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Re: Is Musk's (Tesla) real competition WikiSpeed?
Might be worth pointing out that trying to design and build an efficient urban car goes back many decades. Some aspects of the description below will sound quaint and some will sound contemporary. This vehicle, affectionately nicknamed the Wally Wagon, after the University of British Columbia's much loved President, Dr. Walter Gage, went on to win the Society of Automotive Engineers sponsored 1972 Urban Vehicle Design Competition overall award of excellece in Ann Arbor, Michigan, beating 92 other entries from Canadian and United States universities.
Engineers Build a Wonder Car
ByJohn Sydor
The UBC urban automobile will neither radiate a chromed light nor propel you at a tremendous speed along the highway. But it will allow you to move within a city in comfort, quiet and safety at a negligible cost to both the operator and environment.
The automobile is being designed and assembled at UBC by about 13 undergraduate engineering students. Once completed, it will be taken east where it will be the UBC entry in a competition involving 44 other Canadian and American universities. Its top speed will be 60 m.p.h.
"The competition is mainly concerned with a vehicle's performance, safety, production cost, human and environment compatibility, and energy efficiency," says Don O'Connor, engineering 3, one of the project co-ordinators.
"The anticipated cost of the project is around $18,000, and it is being raised by donations from the university community and industry. "The money will be used to buy materials and manufacture components unique to our vehicle," O'Connor said in an interview. "The only mass produced parts will be the Fiat 128 engine, the drive train, and the suspension, which will be modified."
When asked how much it would cost to run the vehicle, O'Connor said : "We anticipate 40 miles of city driving to the gallon of liquid natural gas, which costs as little as five cents per gallon. " Since natural gas is a clean fuel, very few engine parts will fail from combustion deposit and oil changes will only be needed every 25,000 miles, thus maintenance cost will be quite small," he said. "Another benefit from natural gas is that the exhaust emissions will be about 95 percent less than that of an ordinary gasoline engine.
"Technical modifications such as the electronic timing will allow the engine to perform efficiently over a wide range of speeds, while a .system of heat exchangers will allow utilization of heat energy that is normally lost. "Also the vehicle will have mufflers and sound insulators that will make it virtually noise free," said O 'Connor.
The priority concern in the design of the urban car has been safety. For instance, the vehicle will be made of two separate frames. One will hold the passenger compartment, the other will be used as a shock frame. The frames are held together by shear pins. In the event of a high speed collision, most of the force will go into shearing some of the pins and bending the shock frame . This will leave the second frame and its occupants intact and free from harm.
"The manner in which the motor will be mounted is also safety oriented. "On high impact it will be pushed under the car instead of into the passenger compartment, as what quite often happens with today's automobiles," said O'Connor. "Other safety features include a collapsing steering column, seat belt alarm, padded interior and shock absorbing bumpers which will allow the vehicle to withstand a five m .p .h . barrier crash.
"Safety and efficiency alone did not define the design of the urban vehicle," he said. The designers were well aware of the problems that often make driving frustrating and an effort was made at designing "convenience gadgets" for the vehicle. One gadget is the "common service point". By attaching a special refuelling mechanism at the service station, the vehicle will have everything vital to its operation checked out while it fills up with natural gas. The body of the vehicle will be made of plastic panelling . Instead of going to a body shop and getting a smashed fender or crumpled side fixed, the owner would buy a new fender or side and simply snap it on.
Other conveniences designed into the car are large windows with no blind spots, small turning radius for easy parking and manoeuverability and a push-button electronic anti-theft device on which a combination of numbers must be struck before the vehicle can be driven.
Whether the UBC urban car will ever go into production, O 'Connor does not know. "If it ever is mass produced, the cost per vehicle should be around $2,400, which is quite reasonable for a car that holds two people and eight bags of groceries," he said.
Originally posted by GRG55
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Engineers Build a Wonder Car
ByJohn Sydor
The UBC urban automobile will neither radiate a chromed light nor propel you at a tremendous speed along the highway. But it will allow you to move within a city in comfort, quiet and safety at a negligible cost to both the operator and environment.
The automobile is being designed and assembled at UBC by about 13 undergraduate engineering students. Once completed, it will be taken east where it will be the UBC entry in a competition involving 44 other Canadian and American universities. Its top speed will be 60 m.p.h.
"The competition is mainly concerned with a vehicle's performance, safety, production cost, human and environment compatibility, and energy efficiency," says Don O'Connor, engineering 3, one of the project co-ordinators.
"The anticipated cost of the project is around $18,000, and it is being raised by donations from the university community and industry. "The money will be used to buy materials and manufacture components unique to our vehicle," O'Connor said in an interview. "The only mass produced parts will be the Fiat 128 engine, the drive train, and the suspension, which will be modified."
When asked how much it would cost to run the vehicle, O'Connor said : "We anticipate 40 miles of city driving to the gallon of liquid natural gas, which costs as little as five cents per gallon. " Since natural gas is a clean fuel, very few engine parts will fail from combustion deposit and oil changes will only be needed every 25,000 miles, thus maintenance cost will be quite small," he said. "Another benefit from natural gas is that the exhaust emissions will be about 95 percent less than that of an ordinary gasoline engine.
"Technical modifications such as the electronic timing will allow the engine to perform efficiently over a wide range of speeds, while a .system of heat exchangers will allow utilization of heat energy that is normally lost. "Also the vehicle will have mufflers and sound insulators that will make it virtually noise free," said O 'Connor.
The priority concern in the design of the urban car has been safety. For instance, the vehicle will be made of two separate frames. One will hold the passenger compartment, the other will be used as a shock frame. The frames are held together by shear pins. In the event of a high speed collision, most of the force will go into shearing some of the pins and bending the shock frame . This will leave the second frame and its occupants intact and free from harm.
"The manner in which the motor will be mounted is also safety oriented. "On high impact it will be pushed under the car instead of into the passenger compartment, as what quite often happens with today's automobiles," said O'Connor. "Other safety features include a collapsing steering column, seat belt alarm, padded interior and shock absorbing bumpers which will allow the vehicle to withstand a five m .p .h . barrier crash.
"Safety and efficiency alone did not define the design of the urban vehicle," he said. The designers were well aware of the problems that often make driving frustrating and an effort was made at designing "convenience gadgets" for the vehicle. One gadget is the "common service point". By attaching a special refuelling mechanism at the service station, the vehicle will have everything vital to its operation checked out while it fills up with natural gas. The body of the vehicle will be made of plastic panelling . Instead of going to a body shop and getting a smashed fender or crumpled side fixed, the owner would buy a new fender or side and simply snap it on.
Other conveniences designed into the car are large windows with no blind spots, small turning radius for easy parking and manoeuverability and a push-button electronic anti-theft device on which a combination of numbers must be struck before the vehicle can be driven.
Whether the UBC urban car will ever go into production, O 'Connor does not know. "If it ever is mass produced, the cost per vehicle should be around $2,400, which is quite reasonable for a car that holds two people and eight bags of groceries," he said.
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