around their brands, the Volt has emerged as a kind of environmentally friendly "halo car" that GM hopes will have as much impact as the Prius hybrid has had for Toyota.

Two suppliers have been in the running to provide lithium-ion batteries for the Volt: A unit of Korea's LG Chem <051910.KS> said last month that it was ready to supply batteries for the Volt, and German auto parts supplier Continental AG , adapting battery technology used by privately held A123 Systems, is also competing for the Volt battery contract.

The Volt marks one of the first attempts to adapt lithium-ion batteries, widely used in consumer electronics, for a car, although Toyota and others are pressing ahead with their own work on the same technology.

GM celebrates its centennial on September 16, the anniversary of its founding by Billy Durant. It kicked off a series of events last year to mark the date, but those have been overshadowed by concerns about its performance and whether it has sufficient cash to ride out the downturn in U.S. sales.

GM's U.S. sales are off 15 percent this year, and analysts expect the automaker to raise additional capital to shore up liquidity as it looks to turn around its U.S. operations.

[john70t]

All the Volt advertisements have "this vehicle not for sale" in fine print at the bottom.

So is GM going to repeat the EV1 experience?: leased only and then crush the fleet www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com, or did they just build in a program to make the drive train self-destruct at 101,000 miles?

I wouldn't trust anything sold by GM managment, especially if it has spyware(On-Star) hard wired into it..

[Jim Richards]

Honda's approach is different. There's the Hydrogen fuel-cell powered FCX Clarity

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/



and this from their 2007 North America plan:

Product and Technology Innovation – Automobiles

By introducing new technology and more fuel-efficient products, such as the Honda Fit, the company maintained its industry-leading CAFE performance: 29.1 mpg for its combined car and light truck fleet in model year 2006.

Honda is targeting a further 5 percent improvement in its CAFE by model year 2010, along with a series of new technology initiatives:

• Next-generation Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) technology applied to the Accord V6 Sedan and Coupe and Odyssey in 2007.

• An all-new, more affordable hybrid vehicle to be launched in 2009, with projected annual sales of 100,000 units in the U.S. and Canada combined.

• A next-generation 4-cylinder clean diesel engine, meeting EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions, to be launched in 2009.

• An all-new more advanced, efficient, and dynamically styled fuel cell vehicle, based on the Honda FCX Concept, to be launched in 2008.

[jyl]

Checking my math

20,000 miles/yr
Range Rover was getting 12 MPG, so 20,000/12 = 1,667 gal/yr, at $4.15/gal is $6,917/yr
Prius gets 42 MPG, so 20,000/42 = 476 gal/yr, at $4.15/gal is $1,976/yr
$6,917 - $1,976 = $4,941/yr savings
The RR really was getting excreable mileage - heavy, V8, full-time 4WD, short trips and climbing big hill daily
The Prius gets worse mileage than I'd like due to short trip/big hill, but still manages to average 42 MPG full-year
We buy gas at COST so pay "only" $4.15. If paid $4.50 would save $5,357/yr.
Kind of a best-case-scenario because Prius replaced a gas pig.

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

Your numbers don't appear to add up. If you drive 20,000 miles and get 15 miles per gallon with Range Rover, then you would pay $6000, assuming gas is $4.50/gallon. So, if you're saving $5000, then your gas costs would now be $1000 with the prius, which means it would be getting 90 miles to the gallon. Bottomline, you are probably not saving nearly as much as you think you are...

-Wayne

[jyl]

+1

A simple-minded focus on relative mass of the two vehicles, which is Island's error, ignores what actually injures the occupant. Typically, occupants are injured when they impact the inside of the car (or are ejected, that's another story).

Old American cars had lots of mass, but practically no occupant restraints or other passive safety. So while the car itself would sustain less damage than a modern, smaller, lighter car, the occupant is in fact less protected.

That's why Island's reliance on what works in a demolition derby is so misguided. In a demo derby, you want the car to resist repeated impacts and survive to be the last car running. In a real-world accident, you want the occupants to survive a single impact, and you could care less how the car fares.

Anyway, the '66 Galaxy in a demo derby is not a stock '66 Galaxy. I looked up the official rules for some demo derby organizations. The original fuel tanks are removed, there is some sort of fire supression system, there is usually some degree of roll cage, the drivers wear helmets and are securely belted in. The doors can be welded shut, the glass is removed, and so on.

So, like I said, if you offer me a '66 Galaxy with full roll cage, racing seat, five-point belts, fire suppression, etc - yeah, I'd take that over a Prius. But a stock '66 Galaxy - no way. I'd prefer not to punch my face through the windshield while my chest is crushed against the (non-collapsing) steering column and the rest of me is ejected through the opening doors.

P.S. Remember Schumacher's 1999 British GP accident when his Ferrari went straight into the tire wall at 125 MPH. He decelerated from 125 MPH to zero in appx 10 feet. Because he was well restrained, he survived with just a broken leg. The body can survive huge acceleration, as long as there isn't impact with the car interior or something penetrating the interior.

