The Quest for the Car of the Future 434
Lux writes "Where will the car of the future come from? It's unlikely to come from anywhere you'd expect it to. Wired's money is on the car of the future coming from NASA. 'New technology that promises to revolutionize the automobile as we know it is emerging from research institutions and startups — and these innovations won't set you back $100,000 like a Tesla will... One experiment involves small electric motors located in the wheels of the CityCar, a tiny, nimble and practically silent vehicle with wheels that turn 360 degrees, enabling it to slip neatly into tight urban parking spaces. Others are looking to revolutionize the automobile's engine, not replace it.'"
Re:water (Score:5, Insightful)
Crash tested? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wired gets overly wowed by space travel (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real car of the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Possible, but improbable, especially in the US. The most significant problem is couples who want to live together, but who don't necessarily work in the same place, combined with the fact that, with dispersed land-use patterns for housing, mass transit has no hope of keeping up, because the population is widely spread out at a low density. So, if half of every working couple can't live near where they work (because if they moved there, their other half would have the same problem), and if these people can't use efficient, high-capacity transit (because they want to live in a low-density residential environment), you're left with figuring out a way to move a lot of individuals to dispersed destinations. And that's *before* you take into account transportation for shopping or recreation.
Maybe both you and your (future?) partner can both live and work near public transportation, for both of your entire careers. That's great, but it's not typical.
Re:Crash tested? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why every sensible driver should engage in the SUV arms race. As a nice side effect, we'll run out of oil much faster, and we'll actually have to start thinking about alternative energy sources.
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I a looney who wants them to legalize marijuana? Sure! But there's greater uses than smoking it.
Magic 8-ball says (Score:1, Insightful)
Even people in cities will take a taxi or drive a car before waiting for a train or bus.
People will always want on-demand travel.
Some form of car will be around forever.
Hybrid to electric is probably the route... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the route to all electric cars will be traveled using better and better hybrid technology to wean people off of gasoline. Right now, my hybrid car uses it's batteries about 20-25% of the time. Next generation plug-in hybrids will at least double that, so you'll only use the gasoline engine 50% of the time. After that, you're looking at cars like the Chevy Volt where the power train is 100% electric and the gas engine is only used to power a generator. Concurrent with that, you'll see batteries evolve to the point where they're cheap and powerful enough to run a car around town for a day or two on a single charge.
Re:Screw NASA (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, I buy a 50k Lotus Elise which the TESLA chassis is based on. It gets 25ish mpg and has a 5 second 0-60 and is fun as hell to drive. Though I get crappy gas mileage compared to the TESLA it will be a long time before I hit that extra 50k that I would need to spend to just start to have the TESLA pay for itself. Then you factor in maintenance (Special facility only for the TESLA since it is all electric) and figure the batteries last 10 years maybe (you cannot avoid some sort of wear and tear on the batteries and they are not 100% efficient) then factor in the electricity cost.
Starts to add up after a while eh? Over time the TESLA is not more cost effective to have around and will probably cost quite a bit more than an fairly high end sports car in the first place.
Now buying something like a SMART which gets 50+ mpg and costs around 15k (loaded) then you have a car that will be economical and good for the environment as well.
As a side note most of the idiots in office here in the US have managed to convince the general public that nuclear obviously means bomb not a more efficient cleaner fuel so we are still stuck with dirty power in most regions of the country. If there were some alternatives like wind, geothermal, or tidal in the US it would be great but what do we have instead? Fossil fueled electrical plants! Just displace those emissions from a car to the power plant can't be a foul if you don't see it coming out of your tailpipe right?
Your CityCar, But is it mine? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help thinking that all of these futurist projects assume near damn near ideal conditions of road, weather, distance and terrain.
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Crash tested? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is always something else smashing into the small car. The aforementioned SUV is a good example. And this is always going to be a problem with efficient cars, as long as the disincentives to driving a large, heavy, fuel-inneficient monster are too low. Fuel prices will eventually put an end to those for all but the most wealthy.
When it hits a point where all cars are comparable in mass, then that sort of thing will cease to be an issue.
Don't forget the roads (Score:5, Insightful)
Or money that people would rather use to build roads instead of to subsidize train systems. A lot of people who are against subsidizing public transportation seem to conveniently ignore the fact that we are already subsidizing private transportation. (I am not lumping you into this category.)
Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Crash tested? (Score:2, Insightful)
City Car (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Somebody loves to live in suburb, while working in a big city and has to commute 20-60 miles each way.
Because Someone thinks everyone should drive the same damn thing.
Because Someone hates SUVs because they can't afford one.
Because Someone Can't parallel park.
