Some Knowledge

The car is an important device for transportation in the modern world.  With higher prices for fuel, people are going to want more fuel efficient vehicles.  Cars also have to be safe, and have decent performance.  Also, a car has to have enough room inside to fit a family, if it’s a family car.  In the competitive world of auto sales, a car also has to look good if you expect to sell a lot of them.

For years the American auto industry has cranked out carbon copies of trucks and vans that were first designed in the 70s.  People have wanted big vehicles for the perceived safety factor.  There is no reason a small car can not be made safe.  Volvo does not make too many huge vehicles, yet their cars are rated as some of the safest vehicles on the market.  With something like 40,000 people being killed each year in vehicle accidents in the USA, it’s time more effort was put into designing a safer transportation device.

Of course, traffic fatalities would go way down if everybody drove 25 miles an hour.  In this time-conscious world, this will never fly.  Neighborhood vehicles with their slow speeds are not selling very well.  People need a car that they can take on the freeway for long trips.  We are also going to have to switch over from petroleum at some point in time.  Perhaps engineers should be working on an electric vehicle transportation system.  If there was some way to get electric power to a vehicle as it traveled on the road, there would be no need for super batteries that cost three times the price of a vehicle.

To save fuel, cars should be lightweight.  They also have to have enough power available to merge cleanly with traffic.  It is simply a question of physics to specify adequate performance factors.  With a hybrid architecture, a vehicle can use regenerative braking to save some fuel or electrical energy.  Also, with hybrids, engines can be run at their most efficient speed and load ratings to maximize economy.  Of course, the gas will eventually run out.  Lithium battery technology is becoming more advanced every day.  There are also things like ultracapacitors which can store electricity to power motors.  The car of the future will depend on some basic, practical research that is being done today.

A safe car that performs well and has high efficiency would easily sell in today’s market.  Big cars that suck gas and cost a lot to maintain are in a sales slump.  If the car companies are ever going to get out of their economic troubles, they will have to give people a product that they can operate in a world where the price of oil will continue to rise until it eventually runs out.

American automobile manufacturers are losing money these days.  Gas prices are up and car sales are down.  Why is this happening?  It is simple, really.  American car companies have focussed on building large trucks and vans that get terrible mileage.  As a result, foreign companies who have been building small, efficient cars have seen increases in sales.

People have a limited supply of money that they get from their jobs.  If they have to spend more and more on fuel for their vehicles to get them back and forth to work, stores, and recreation, they will have less to save or spend on luxuries.  There is a big difference between a huge truck that gets ten miles per gallon and a Prius that gets 44 mpg.  The end result of riding in these vehicles is basically the same, you get from one place to another.  The difference is that it will cost you four times as much in gas to get there in the Hummer.

In the last several years when gas has been relatively cheap, people have wanted to own larger vehicles for the perceived safety factor.  There is also something to be said for four wheel drive when you live in a snowy climate.  There is no reason you can not make four wheel drive cars with small four cylinder engines that get good mileage.  A lighter, smaller car with good ground clearance would be safer on icy roads than a big vehicle that takes a lot of force to steer.  It is just a matter of telling the engineers to design a practical vehicle that not only is reliable, but that is safe and performs well.

For years Detroit has been putting huge V-8 engines in its oversized trucks.  They have to do this because the vehicles weigh so much that it takes a big engine to get them up to speed in a reasonable amount of time.  If weight is reduced, it takes less horsepower to bring a vehicle up to speed.  Big engines also give high top speeds.  Look, the speed limit on the freeway is 70.  You do not need a car that goes 140.  Not only are high speeds like this unsafe, they are illegal and will get a driver in trouble if they are caught.  I can see wanting a car to go 80, after all it takes a bit of extra speed to pass, but excess speed capability is useless and counterproductive in a society that has a speed limit.

You need a reasonable amount of room in a car for comfort.  You do not need to be able to play tennis in the back seat.  Large cars not only get terrible mileage, they are a pain in the ass to park.  People come in a variety of sizes, but they are mostly around the same dimensions.  Car companies have spent millions already on ergonomics.  Design a car where the average Joe fits comfortably and you will accommodate the majority of the market.  If a huge person needs a huge car, charge them extra for the truck.

