[ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano

spike spike66 at att.net
Thu Jan 12 16:38:56 UTC 2012



>... On Behalf Of Henrique Moraes Machado
Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano

<spike>
>>... Ja, and of course make them one-seaters, or perhaps two.  Plenty of
motorcycles are one-seaters, and most of them are two, people still use
them.
</spike>

>... why not make it three wheeler instead of four? You even can make it a
three seater with three wheels.

Ja the Tata company makes three wheeled ape haulers, but once you do the
weight calcs, a surprising result is there isn't as much weight savings as
one might expect.  It has some advantages and disadvantages.  One fewer
wheel could mean cost savings with a disadvantage being in leg room.
Definite possibility however.


<spike> >>...The headlamps can be white LED...

>...That's beautiful. I like this solution a lot. Are LED prices already
competitive to allow this? 

The prices still aren't great, but way better than they were five years ago.

<spike>
>>... The brake lights and  turn signals can all be done wirelessly, so you
can get by with no almost no  wiring harnesses at all.
</spike>

>...But what about interference on other cars? Can I prevent my car from
turning the lights of the other cars around me with a wireless system that's
still cheaper than the wired system?

No way Jose!  That's the game, you go up next to the other guy and see if
you can get your car to screw with his.  That would be so cool, go to the
junkyard, find a controller for a different car, try to rig it to stomp the
other guy's brakes right when he is trying to pass you, that sorta stuff.
That goes along with my notion that just because we understand the reptilian
cortex doesn't mean we stop having one.   It's how we guys will entertain
ourselves now that cars are no good for drag racing.


<spike>  That would allow easy carrying of a spare engine and transmission
behind the front seat, and make it to where one feller could  swap it out
beside the road.
</spike>

>...Interesting idea. This spare engine would be functional or would it be
dead weight most of the time?

Scratch that idea.  It would be better to just have two engines working full
time, so that if one konks you can still get home.  But those single
cylinder engines would be as reliable as an anvil, simple devices they are.
Since we are talking low weight solutions, it is better to just leave the
other one at hom.e


>... We need an open car!

Ja, the closest thing we ever had to that was manufactured in the 1930s by
my distant cousins in Germany, the VW beetle.  Any shadetree mechanic could
repair or modify those things.  Note: very distant cousins.  My branch of
the family came from Germany in the late 1700s.
 
<spike>
 Those weight savings and obviating of wiring harnesses allow the
polystyrene  body shells to be cast as a unit, very little assembly
required...
</spike>

>...Yes. Why are we still making heavy chunks of steel! They should be all
plastic by now.  Henrique

Ja, we haven't fully taken advantage of airbags.  We can have super
lightweight poly shells with airbags to partially compensate for not having
a huge Detroit V8 out there in front, destroying all I might hit.  But
airbag tech is here, and we can make a little light plastic car which would
maintain some semblance of survivability in a collision, at least assuming
the collision is with another light plastic car, as opposed to Mister
Lincoln.  Having the long-since-retired crowd and the young drag racing
crowd screwing with each other's wireless control systems in those
practically weightless little plastic cars will certainly make me safer in
my Detroit.  

My perfectly healthy (even if self- aware) reptilian cortex will miss that
big threatening Detroit V8.  I own three of those, and love every one of
those 24 pistons.  It will be a huge comedown to trade my cherished Mister
Lincoln for some toy plastic egg with one wimpy little cylinder, even if it
does go five times farther on any arbitrary unit of fuel.  But the day will
come anyway.

spike




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