[ExI] Brakeless car

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Tue Apr 6 00:12:59 UTC 2021


In my idle musings about technology I came up with the following idea:

Instead of having a parking brake, use independent steering of all car
wheels to put the wheels at angles to each other, preventing movement just
like brakes but without wasting resources on carrying around a dedicated
brake system.

Of course, you need independent steering of all wheels for better
maneuverability anyway.

Talking about dream cars: Imagine an eight-wheeled single passenger car.
Each wheel is a separately steerable propulsion pod with its own electric
motor and active electromagnetic (or pneumatic) suspension. You need eight
wheels for more traction and you need more traction for higher speed and
better cornering. The total power in these 8 motors would be probably
around 3 - 4 thousand HP. Electricity would be provided by the combination
of a supercapacitor, battery and a gasoline turbine. The supercapacitor
would have the power density needed for maximum acceleration, and for
storing all the energy collected during maximum regenerative electric
braking. The car would have no dedicated brake system at all. The battery
would have just enough capacity for a few miles of spirited driving. The
turbine would provide range.

The propulsion pods would each have vacuum bells enclosing the wheel and a
system of fans capable of generating downforce at standstill and during
driving, independently addressable at each wheel. Insane individually
addressable downforce over 8 wheels would allow insane acceleration,
deceleration and cornering.

The passenger cabin would have no windows and would be fully enclosed in
carbon fiber and titanium with an internal air supply and insulation to
survive crashes and fires. There would be a powered deceleration seat
inside which in case of impending crash would actively move away from the
expected impact side and then during impact it would slide in a controlled
manner at minus 50 to 100 g, thus extending the deceleration distance for
the passenger's body.

Add full self driving capability and the car would run sub-four-minute
Nurburgring times, would be safer than any car currently in production and
would still be fun to drive to the grocery store while costing as much to
run as a Model 3.

I need to call Elon to start working on this project.

Rafal
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