Given the designs which are already out there and Google.org’s success with its Prius plug-in hybrids, a number of groups may feasibly break the a hundred mpg threshold. To do it, they’ll have to improve fuel efficiency, which implies reducing weight. Robust, lightweight supplies equivalent to aluminum, carbon fiber and magnesium can lighten the car’s body, electronics and wheels. (A few of these materials, like carbon fiber, may be costly, so the workforce has to keep in mind that this automobile must be profitable to provide and market.) Glass actually provides plenty of weight to a automotive. Forms of lightweight glass and site (yanisro.com) composites are being developed, some of which could make their approach into Automotive X Prize vehicles.
Most automotive homeowners don’t give much thought to the wheels and tires on their cars — and who can blame them, actually? If your tires are working the way they’re imagined to, there’s often not rather more to consider. There’s a big quantity of expertise, design and analysis that goes into making a good tire, however only two things sometimes come to mind when someone is buying new tires: How much do they cost? And how long will they last?
One definitive environmental draw back to bioplastics is land use. Rising all that corn or sugarcane or beetroot takes lots of farm land that might in any other case be used to develop crops for food or ethanol. On the other hand, if we’ve got to have our plastics, it could be well worth the sacrifice: When the food company ConAgra switched from petroleum-based plastic to PLA plastic for the shrink wraps on a few of its merchandise, including Parkay and Fleishmann’s margarine, it estimates it minimize in CO2 footprint by half one million pounds [source: GD]. Imagine if they started making the tubs from bioplastics, too.
The body of the Volta is made from carbon fiber and might seat three individuals abreast. The car also features drive by wire know-how — a computer actually operates the parts that transfer the wheels, activate the brakes and so on, based on input from an electronic controller. This is similar management system employed in trendy fighter jets in addition to many commercial planes. The drive-by-wire system permits the passengers to reposition the steering wheel and pedals in entrance of any certainly one of them.
The story quoted a Ford official saying the corporate got here very close to asking Lee Iaccoca, «however we simply could not deliver ourselves to do it.» As a substitute, the Journal reported, «Ford relied on surrogate fathers. The primary was one Jack Telnack [who stated] ‘I’d like to face right here and inform you I was the father’ of the unique Mustang, ‘however my greatest contribution was designing the wheel covers.’ So, he was asked, who was the father? ‘Nicely, there were a number of…Joe Oros and Dave Ash, who headed its design. There was a staff of six or seven product planners, including Don Petersen…. After which there was Lee Iacocca.'»