Cars have to be reasonably safe to operate and in a collision.  Good handling, good brakes, rollover resistance with a low center of gravity, air bags and seat belts are all pretty standard.  Any car that is sold has to meet minimum government standards.  There is nothing mystical about designing a safe car.  The research has already been done.  The car companies have no excuse for not being able to come up with decent, efficient vehicles.  The only thing holding them back is their own administration which has been prejudiced in favor of big, overpowered gas guzzlers for many years.

Modern cars all look pretty much the same.  Ugly square boxes with no style.  Car companies need to hire artists to design cool cars again.  If they want to sell something to people, it should look good.  It costs a lot to produce a car, but they cost even more to buy.  Cars from the 1960s were big, but they were designed to look cool, for the most part.  There’s no reason a company could not shrink down some of these designs and make a product that people would feel good about driving.  Another aspect of body design is aerodynamics.  I might not be an expert, but I know that a box is about the worst shape you can think of for something that has to travel at high speed.  You don’t see many box-shaped airplanes, because they just would not fly.  What do they pay car body designers for if all they can think up for a design is yet another box?

Instead of making a product that they think they can trick people into buying with advertising, car companies need to build automobiles that are useful and efficient.  Instead of catering to people’s sense of power and control, Detroit should focus on providing products that do the job of transportation and provide a benefit to the driver.  Wasting a lot of effort on cramming useless tracking systems into the next overweight, over-powered, over-priced, inefficient excuse for a vehicle does nothing but waste money and leads to the end of the American auto industry.

Alright, this is simple and won’t cost $20.  If you have a car that is low to the ground, you will need ramps.  A truck you can crawl under.  Go to Murrays or Pep Boys or Autozone and get your ramps.  Of course, these will cost you $20 or so, so I lied, it will cost you money to change your oil.  Of course you’ve already dug the owner’s manual out of the glove box and read the engine capacities.  You know it will take 4 + 1 quarts of oil to fill your engine.  Get 10W-40 because it is better oil than 10W-30 and costs the same.  Look up in the book, or ask the clerk to look up what number of oil filter you need.  You need to change the oil filter when you change the oil.

OK, now you are home.  You drive your car up on the ramps and block the wheels with logs or bricks so it can not roll down and kill you.  It is very important not to get killed when working on a car.  Next you get a wrench of the proper size to fit the oil drain plug on your engine.  You might want to let the engine cool before you drain the oil.  You might want to open the hood so you can see what you are doing.  Of course, you have an oil drain pan to catch the oil that drains out of your engine.  Of course you bought an oil filter wrench to take off the old dirty filter.  Remove the oil drain plug and let the engine oil drain into the pan.  Move the pan under the filter and use the wrench to unscrew the filter.  Things unscrew counterclockwise.

Once you have the oil drained and the filter removed and emptied into the oil drain pan, wipe the oil filter sealing surface on the engine and the oil drain plug hole down with some paper towels so they are nice and clean so that the filter and plug seal when you put them back on.  Remove the rubber gasket from the new oil filter and coat it with engine oil so it seals well.  Screw on the new filter, getting it as tight as you can with your bare hands.  Screw the oil drain plug on and tighten it good with a wrench.  Remove the oil drain pan and pour the oil into bottles for recycling.  If you wait until you fill the engine with oil you can use the same bottles the new oil came in.  Fill the engine with oil and start it up.  Look under the car to make sure there are no leaks.  Remove the wheel blocks and drive the car off the ramps.  Cap the used oil and set it aside to take to the recycling center.

Congratulations.  You have just changed the oil in your car and it only cost you twice as much as having it done at the quicky lube.  Next time you won’t have to buy ramps or oil drain pans and it will cost you less.  Now is the time to drink a beer and go watch the game.  You are now an official auto mechanic.

The problem with electric cars is that they have limited range.  Long range electric vehicles need a source of power.  People could embed power rails in the right lane of the freeway that small contact wheels on the underside of the vehicle could ride on to suck up power from a power plant.  All you would have to do to recharge your electric car would be to drive it on the freeway.  If you wanted to drive from New York to LA all you would have to do is drive on the freeway and you would never have to stop and you would get where you are going with a full battery in your car.

