I Have Seen The Next Generation Prius

thanks for the link. some very interesting stats here. some pretty radical ideas here too. but can we manufacture that much fiber?

 

I am not so sure about cabon fiber replacing steel. It would depend on the appliation. Composites are stronger but not as flexible. Under stress a composite will hit a point and have a catastrophic failure, where as metal will fatigue slowly and in some cases get stronger as it is bent. Hence for the reason composite have not been allowed in certain aircraft parts. You would be able to detect the defect and replace it before a failure. It has been 15 years since I took my composites class so they may have come up with suitable work arounds for safety. I will have to read his book and see how much composites have advanced I guess.

 

Ah.. out of curiousity, what is carbon fiber made out of? Does the process start with a petroleum based raw material??

 

I am not sure now, but in a nut shell it was a carbonfiber cloth or kevlar or whatever type of composite you want to make. Then you would use multiple layers of cloth with various types of resins and epoxies that would harden/cure to make a really hard composite. I think the resins and epoxies are petrolum based. I am not sure about the composite clothes that are used.

 

Really makes you think. I don't know how the energy use for manufacturing steel vs. carbon fiber goes, but I would think that carbon fiber is a bit less since steel is VERY energy intensive.
Just the use of aluminum in vehicles is making a big difference. The hood on my Prius probably weighs 1/3 of the hood on my wife's Corolla. If the whole body was made to weigh 1/3 of what it currently weighs, the savings would be fantastic. Aluminum, though good, is not the answer, since aluminum production consumes very high amounts of energy. Recycled aluminum, however, does not.

The one problem I see with ultra-light vehicles is wind stability. This is already a problem for some people with the Prius, and some way would have to be found to minimize this.

 

if it were made of petroleum products that would seem to be a half solution at best. i saw a special on this type of technology before but i was under the impression that it just couldnt be manufactured in huge bulk like steel could. (a huge steel roll can make several cars and be hauled on a single truck. carbon fiber cant be and also as someone may have mentioned here, it has a problem of not bending like steel does in an accident.

with no crumple zone, accidents would create severe injuries for occupants. as i understand it, a lot of strides have been made with flexible restraint systems (the seatbelt does the stretching instead of the car crumpling, both in effect moderating the deceleration of the vehicle in event of an accident. this is the largest cause of injury.) however, this system last i heard was only effective in front or rear collisions only.

i did see a special on Modern Marvels with some sort of fibre that had all the characteristics of carbon, and was as flexible as steel. they showed a demostration where a fender was crunched. then a guy came along with a suction thing and pulled it back out. not a scratch or mark on it. unfortunately, that vehicle would cost about 300,000 i believe.

also you if want an example of a car with carbon fibre, look at the MacLaren F-1. it has a carbon body, 12 cylinder motor and will go 0-100 in 4.3 seconds.

the car is so light that it has flow through air dams that when the brakes are pressed, the dams direct force up to effectively make the car heavier so it can stop since the rear spoiler isnt enough to do it.

 

another thing the guy mentioned that i think is a great idea is the low income leasing program.

it doesnt go into much details but what i think it does is lets low income people trade in their old ineffcient ( and probably untuned) junkers in for high efficiency vehicles. now if the Prius was selected for that program, it would drive the price waay down. it would also take a huge chunk out of the gasoline appetite. we have all been stuck behind the old ford van that belched out as much smoke as your backyard bar b Q.

 

I think there already was a vehicle with body made of carbon fibre once: It was East German vehicle called Trabant.

It was three cylinder, two-cycle stinky bastard. Quite popular back then because it was so darn cheap.

The fact that it never rusts is today considered a curse in countries of former Soviet bloc, because these smelly monsters are still running there.

 

Well, I'm involved in a project here at school where we're building a fuel-cell powered vehicle (we used to do solar cars, but we're going on to other power sources). The chassis is made mostly out of carbon fiber. There are metal reinforcements in some areas like where the suspension connects and the roll cage is metal. Don't recall what's steel and what's aluminum (and I don't care that much; I'm on the electrical side of things).

If you want to see how the panels were laid out, go here: http://www.und.edu/org/sea/

 

The book is very interesting and worth the read. They discuss the economic trade offs and show a vehicle that was in an accident (weight is extremely important in aircraft). The composite vehicle only suffered scratches and the normal car had to be towed. At low speeds I can understand this but the author failed to address what would happen at high speeds (as mentioned before no crumple zones). Unless the industry uses a layered mix of metal and composite.

He talked about a a high production automated method at 80% quality of hand methods at 20% of the cost. I remember doing graphite composite for a plane. We layered several layers of graphite cloth in different directions to account for different stresses. I do not remember baking it. We used epoxy and resins and left at room temp to cure. It was exteremly messy and time consuming.

Making the car lighter would be a problem. In El Paso we have 30-60 mph gusts from Nov - Apr. I get thrown around a bit already in my Prius. I guess they can semi-enclose certain areas of roads to accomidate this problem.

 

I'd bet on titanium instead. A new reduction method should soon make it about as cheap as aluminum.

 

Aluminum isn't cheap.

 

I interface to the aerospace industry and there is a big carbon fiber material shortage right now. Carbon fibers come woven or in strands. The woven material is used like cloth is in fiberglass and the strand material is wound around mandrels to create complex shapes.
Titanium will never happen in high volume. Racers nicknamed Titanium "unobtainium" because of the expenses for raw material and machining. It's relatively brittle compared to Aluminum or Steel. Some small parts are made of Titanium now (like A arms on the corvette, I think).

The big Audi has an all Aluminum body and the commerical shows 2 men holding up the body by themselves.

 

Tideland Prius;

you must have specs on the slow one. the one i read about does 0-60 in 2.1 sec

 

Next generation Prius?

[Broken External Image]:http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ecotech/ufe31.jpg

570 kg !!


Less than half the weight of the current Prius! 8)

 

That looks like a cross between a Prius and an Insight. I'm all for a next-generation Prius, but I hope it doesn't look like that.