Do you think Schumacher would have been better off with half the deceleration (say, 60 MPH to zero in 10 feet) but unrestrained? That's the '66 Galaxy.

Originally Posted by Aerkuld

The damage to an occupant in an imapct is due to the rate of change of velocity, otherwise known as acceleration. Of course we are talking about a negative acceleration here. You will ofter hear in an accident, particularly in racing cars because they have instruments to record this data, of a XXX 'g' impact. You know that 1g is the acceleration due to gravity which has a value of 9.81 m/s^2. The higher the negative decleration in an accident the greater the damage to a person in the accident due to the increased gravitational force acting on their body. It stands to reason that the negative acceleration will be lower if the imapct energy is absorbed slowly. This is what a modern car with a imapct safety system is designed to do. It takes the energy that the car has and distributes as much of it as possible over as long a time as possible, hence lower negative acceletation. A Ford Galaxy was never designed to do this. If it hits something it will stop very quickly, resulting in a very high negative acceleration and more damage to the occupants.
Now I know your next course of argument is going to be based on "...when the big car hits the little car". In this instance I suggest you find some data on fatal accident statistics*. You will see that a large majority of fatal accidents are single vehicle accidents and do not involve an imapct with another vehicle. Even with this information you may also want to think about the possibility of a big car hitting another big car. The truth is the smaller car is safer and not just for the occupants of the small car!

Please correct me if I have made any whopping errors in this explanation.


*I posted something about this in another thread. I'll see if I can find it.

[island911]

Originally Posted by island911

There is a difference between a car that is space efficient, and a big car (for minimizing intrusion in a crash.)
Interior volume does not make a big car. . .just look at the Smart (seats 4).

fwiw:
Prius Length x Width; 175x67.9"
1966 Ford Galaxy: 210x79

On a figure-eight track, which car would you want to be driving?

Originally Posted by island911

Point being, even a decades old (with no modern safety devices) piece of American iron, you would NOT want to take one on in a tin-box prius.
...

John, you are arguing overall safety because you don't want to concede the point. ...that a pious loses the "matter in motion" game. ...The pious is not a big car (like the Ford Galaxy -Sammys point)

I'm not saying that your pious is w/o merit, as Econo-boxes go... just that it IS an Econo - box." ...I don't even doubt that it is spacious... for an Econo-box. I also don't doubt that it gets good mileage...for an Econo-box (like Chris mentioned, the 80's VW rabbit)

[island911]

Originally Posted by RWebb

John - don't waste keystrokes arguing with Island - he has some sort of psychological problem that you cannot fix.

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

It's an extremely well documented case on PPOT.

That's all you two are good for?? ...slinging insults.

Well, I suppose you two feel the need to participate, as your special olympics only come once a year.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by island911

Well, I suppose you two feel the need to participate, as your special olympics only come once a year.

I'm the thead starter, and you're dragging this away from the original topic (marketing to keep pressure on the competition) to satisfy your own agenda. Please go somewhere else, perhaps start your own thread.

[jyl]

On overall safety, the Prius wins hands-down.

For demolition derby/figure-eight purposes (repeated collisions for entertainment value), I don't care.

For a real-world collision, the Galaxy car has the advantage of mass but the Galaxy's occupants have the disadvantage of lacking restraints, airbags, engineered crumple zones, passive safety. The Prius car has the disadvantage of mass but the Prius' occupants have the advantage of restraints, airbags, engineered crumple zones, passive safety.

Since I'm an occupant, not a car, I'd rather be in the Prius. (Or other modern high-safety car.)

This isn't a simple "matter in motion" physics question involving billard balls. I think that is the point you're not getting.

It doesn't matter how much damage the car sustains, and the relative acceleration is only one factor. What matters is (1) does the passenger compartment remain unbreached, and (2) are the occupants restrained from motion/impact within the passenger compartment.

The crash videos illustrate this pretty well. In the 1960s crash tests, condition (2) is failed, terribly so, but as the occupants die from massive blunt force trauma, ejection, incineration, etc I guess they have the satisfaction of knowing their car might be reparable. In the Prius tests, the car is a write-off but the occupants survive. Including the head-on with a SUV.

Edit: Sorry Jim, I'll stop posting about the Galaxy/Prius crash stuff. I guess we got badly off topic.

[Aerkuld]

Originally Posted by jyl

+1

A simple-minded focus on relative mass of the two vehicles, which is Island's error, ignores what actually injures the occupant. Typically, occupants are injured when they impact the inside of the car (or are ejected, that's another story).

Old American cars had lots of mass, but practically no occupant restraints or other passive safety. So while the car itself would sustain less damage than a modern, smaller, lighter car, the occupant is in fact less protected.

That's why Island's reliance on what works in a demolition derby is so misguided. In a demo derby, you want the car to resist repeated impacts and survive to be the last car running. In a real-world accident, you want the occupants to survive a single impact, and you could care less how the car fares.

