Car Of The Future? Open Source Vehicles.

[neanderthal]

Don't know if you guys have heard of OSV. Open Source Vehicles.

I think that drive train in an EG (92- 96) Honda Civic hatchback would be stellar.


I've always wondered why the Chevy Volt wasn't supplied with a 500- 900cc IC engine like from a generator or small motorcycle. They make a few horsepower. Enough to turn the generator, and arguably, enough for power generation and mobility if you were driving on a flat surface. I imagine with enough battery power one could have a drivetrain with electric only, hybrid (electric and IC,) hybrid generation (IC engine running to provide motivation, but electric motor charging batteries, not turning wheels) and IC only modes. the latter would be useful if, say, one were to drive from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Save the batteries for ascending.

I've always wondered why they don't make cars with a much smaller engine that drives it permanently, and a large electric motor that provides acceleration and climbing torque. It's not like cars don't have the computing power to be able to do that anymore.

[thesameguy]

I'm not sure I follow... The Chevy Volt is a series hybrid. It has an IC motor - a 1.4l gasoline motor - that charges batteries, and the batteries power a 111kwh electric motor which makes the car go. The size of the generator motor ultimately doesn't matter, and I'm sure the 1.4l was chosen because it's an existing, refined design. It a good compromise of size & loudness. A smaller motor would either need to make a lot of power to make 55kwh, so you'd either be running a dangerously high (for pump gas) compression ratio, a turbo, or high engine speed. You might save some packaging, but you'd be making some sacrifices in the process.

An electric motor charging batteries would be a waste... you'd need an electric motor with greater that 100% efficiency in order for it to produce more electricity than it consumed.

There are several cars out there that use electric motors for boost - everything from Acuras to Porsches. I believe there some traditional series hybrids that may do that too, but I'm not sure. It's certainly being done right now.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I'd like to see them be just the integrator of all the nice things in the automotive/electronic industry. No need to reinvent the wheel if there are plenty of good wheels in the market already. All this OSV companies need to do is to provide a chassis that can ease integration of whatever engine, drivetrain, perhaps even suspension too. They don't need to be wasting time developing producing their own engines or whatever parts we can already find on the shelf. Similarly the vehicle infotainment systems too. Just provide the space and connection so that we can connect to our own tablets and smartphones, let us pick and choose or write our own apps.

Unless I heavily crashed or damaged this chassis, ideally I should be able to continually upgrade or swap things in and out as wear and tear parts need replacing over the years. That's what I'd like to see.

[thesameguy]

See, I see it the opposite. They should choose a motor and possibly a platform to retrofit with electricity. There are still bazillions of oval Taureses and w-body cars kicking around, or Corollas and Civics. Find one of those platforms that it ubiquitous and cheap and find a way to rip crappy old pushrod motors and fit a 150hp motor and a 24kwh battery pack. Turn useless old junk cars into useful old junk cars.

[MR2 Fan]

See, I see it the opposite. They should choose a motor and possibly a platform to retrofit with electricity. There are still bazillions of oval Taureses and w-body cars kicking around, or Corollas and Civics. Find one of those platforms that it ubiquitous and cheap and find a way to rip crappy old pushrod motors and fit a 150hp motor and a 24kwh battery pack. Turn useless old junk cars into useful old junk cars.

THIS

[Godson]

See, I see it the opposite. They should choose a motor and possibly a platform to retrofit with electricity. There are still bazillions of oval Taureses and w-body cars kicking around, or Corollas and Civics. Find one of those platforms that it ubiquitous and cheap and find a way to rip crappy old pushrod motors and fit a 150hp motor and a 24kwh battery pack. Turn useless old junk cars into useful old junk cars.

Couldn't agree more. But the issue is with crash standards getting tougher.

[thesameguy]

Couldn't agree more. But the issue is with crash standards getting tougher.

Crash standards are only a problem with selling new cars. If you sell a kit to retrofit a drivetrain into an old body, you aren't subject to any off those rules. You could probably get away with selling a body minus engine and an electric drivetrain to the same person and get away under kit car rules... as long as you aren't selling a new, ready to run car you can dodo just about anything.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I just can't see people would want to be in old junkers unless it's some sort of classic model. (People here probably don't represent the masses in terms of what kinda cars we want...) Seriously, would you want to be in a electric 1980s Toyota Corolla? Even if you don't mind the looks, and it doesn't have to meet current crash standards, you're not worried about it being unsafe? Besides the fact it was an older design, the chassis itself may have been damaged or corroded over the decades. It's not like these old cars are so indestructible. Furthermore, unless we made incredible advancements in battery tech, where will you fit the batteries in your old Corolla? Packaging of all these new technologies into an old car would just be tougher.