----
Seriously. I'm sick of people who suggest "the City Car" (or other super small, single or dual seater) as a perfect car for most everyone.
I drive a van (Aerostar) seats seven. I live in a small town having grown up in Los Angeles. I use maybe 25 gallons of gas a month, most months. I haul computers around in it. I can parallel park. And I don't fit in most subcompacts at all (6'5" or 1.95m and 270lbs or 122.5kg).
So please stop projecting your tiny little self in your tiny little world onto the rest of us who live outside the city and actually practice conservation. Thank you
Batteries aren't improving much at all (Score:5, Insightful)
One can never say never, but within the limits of our knowledge, it is unlikely that batteries as we know them will ever improve two-fold.
Re:Doesn't this already exist in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I have to park next to one, I put my car close enough so that it's not possible for the smart guy to open the driver's door anymore. Not that I'm evil - just compensating for DC's marketing division telling them that it's a good idea to park like this.
$16,000 seats (Score:3, Insightful)
Nor will a practical new car come out of Detroit who just use lobbying to replace innovation.
A real car for the masses is far more likely to come out of China.
Re:Crash tested? (Score:3, Insightful)
It will never cease to be an issue. Take a look at what is actually on the road. An empty transport truck is, at a guess, an order of magnitude more massive than an SUV. A full one... who knows? While high fuel costs may drive people into smaller vehicles, they will likely push for bigger transport trucks (cheaper to fuel one massive truck, than several smaller trucks, on a cost per unit cargo basis). Also, there is always the need for beefier vehicles (large families, towing requirements, snow). The "everyone driving the same car" idea is nonsense.
Re:today's car seen from 30 years ago (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot Nissan (or still Datsun, then) blowing their good name they gained with the 240Z and the Honey Bee by releasing the 260Z which sucked ass.
By the way, the car you want is basically impossible. Just making it bulletproof requires solid tires, and THAT is enough to blow your efficiency out of the water. It also requires obscene weight (barring some kind of magical forcefield technology.) Just thought I'd keep it real :)
Re:Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
For whatever reason, the Federal Government of the USA refuses to recognize that fact.
I bet they wouldn't even have to subsidize hemp farming like they do for [most food crops in the USA]
Re:Crash tested? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not everyone who drives a 4x4 lives in sunny CA and uses it as a status symbol.
Re:Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
My state is actually taking this issue up with the DEA to not classify industrial hemp as marijuana. It's very interesting that there are a whole bunch of products that use hemp products that are legal to import, but we can't produce the stuff here. Meanwhile just across the northern border, in Canada, they are getting about $250/acre profit.
You no longer have to be a stoned hippy to want to legalize industrial hemp. Now you can also be a farmer who's trying to make a living while crop prices keep dropping
http://www.kxmb.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=1356
Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
This already exists... (Score:3, Insightful)
This technology already exists in a sense. It is called a "turbo" or a "super-charger", and has been in use for years. The only difference is that instead of doing it external of the engine as a separate device, they want to combine it into the engine itself. Personally, I think this is a stupid idea. They are increasing the complexity of the engine, adding more moving parts into an already complex system, when you can already get the same or better results by having the compressor (either a turbo or super-charger) being separate from the engine and simply feed the engine cylinder the compressed air. You can get just an efficient combustion environment without increase complexity to the engine system, simply place some electronic controls on measuring the amount of compressed air fed into the cylinder. This is also call engine "tuning"...
Again, if you can't tell, this is not anything new. Everyone who knows anything about cars knows you can get more efficient engines by having a properly tuned engine to feed the correct amount of gas for the correct amount of air that is put into the cylinder. The problem is that doing this has a lot of variables on that exact specific car, from the air intake system all the way to the exhaust system. Even the small tolerance changes from part to part will screw up the calculations to doing a mass production car that is properly tuned right off the line. So you get what we have, which is cars that put more fuel into the cylinder then there is oxygen to burn completely (in other words, the fuel/air mixture is "rich"). The reason you run "rich" is because there is very little risk of physical damage to the car or engine for running the car rich, other then the loss of some power and wasting of fuel. However, if you run "lean" (the opposite of rich), you risk serious damage to the engine and vehicle as a whole. Excess waste heat is generated when running "lean", as well as environmentally damaging gasses are produced in this condition (as there are extra oxygen and nitrogen molecules available in the chemical system to create these gasses). You run the risk of there being enough oxygen from the previous ignition in the cylinder to ignite with the new fuel being injected and causing "knocking" (which is a premature ignition which fires when the cylinder is in the incorrect position, usually while the cylinder has not reached the apex of its current rotation, and is still compressing the fuel and air mixture. When this happens and the fuel/air mixture ignites while the cylinder is still compressing, the cylinder has nowhere for the gasses to expand because the other cylinders in the engine are all pushing against the single cylinder that mis-fired. This can cause anything from the cylinder itself being shot out of the engine (like a bullet being fired out of a gun), to the engine block failing and cracking so the gasses can escape, to the crank shaft being sheared off where the cylinder rod connects.... In other words, major engine damage can occur when running too lean. This is why all cars are factory set to run rich.
