lets design a car!!!

Hi, I am tired of being fleeced by car companies giving us mediocre cars from other markets and selling them here. I am also sick of the govt. charging us huge taxes and making dream cars out of most people's reach.

So Here is my proposal. Let us put our best ideas together and come up with a concept that will make every true ethusiast happy.

I propose that at the outset let the car be designed for urban traffic. It should have high mobility to manouver in traffic. It must be economical to own and operate. It should be a drivers' car. Not too fancy but great to drive.

First like any car company, I invite ideas from fellow members for an architecture(number of seats, size of vehicle, number of tires etc etc)  for this vehicle. Then we will delve into details like powertrain, suspension electronics etc..

Hope I get good response for this. Let us take the discussion to the next level and educate ourselves in the process. Hey if we hit the right idea maybe someone will offer to make it......If not we just have fun designing it.

kk

Request to Moderator: Can you please pull this thread out since there is not interest.

Thanks

kk

Hi KK, this is the most interesting thread that would kinder the creativity in us. It would also be interesting and we will surely get to know something. Please mods, do not delete this.

I will start with my suggestions first. For designing the car we need to first understand the basics of what defines a car. A car should be powered by itself, having seats for atleast 2 people and having generally 4 wheels.

Hence our car will and should have a seating capacity for four persons (considering the Indian family structure) and have four doors and 4 wheels (not more than that).

For city use-

1. The car should have spherical wheels as in one of the Audi concept cars as shown in 'i-robot' film. Actually the spherical wheels do exist. Each wheel should be powered by an individual electric motor. This would enable the car to travel both on a lateral and a horizontal axis. This would make maneavouring thorugh traffic very easy and also parking into tight spots a breeze.

2. Since the car has electic motors at each wheel, steering the car cannot be done by ordinary rack and pinion system used in most cars today. Hence this sould be done by ' drive by wire' technology, where the turning of the steering wheel is detected by sensors and the inputs from the sensor is processed by a central computer which then drives the motors and each wheels at the the right speed and direction so that the car turns.

3. Since the final drive is from an electric motor, we need to have a huge battery to power the car so that the car has a loner range. But since having a huge battery is not practical, we will have a hybrid system as in Toyota prius. A conventional, small size engine will power the generator which will power the motors. During accelaration, the addition power requirement will be given by th battery pack.

4. The car will have and automatic 'continuosly variable transmission' gearbox to transfer the power to wheels. This will help in smooth accelaration and delivery of optimum power and torque as the road and driving conditions demand.It will also make shifting gears a breeze in traffic and uphill climb.

5.All these technology combined with Fuel injection, variable valve timing, pollution control system, onboard diognastics and a tweaked ECU will reduce pollution consideribly making cities safer and pollution free.

For Highway rush

For using the car in the highway, we need more power in accelaraing and good range. All this can be taken care by the hybrid engine.

Construction of the Car

The car should be manufactured from organic wastes as some concept cars (the information on such things can be got from the internet). There are also organic plastics which can decompose in a landfill making the car very eco-friendly. The hybrid engine should be run with organic fuel.

The body panels should manufactured using hydroforming technology which reduces the welding processes and the number of assemblies, increasing the strenght resulting in somewhatmonocoque design. Monocoque design as used in race cars would reduce drastically the number of assemblies by the same assemblies as panels and as well as load bearing members.

The car manufacturing process should also be done by using six sigma (many manufacturers have now started implementing it) reducing the number of rejections and providing a quality product to the customer. they should also use lean manufacturing and APQP to reduce the lead time to bring the new car to market and also reducing the process wastes.

Safety features

Safety being the most important, the car should all the basic safety features as EBD, ABS, ESP (Electronic stabilisation program; the ABS is a part of it actually), cruise control, auto braking in the event of emergency, parking sensors, night vision etc.

In addition to the above, it should also be able to communicate with other cars on the road, like ' hi, I am going to turn right, so you don't come in my way' or like ' hey watch out, the road ahead of me is a bit slippery', so that the car behind it will be ready to deal with the slippery road. This would be possible if we key in the destination we will be driving to in the car GPS and it controls the actual driving and the cars have a communication system between them. This is already being worked out by engineers.

The body should be made of carbon fibers, especially the crumple zone so that car gets ligher, but at the same time stronger. The car should also have airbag like arrangement on the front bumpers which would automatically deploy if it detects a pedestrian in front, thus protecting the pedestrians too in case of a runover.

Advanced features- must read:

This car should have a fluidic design, not the verna design I am talkin about. It is the level of customization that I am talking about. That is the car should be highly customizable both on the inside and the outside.

The car like BMW Gina should have a strech skin film reducing weight. As said above, the strech skin or the panel should be made from organic waste. This would also, like Gina, would help the car to change its profile and shape. Like. if there are more people going to travel, the car would extend a bit more. Or, if it is cruising down the highway at a high speed, the car will become lower and more aerodynamic.

...contd

Also, many resort to vinyl stickers to customize the look of a car. But this car should have a colour E-ink paper display (E-ink is a paper like thin display which requires power only once to create the image but doesn't require power to maintain the image unlike normal displays) beneath the strech film panel. This will help to display the pattern of the drivers choice. Unlike vinyls which require expensive and time consuming process, the use of e-ink papers to display patterns on the outside will in changing patterns often. The same concept can be used for the dashboard. This will be like applying a particular theme to your cellphone. You can change the outer and inner appearance of a car with the press of a button.

These things will make the car of the future. These are just my opinions. Guys, we need further opinions from you. Awaiting your reply.

And who's going to actually build it? Who's going to fund it?

Hi,

Only KK should fund such a project as he in his first post itself has told that "First like any car company, I invite ideas from fellow members for an architecture(number of seats, size of vehicle, number of tires etc etc)  for this vehicle". LOL!