Anyway, the '66 Galaxy in a demo derby is not a stock '66 Galaxy. I looked up the official rules for some demo derby organizations. The original fuel tanks are removed, there is some sort of fire supression system, there is usually some degree of roll cage, the drivers wear helmets and are securely belted in. The doors can be welded shut, the glass is removed, and so on.

So, like I said, if you offer me a '66 Galaxy with full roll cage, racing seat, five-point belts, fire suppression, etc - yeah, I'd take that over a Prius. But a stock '66 Galaxy - no way. I'd prefer not to punch my face through the windshield while my chest is crushed against the (non-collapsing) steering column and the rest of me is ejected through the opening doors.

P.S. Remember Schumacher's 1999 British GP accident when his Ferrari went straight into the tire wall at 125 MPH. He decelerated from 125 MPH to zero in appx 10 feet. Because he was well restrained, he survived with just a broken leg. The body can survive huge acceleration, as long as there isn't impact with the car interior or something penetrating the interior.

Do you think Schumacher would have been better off with half the deceleration (say, 60 MPH to zero in 10 feet) but unrestrained? That's the '66 Galaxy.

I tend to agree with you here John. I think we are both heading in the same direction but you appear to have more experince looking at a real situation. I would guess that the the g forces in a accident in a normal car could well overcome the occupants muscle strength, so their body is pretty much out of control. This will undoubtedly lead to parts of their body making contact with parts of the vehicle causing injury. If the g force can be minimized and the body restrained then I agree that the risk to the occupant is significantly reduced. I suppose the airbags probably work as more of a restraint device to prevent movement rather than as a cushion.
I think the reason a racing driver can withstand such high g impacts is that they are strapped in the car with their head restrained and have very little space for thier limbs to flail around. As a result they can't really go anywhere, plus the components intruding into the driver compartment are minimized. I imagine it helps too that the Formula type cars tend to disintergrate on impact which absorbs a large amount of energy.
It's interesting that you mention the Schumacher accident. If you look at the aftermath of that crash, or virtually any crash in a Formula car, the vehicle is pretty well destroyed. I was always amazed at Earnhardt's fatal accident which looked like nothing from the outside and left the car pretty much intact. I guess the difference was attributable to the energy passed on to the driver from the impact coupled with the comparative lack of driver restraint?
I think this brings us back to your statement about occupant protection versus vehicle protection.

Please critique as required...

[BertBeagle]

Originally Posted by Aerkuld

I do think Murray has the right idea. As I posted earlier, I am convinced that the future of car design is going to head towards lightweight with small efficient engines so that you can have the performance without guzzling gallons of gas.

I agree.

I like his 4 points that the car must demonstrate and I don't think any of this will be impossible to achieve. Just that none of the car companies have done it in a long time.

It must be less costly to buy and run than other cars.

It must be "cool", something to be seen in such as the original Mini, the Fiat Cinquecento and the Smart

The Car must be proven to be as safe as a small hatchback.

It should not be daunting to drive in traffic.

[jyl]

The Volt is an interesting idea.

As I understand it, the concept is that the car is driven solely by electric motors powered by the lithium-ion battery, which would be charged overnight and good for a 40 mile range. There is an internal combustion engine (ICE) on-board, but solely to charge the batteries during trips longer than 40 miles. Thus there's no need for a transmission and the ICE can run at a constant, efficient rpm and load. Since the electric motors should be small, and neither the ICE nor the battery back have to be in any fixed location relative to the driven wheels, packaging would seem flexible.

I'd be interested to know what advances in battery technology and safety GM will have. Why the range can't be longer (the EV-1 had an 80 mile range). Also what will be the efficiency when the Volt is running on ICE-generated electricity.

GM started working on the Volt in 2006, showed a concept car in early 2007, and are trying to begin production in 2010. Assuming the Volt does go on sale in 2010, it will probably compete with Toyota's plug-in Prius (usually speculated to be a MY2010 or MY2011 vehicle). Although, the Volt might be aimed at a different niche, based on the styling.

But - lithium-ion batteries are tricky enough that I probably wouldn't buy a Volt until the vehicle has been around for a couple years. When a cellphone battery can explode with enough force to kill a person (one case - the phone was in the guy's shirt pocket), imagine what a car-sized lithium-ion battery could do.

[Jim Richards]

One of the hydraulic hybrids that were recently mentioned in another thread had a similar system to the Volt, though replacing the electrical drive with a hydraulic one. That system was fir use on medium-to-large size trucks. It had a diesel engine that ran independent of the drivetrain to recharge the hydraulics when the vehicle was running for long periods on the highway.

I haven't seen the other car companies that are keeping up with Toyota, just following.

[jyl]

I missed the hydraulic hybrid thread.

Two thoughts/questions/speculations: (1) My impression is the main advantage of a hydraulic accumulator over a battery would be in power density (ability to accept or deliver a large amount of energy in a short time). Perhaps this could be solved by adding capacitors to the battery system. (2) How much room is there to improve hydraulic accumulators? They are mechanical devices, basically a piston in a chamber with a liquid on one side and a gas on the other side. There might be more room left to improve battery technology, than to improve hydraulic accumulator technology.