Now again, this is no radical concept, everyone knows the engine could use more air intake, which was why turbos and super-chargers came about in the first place to get more air oxygen into the cylinder to allow the amount of fuel to be increased or burned fully. It is also why the diesel engines are almost always turbo diesels (well, it also helps with the basics of the design of the diesel, as it increases in rpm's there isn't as much air that gets sucked into the cylinder in the time it has before it is compressed and ignited by the compression, so as the rpm's go up, the exhau
Re:The real car of the future (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not a good biodiesel crop. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A car that blows (Score:3, Insightful)
great, just great (Score:3, Insightful)
The Car of the Future is: (Score:3, Insightful)
The world can't handle more cars. The car has to go away.
RS
Re:Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
The numbers I've heard tossed around is that here in PHX when it gets to be 100+ your typical automotive interior is ~ 150F. The two minutes between when I start the A/C and when it actually starts blowing cold air are some of the hottest minutes of my life.
I'd also add that the 5HP from the GP is probably the raw engine load -- that's not being converted into cooling at an efficiency of 100% You're losing ~ 10% of that energy in the belt drive itself. Then you've got to deal with inefficiencies due to the installation requirements. Your home AC unit has a very large heat exchanger. The heat exchanger for automotive AC units (condenser) is relatively tiny. And it's picking up loads of radiated heat from your engine's other heat exchanger (what is colloquially called the radiator). Finally, the compressor is required to support the wide range of operating speeds of the engine (~700 rpm to 5000+ rpm) without the possibility of being overdriven/underdriven by more than about 10% while being small enough to actually fit under the hood.
Re:Enron did conspire to fix the Electricity Marke (Score:3, Insightful)
"9/11 WUZ AN INSAID JOB!!! U"R DA ONE DAT'S DA CONSPIRACY THEORY! DIDN'T U EVER HERE OF OPARETION NORTHWOODS?!?! THE USS LIBERTY!??! DEY CAN'T BE TRUSTED!! GO BACK TO YOUR BILL O"REILY YOU SHEEPLE!!!1ONE!!ELEVEN!"
vs
"So I guess Enron didn't really cause rolling blackouts in California just to drive up the price of electricity?
Now, granted, you sound a bit more reasonable than the 9/11 conspiracy nuts, but only on the surface. When we actually examine your reasoning, you use the exact same logical fallacy that every conspiracy theory makes use of, and the original post used several common logical fallacies, as well as many lies. Unfortunately, as they say "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes". Debunking this type of nonsense takes way too much time. If you're interested in improving your critical thinking skills, and minimizing the chances of you being fooled again, check out the James Randi Educational Foundation [randi.org]. Otherwise, carry on believing whatever you want.
Re:$16,000 seats (Score:3, Insightful)
It does oversimplify things a lot though.
NASA won't be producing a practical super efficient car for every day use. There's pretty much zero chance of that ever happening. HOWEVER, they very likely will produce technologies that will be used in said cars.
Detroit isn't going to do it first either. Just not going to happen. Though they'll fall in line as soon as someone else does the hard bits first. Detroit has forgotten how to innovate, but not how to emulate. They'll end up doing it bigger and cheaper than whomever does it first. The biggest problem is that the big 3 truly believe that the combustion engine is it, that there are no radical alternatives that will ever work, and that the only efficiencies left to be had are small and incremental. (This is already what has been hurting the big 3 so much over the past 20 years.)
I kind of doubt China will be the one to do it first, but you never know...where there's a will and a need things can happen.
It will happen though. Actually, it already has, numerous times. The biggest problem with revolutionizing the car industry is with the fuel infrastructure...big oil has it by the balls and will NOT let go of their own accord. Jurisdictions like California with their braindead hydrogen schemes etc are not helping either. How many major attempts at new fuel infrastructures has California mandated in the past 10 years alone? Not ONE of which actually lowers environmental impact, and the ONLY way they can justify it is by legally requiring companies to sell cars that use these new infrastructures...doomed to failure. Government can not force these things to happen, the free market makes or breaks these kinds of changes, not governments trying to force these things.
Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the problem with all biofuels, NOTHING comes for free. All that energy has a cost. We'd be wise to remember this.