The only problem I can see with this idea is that it would cost money to implement and how would you charge people for the power?  You might have to place a meter on every car that uses the freeway power and have that meter communicate with a system on the freeway of wireless data transfer that could bill people for the power they use while they are driving.  You would drive and drive all you want and at the end of the month get a bill from the freeway power company for all the electricity you had used.

Electric rails in the freeway would cost a bit of money to install.  It would take some time for the electric freeway vehicles to be manufactured.  Still, it wouldn’t be much of a hazard.  The freeway is already a dangerous place.  You don’t get a lot of people walking around on the freeway.  You might have an occasional person walk across the freeway and get jolted by the power in the exposed rails, but if you keep the voltage low and supply power from substations along the freeway it would not be too deadly.

If I was a greedy person I would keep this idea secret and patent it or something.  There’s no reason people have to be restricted to using fossil fuels for transportation.  A simple system of copper rails embedded in the freeways could power all the cars that are electric for any amount of distance.  It is only a matter of time before such a system is built, providing society doesn’t collapse from lack of fossil fuel.  Besides, anyone who ever looked at a slot car could easily get the same idea.

The modern world is very much a culture of the automobile.  Everywhere you look there are roads and cars.  Even the people who don’t drive get around in cars and buses that use the highway system.  Modern culture is based on the convenience and utility of the motor vehicle.

Today, you can easily get from one location to another with a motor vehicle.  This allows people to live a good distance from where they work or shop.  Without a car it might take several days just to walk in one direction to a job you live a good distance from.  Petroleum distillates like gasoline or diesel fuel give people the power to transport themselves from one location to another easily and quickly.

Life did not used to be so convenient.  A commute of only a few miles might take the better part of the day and a good deal of energy.  If it was raining or the weather was cold, a journey might not even be possible.  Even if you had a horse and buggy it would still take a long time to travel from one place to another.  People used to be employed closer to their homes in the old days before massive industrialization.  It was only when factories and businesses began to employ vast numbers of people that the majority of people began to live in cities.  Before the industrial revolution most people lived on farms of some sort and worked the land to produce food.  Many things that were needed were made at home.  Even cloth for clothing was woven on a loom in the home.

The modern world is a lot easier on a person than the pre-industrial world.  People do not have to labor for long hours in the hot sun to produce food.  You do not have to chop many cords of wood to heat your house in winter.  People do not have to walk many miles a day to get to a job or to the store to buy things.  All of this convenience is made possible by the energy derived from fossil fuels.  The labor that used to be done with muscle power is now done by machines.

People live longer in the modern world than they did in the old times.  Much of this improvement is due to advances in the field of medicine.  Still, there is a lot of obesity and heart disease in our industrial society.  People who do nothing but sit around all day in an office or at home get out of shape and have various health problems.  The human body has a good capacity for doing work.  People evolved to survive in a harsh environment where all the work that was to be done was done by hand.  Today, people who need exercise often go to gyms to work out.  While it can be boring to exercise and do repetitious motions that seem to have no purpose but to tire you out, it is also good to keep your body healthy and in shape.

The culture of the automobile is spreading across the world.  Countries with large populations that used to be very poor are now becoming industrial.  Every day there are more and more roads and cars in India and China.  As soon as a culture gets money they want to have all the conveniences of modern life.  The increased demand for oil and mass produced items will drive the price of these things up.  In the future it will become more expensive to operate a motor vehicle.  Manufacturers will have to come up with designs for vehicles that do not use fossil fuel, once supplies of this commodity begin to run out.

The automobile has made it possible to live far away from where we work and do business.  We can drive great distances to go on vacations or visit friends.  Without cars, modern society would grind to a halt.  People would not be able to get to their jobs or do the work that earns them money.  We might have to go back to an agrarian society if it becomes too expensive to grow food on huge agribusiness farms.  The world would be in a sorry state if the oil ran out.  Still, we drive big, wasteful vehicles and take unnecessary trips.  There is no incentive to conserve the resources we have beyond the money we might save.

The car has changed the face of the world.  With cheap transportation available to all we can enjoy our lives and have more experiences than were possible in olden times.  Unless we come up with new types of vehicles that do not run on limited resources like oil, society may be in for a harsh change in the future.

I’ve spent some time this afternoon reading about converting gasoline-powered cars to electricity.  There are many companies that do these conversions.  It looks like it might be a good business to go into.  The reason I say this is because these companies charge a lot of money to do these conversions.