Whereas I'd like to see this "integrator" design and build a more customized, safer and longer lasting chassis. Higher strength and more corrosion resistant steel... or perhaps even composites. If I want to put in an old reliable and efficient Toyota Corolla engine in there, I could. Ideally this newer chassis should not only offer better safety and look, but also would end up with higher MPG #s than the original Corolla. If you want to put in a new engine, you could too. If you want an electric engine, you could do that too. Basically it's all up to what you want and how much you have in your pocket.

[Godson]

Crash standards are only a problem with selling new cars. If you sell a kit to retrofit a drivetrain into an old body, you aren't subject to any off those rules. You could probably get away with selling a body minus engine and an electric drivetrain to the same person and get away under kit car rules... as long as you aren't selling a new, ready to run car you can dodo just about anything.

Ah, that makes more sense. I misunderstood you with the thought of current Manufacturers using the older cars. No problem then from me.




I wonder how well an E30 would work out for being all electric...

[thesameguy]

I just can't see people would want to be in old junkers unless it's some sort of classic model. (People here probably don't represent the masses in terms of what kinda cars we want...) Seriously, would you want to be in a electric 1980s Toyota Corolla? Even if you don't mind the looks, and it doesn't have to meet current crash standards, you're not worried about it being unsafe? Besides the fact it was an older design, the chassis itself may have been damaged or corroded over the decades. It's not like these old cars are so indestructible. Furthermore, unless we made incredible advancements in battery tech, where will you fit the batteries in your old Corolla? Packaging of all these new technologies into an old car would just be tougher.

'80s cars are much too old. Not only are they too small, but there aren't enough of them left on the road to make them worth developing for and they are terribly unsafe. Ford sold bazillions of oval Tauruses and they have proven to be fairly durable in the sheet metal and they were reasonably safe cars. That's the type of car you'd want to choose - recent enough to be relevant, old enough to be cheap and possibly on the verge of mechanical failure anyway. Stuff in the 10-15 year range is what you'd want to target, as these cars all have approaching 200k on them and are worthless as tradeins. Batteries are not big giant things, they are fairly small and can be packaged any way you like. The Fiat has something like 200 Samsung Li-Ion cells packaged in a couple sections and stuck under the floor of what was an existing gasoline-only model. If Bosch could figure out how to pack a 24kwh battery into a Fiat 500, they could probably figure out how to do it in a much larger Taurus. Don't forget, you win back the space of a 20 gallon gas tank and a significant part of the engine bay. You could also put a false floor in the trunk and probably cram more under the back seat.

Really, the worst aspect of electrifying a gasoline engine car is the brakes. Regenerative braking really helps out, and I imagine retrofitting that type of a technology would be difficult and expensive. Although, I suppose if you were really going to do this to a million Tauruses, you could probably work that out.

The reason to retrofit older cars is cost. Consider a gasoline 500 is $20k. Going electric adds $14k. What if you could turn that base $20k into $2k for a used Taurus? What if you could reduce that $14k premium through volume that Fiat can't? What if instead of stamping out a bunch of new sheet metal and doing new crash testing and development work you could just sell someone a $10k kit to convert any old Taurus to a 100% EV? I think that would be attractive.

Whereas I'd like to see this "integrator" design and build a more customized, safer and longer lasting chassis. Higher strength and more corrosion resistant steel... or perhaps even composites. If I want to put in an old reliable and efficient Toyota Corolla engine in there, I could. Ideally this newer chassis should not only offer better safety and look, but also would end up with higher MPG #s than the original Corolla. If you want to put in a new engine, you could too. If you want an electric engine, you could do that too. Basically it's all up to what you want and how much you have in your pocket.

They actually tried that. It was called the Aptera. High strength steel and composites cost big dollars - huge dollars. And then you do need to do crash testing work, and then you're a new car company competing with all the established brands... and they will do everything they can do shut you down and block you out. Tesla has been fighting an uphill battle for years on this front, and the way they got traction was by selling an $80k car to rich people. You're not going to get the bulk of humanity into EVs by selling $80k cars. Even the Aptera got bumped up to approaching $40k. If you want "the people" to buy EVs, you need to make EVs financially attractive on the front end and the back end, and that means $26k or less... witness the success of the Prius. I don't think New Car Company can develop and market anything for $26k in this country. The ramp up costs are just too high. That's my $0.02!