LightAuto
Lightauto,
An imaginary light car of the future.
There is no doubt that the light car will still
be with us in the future, and as energy sources become harder to find and
therefore energy costs become more expensive the light car will become
even more important.
The need to reduce pollution alone justifies
an increased proportion of the cars in use being light cars. So what will
the design of our imagined light car of the future be? Will the chassis/body
unit be constructed in steel, aluminium or may be a composite material
similar to carbon fibre. Will low cost or durability be the aim. Already
a high proportion of the materials used in today's cars is plastic of one
type or other. One of the biggest limiting factors of the life of cars
produced today, is the corrosion of the steel chassis despite the use of
anti corrosion treatments. How about a chassis that lasts twenty years
instead of the usual ten to twelve we are used to.
The hybrid cars that are on the market today
although few in number show the way that fuel consumption and pollution
can be reduced, the other methods of reducing pollution at the vehicle,
although not necessarily altogether, is the fuel cell powered car. Or if
at last storage batteries with a usable capacity to weight ratio can be
produced the good old fashion electric car. They have one thing in common;
they all have an electrical component in their drive train. The hybrid
car has an electric motor, the motor can also be used for regenerative
braking and therefore saving energy that can be used to reduce the fuel
consumption, and this also reduces the demands on the braking system. The
electric motor is used in the parallel type hybrid car to drive the car
if it has sufficient power to meet need and to assisted the engine if its
output is insufficient to meet needs . The series hybrid car, the electric
car and the fuel cell car all use an electric motor to convert electrical
energy to drive the car.
Whatever the method of powering the car,
the energy has to be found somewhere and the higher the overall efficiency
of the vehicle the better? Lightweight and low drag is key elements in
improving efficiency. The weight, stored energy capacity and power output
are the factors that have to be balanced when choosing a power train as
well as efficiency. Today's choice is primarily the internal combustion
engine combined with a mechanical means of transmitting the power to the
wheels; will that always be the case? The alternatives to the former all
have an electric motor somewhere in their system. Perhaps the light car
of the future would dispense with a mechanical transmission by having electric
motor/generators located in the hubs of all the wheels. As well as driving
the wheels, regenerative braking would reduce the load on the conventional
brakes reducing their weight and with elimination of the weight of drive
shafts offsetting the weight of the drive motors. Hub mounted electric
motors are not a new idea, Ferdinand Porsche used them in his first car
design the Lohner Porsche and latter in designs for Austro-Daimler at the
turn of the twentieth century. Hub motors and electric power steering which
is already used in small cars today, in conjunction with computer controls
and
the latest batteries to store regenerated energy plus fuel cells could
be all part of the light car of the future. Or could the internal combustion
engine/electric serial hybrid car with hub motors, increased computer control
and advanced batteries to store the regenerated energy become the car of
tomorrow. Only time will tell.
Danti
Giacosa.
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