I watched a couple videos on Youtube with some guy in South Carolina talking about what kind of tools a person needs to do electric car conversions.  From the looks of it, this person was working in an old barn.  His shop was very cluttered, with stuff lying around everywhere.  He has cars all torn apart parked solid in this building.  It’s nice to see people taking initiative in such a low-tech way.

The first part of converting a car to electric power is to remove the old gasoline engine.  In general, these conversions were being done on cars with manual transmissions.  You have to make a metal plate to bolt up to the transmission to attach the motor to the car.  Most of these conversions were being done with series-wound DC motors.  You need to weld up a tray to hold the batteries.  This is usually going to be put in the trunk area.  You need tools to make up the cables and other wiring for the motor circuits.

In general, what is needed for converting a car to electric power is a motor, batteries, a controller, and some frame work to be sure the car can carry the weight of the batteries.  From what I have seen, these companies who do these conversions charge between $12,000 to $16,000 for a basic conversion with lead-acid batteries.  Lithium batteries can add up to another $30,000 to the price of the conversion.  This is very interesting.  I know stuff costs a lot of money, but what is the point of spending all this money on an old car that is probably rusting out?  If you drive 100,000 miles at 20 miles per gallon of gas, and gas is costing $4 a gallon now, then that’s $20,000 worth of gasoline you will need for your car.  I don’t know exactly how much batteries or electricity cost, but it seems you would have to drive a lot of miles for this conversion to pay off.

Car companies need to design cars that run off electricity so we don’t have to keep shipping money to hostile countries for fuel.  Modern society runs on the automobile.  When the petroleum finally runs out in a few years, we may all have to drive electric cars with limited range.  Until then, with the cost of converting a car to electric, it’s probably cheaper to keep burning gas.

I just watched an interesting web video of Jay Leno talking about and test driving his Tesla Roadster.  The video can be found here.  It is a very interesting discussion of this electric car and has some good film of the car in operation.

I find it interesting that Leno talks about his old 1910 electric car in this video.  Those old cars did not go very fast.  Still, it is pretty amazing that these vehicles had the performance they did before the invention of any kind of modern electronics.  It’s also interesting that electric cars tend to be more reliable and require less maintenance than internal combustion engines.

If I had a lot of cash I too might invest in some kind of electric vehicle.  It would be cheaper to operate and have better performance than a gas powered device.  Still, electric cars are not very good at going long distances.  When people figure out how to throw a quick charge on the things and set up charging stations like gas stations, it may be feasable to travel cross country in an electric car.

I read a book about ten years ago about somebody who drove from California to Maine in an electric car.  It was a subcompact with lead-acid batteries and a small motor.  I think he recharged the thing by plugging it into the electrical outlet in the motel rooms where he stayed.  As I recall he had a lot of trouble getting up the rockies, and had to be towed in the end.  Any car where you need to be towed to get someplace is pretty lame.  In the end the guy got to his destination, but it took him weeks and he ended up writing a book about it.  I guess writing is a good way to pass the time while you’re waiting for your car to charge up.

Anyway, i liked the video of the Tesla and think I will go back and look at some more of Jay Leno’s cars at that website.  It’s pretty interesting learning new stuff about all kinds of strange vehicles people have built over the years.

We all love our automobiles.  It is so convenient just to get into a vehicle and be able to drive where we want to go.  Cars are expensive, cost money to operate, and must obey the rules of the road.  But cars are also dangerous.  Millions of people get injured in accidents every year.  We put up with this because our cars give us mobility and allow us to travel to our jobs easily.  Still, this does not change the fact that automobiles are a hazard.

I guess I’m writing this because in the last two weeks there have been two accidents in my extended family.  Last week my uncle was turning out of the library and got broadsided.  He has a crushed pelvis and will be on his back for three months.  Last night one of my cousin’s sons was killed in a car accident.  I don’t know the details, but it is a tragedy.  This is part of the price we pay for easy mobility.

There are many laws which govern automobiles.  You have to drive the speed limit.  You can’t turn without signaling.  These laws are just common sense.  Still, laws do nothing to protect you when people ignore the laws and drive too fast or recklessly.  Sometimes accidents are just the result of circumstances.  We have an advanced system of roadways in this country and the world, but even the best roads can do little to prevent accidents.

