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The Car, Reinvented

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Re: The Car, Reinvented

#81

Post by rwmj »

speedgoose wrote: post #74
rwmj wrote: post #59

> Hybrid was interesting in its time (the Toyota Prius is a great car), but it is… well, hybrid, i.e. torn between the ancient and the new world, therefore a bad solution. But can be refilled in 5 minutes and driven for 300 miles, which I don't see happening with electric cars any time soon.

True, but do you need that feature often? When you drive 600km, it's okay to take a break to charge the car. Also Toyota hybrids are not very responsive and fast. And they smell.

Actually plug-in hybrids seem to be the sweet spot, if only I could afford one. I'd probably use it as an EV 95% of the time, charging overnight and driving under 30 miles each day, but still not lose the ability to drive to my family (200+ miles) without long stops for charging.

> And they smell.

Erm?

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#82

Post by tomatotomato37 »

notahacker wrote: post #78
chris_va wrote: post #26

> First, the skateboard and the upper body could be built separately. Maybe not at the same place (a handful of skateboards will fit perfectly in a shipping container for completion thousands of miles away). I hate to be critical, but this really reminds me of a 1950s "visions of the future" piece more than a practical design choice. For example, the skateboard is not a new concept [1], and there are reasons you don'…

The 'skateboard' really isn't a new idea, it's the early motoring era approach where you bought the rolling chassis from a chassis manufacturer and then hired a coachbuilder to design and build suitably elegant bodywork to your personal specification on top. Then we got vertically integrated mass production which cost less and built cars which handled a lot better as they'd been designed as a unit with bodywork and c…

I was about to say, I have no idea what the difference between this idea and some ladder chassis platform was supposed to be. The Ford Panther platform was used on like 8 different models across 3 marques, including a police car.

The thing is companies don't really like using modular chassis like ladders anymore is because anything that can't use the roof for structural support is heavy and flexes like mad.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#83

Post by tonyedgecombe »

fortran77 wrote: post #52
egypturnash wrote: post #24

Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options. Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's…

My toothbrush sits idle 95% of the time. I don't want to rent it.

It feels like I'm renting mine every time I buy a new set of brushes.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#84

Post by bttrfl »

GuB-42 wrote: post #49
bttrfl wrote: post #25

If we could start from scratch, shouldn't cars be made of plastic to reduce weight?

Fiberglass car bodies used to be a thing. But they mostly came back to steel now. Fiberglass and I guess plastic isn't good enough for structural parts with the current safety standards. And if you have to support your plastic parts with steel, you lose the weight benefits.

Wouldn't the safety standards change if all cars would weight X% of current mass?

According to quick googling cars got heavier: "The average new car weighed 3,221 pounds [1461 kg] in 1987 but 4,009 pounds [1818kg] in 2010." [1]. The weight of a trabant, which was probably a very badly engineered car, was about 600 kg [2] - 1/3 of a modern car.

I imagine we could make cars today even lighter and if weight of all cars would be similar than the safety standards would be much different.

[1] https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#85

Post by speedgoose »

rwmj wrote: post #81
speedgoose wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but do you need that feature often? When you drive 600km, it's okay to take a break to charge the car. Also Toyota hybrids are not very responsive and fast. And they smell.

Actually plug-in hybrids seem to be the sweet spot, if only I could afford one. I'd probably use it as an EV 95% of the time, charging overnight and driving under 30 miles each day, but still not lose the ability to drive to my family (200+ miles) without long stops for charging. > And they smell. Erm?

Eventually I think you will probably prefer an EV with a large battery that can charge fast. An ICE engine is expensive to buy and maintain, and heavy. The reliability is also not perfect when you almost never use it.

If you bike or drive behind a Toyota, you can notice the smoke and the smell. Especially during winter.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#86

Post by closeparen »

ajuc wrote: post #61
barney54 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sitting idle 95% of the time isn’t super meaningful. What percentage of cars are used at rush hour? Not 100%, but a lot more than 5%. What matters is meeting peak demand, not average demand.

Remote working and elastic hours will hopefully decrease that peak considerably. Especially now with coronavirus proving that it's not that scary.

We can also provide everyone with 8 hours of sleep while eliminating 2/3rds of the beds if we sleep in shifts and trade off occupancy of our homes with strangers while we're out. Oilfield workers and submariners do this, after all, and they turn out fine.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#87

Post by GuB-42 »

bttrfl wrote: post #84
GuB-42 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiberglass car bodies used to be a thing. But they mostly came back to steel now. Fiberglass and I guess plastic isn't good enough for structural parts with the current safety standards. And if you have to support your plastic parts with steel, you lose the weight benefits.

Wouldn't the safety standards change if all cars would weight X% of current mass? According to quick googling cars got heavier: "The average new car weighed 3,221 pounds [1461 kg] in 1987 but 4,009 pounds [1818kg] in 2010." [1]. The weight of a trabant, which was probably a very badly engineered car, was about 600 kg [2] - 1/3 of a modern car. I imagine we could make cars today even lighter and if weight of all cars…

It will only matter on car vs car collisions. Fully loaded trucks and ground obstacles will still be a problem.

Also I am not a mechanical engineer but it looks like steel is really good at absorbing energy from impacts. Plastics tend to shatter when the impact force is too great. I actually experienced a minor accident in a fiberglass car. No one was hurt because the chassis held everything in place but the body was completely broken.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#88

Post by m463 »

pandler wrote: post #53
drcross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always downgrade people in my estimations when I see they correlate old with being bad without a good reason.

I agree, but I try to stick to downgrading the comment/argument instead of the people themselves, because I’ve found it to be a pretty ubiquitous line of thought since I started noticing it.

I was listening to an episode of Joe Rogan, and the guest considered himself a conservative.

Discussing the differences between a conservative and a liberal he used an analogy of a fence, where a liberal would want to take it down and a conservative would want to leave it up.

It got me thinking if this was true or not.

A little digging and I found this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

"Although the purpose of this fence is not obvious, there may be valid reasons for its presence."

(I'd like to think I'm in the mindful middle somewhere)

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#89

Post by Lineup »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #82
notahacker wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'skateboard' really isn't a new idea, it's the early motoring era approach where you bought the rolling chassis from a chassis manufacturer and then hired a coachbuilder to design and build suitably elegant bodywork to your personal specification on top. Then we got vertically integrated mass production which cost less and built cars which handled a lot better as they'd been designed as a unit with bodywork and c…

I was about to say, I have no idea what the difference between this idea and some ladder chassis platform was supposed to be. The Ford Panther platform was used on like 8 different models across 3 marques, including a police car. The thing is companies don't really like using modular chassis like ladders anymore is because anything that can't use the roof for structural support is heavy and flexes like mad.

That's on the mark! It's also pretty clear that manufacturers did want to utilize this as it reduces tooling costs a lot. But, in attempts to increase fuel efficiency/reduce weight(cost) they lost rigidity and went to unibody. Composite & battery technology are enabling these types of designs again. As for the lead comment, it's true that the exact same 'skateboard' isn't going to perform, but keep the board and swap 'trucks & wheels'. There's your sports car cum minivan. It's about the chassis not the rolling
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