Traffic accidents go hand in hand with motor vehicles.  Cars are heavy and carry a lot of energy when they are in motion.  It is impossible to design a car that will not be damaged in a collision.  I suppose the only thing that can be done is to do everything possible to avoid a collision in the first place.  Still, there is no mechanism that will prevent a driver from getting into an accident if they make a mistake behind the wheel.  Even if it were possible, making cars out of rubber would do nothing to prevent accidents.  The high speed that cars travel is what causes injuries in an accident.  If cars traveled slower, they would not be as useful.

I don’t know if anything can be done to prevent accidents.  Over 40,000 people die each year in traffic incidents.  Our cars cause a lot of pain and suffering.  Perhaps some genius will come along someday and invent a better system of transportation.  For the near future, we are stuck with automobiles and their hazards.

With modern semiconductor electronics and computer control, it should be possible to design a cool electric car.  For batteries, use the new fast-charging lithium ion cells.  Pack enough of them in the vehicle that it has the capacity to go 300 miles between charges.  The amount of batteries would of course depend on other factors, such as the total weight of the car.

The car should be light and aerodynamic.  It should have a strong tubular aluminum frame and fiberglass body panels for good economy and resistance to corrosion.  As little cooling air will be required, the car can be faired on all sides, including the bottom.  Windshield wipers that park below the hood will be necessary for reduced aerodynamic drag.  Airbags shall be incorporated for good survivability in an accident.

The most important part of an electric car is the drive system.  Permanent magnet rare earth 3-phase synchronous motors should be used for good torque and speed control.  These motors will also be the regenerative brakes on the vehicle.  A computer control system will sense the position of the accelerator pedal and adjust the current to the motor accordingly.  Speed will correspond directly to pedal displacement.  For good starting torque and efficient operation, a manual transmission, or an electronically-shifted manual transmission will be incorporated.

In operation, the car would handle like any other car except for some improvements.  To slow down you would back off on the accelerator.  This would shunt current from the motor back into the batteries.  In most situations, this would be enough to slow the vehicle.  There would of course be a friction brake pedal for emergency stops, which would be of anti-lock four wheel disk design.  The brake pads would be designed to float above the rotor for reduced rolling resistance.

The electric car would utilize computers for speed regulation, braking control, environment control, lights, navigation, and entertainment.  There would be separate microcontrollers for each function for improved reliability in case of failure.  Control computers would be of modular design for quick replacement in case of malfunction.  Batteries would also require a computer system for charge and discharge control.  Solar cells would be mounted on the external surfaces of the vehicle for slight recharge capabilities.  The vehicle would recharge from home current overnight, from a 220V circuit for improved speed and efficiency.

There is no reason that a good electric car could not be built with technology available today.  The cost would at first be high, until mass production was effected.  There is no reason such vehicles should not have long life cycles.  Aside from the batteries, which would be easily replaceable, there is really little to wear out on an electric car.  Motors are simple and have one moving part.  Electronic controls can be designed to be highly reliable.  Aluminum and fiberglass do not corrode like steel.  Glass windows might break, but could be replaced.

An electric car is not rocket science, but it can be almost as complex to implement.  Over time, an infrastructure of recharging stations with quick-recharge capability will become available to facilitate longer trips by people in electric vehicles.  No dangerous fuels will need to be carried on cars, and no wasteful heat engines will be employed in transportation.  The only thing lacking at this time is investment money in the idea and a viable marketing campaign.  The time of the electric car will come as fossil fuel reserves become depleted.

Volkswagon designed an aerodynamic diesel-engined car that gets 285 miles per gallon.  The vehicle is made of lightweight magnesium and composite parts.  It features hollowed out gears and weighs in at 640 pounds.  Here’s a post that shows a picture of the car and explains all the different features.

There is much room for improvement in fuel efficiency in vehicles.  Aerodynamic drag is only one of the factors that prevents cars from getting better mileage.  There is rolling resistance from the tires, bearing friction, drag on brakes.  Even infrastructure factors like road condition affect mileage.  Volkswagon has made a good attempt to decrease the fuel costs associated with transportation, but it will probably be a while before these techniques are used in production cars.