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I'm not disagreeing with you, but what about F1. F1 is the most expensive form of motorsport, yet every year, every team builds a completely new chassis, and m

by paddy_m 18y ago

I'm not disagreeing with you, but what about F1. F1 is the most expensive form of motorsport, yet every year, every team builds a completely new chassis, and models to compete in the next season. F1 cars have to go through destructive crash testing too. It costs anywhere from $60M to $400M a year to run an F1 team. They are building highly complex machines with carbon fiber and exotic metals. If they can do it efficiently on smaller budgets (look at the smaller teams especially, Force India, Williams, Scaudro Toro Rosso, Super Aguri), how different would it be to build a car prototype out of metal using conventional construction?

potatolicious 18y ago
The main differences are that: - A 1% failure rate on an F1 car may in fact be considered acceptable, but completely insane in a production car that may sell millions of units a year. F1 drivers, despite all that we can do, also accept a much higher level of personal risk than most other everyday drives. - F1 cars only have to worry about a single passenger, and due to the controlled nature of the race a more limited number of failure modes... which is to say the scope size of the problem is significantly reduced - and designing for F1 is already non-trivial! - Carbon fiber is almost impossible to work with on a mass production basis - the nature of the material prevents high-precision parts from being made, which is hell on a production line, but easier when you're hand-building everything And you're right - it's entirely possible for a limited-size team to build a car from scratch - assuming they had all the parts as it is. It's entirely impossible for them to attempt to build the drive train, engine, all panels, structural parts, suspension, etc etc, from scratch. It's also very difficult for them to afford the sort of testing required to get this car to market.

by paddy_m 18y ago

potatolicious 18y ago

The main differences are that: - A 1% failure rate on an F1 car may in fact be considered acceptable, but completely insane in a production car that may sell millions of units a year. F1 drivers, despite all that we can do, also accept a much higher level of personal risk than most other everyday drives. - F1 cars only have to worry about a single passenger, and due to the controlled nature of the race a more limited number of failure modes... which is to say the scope size of the problem is significantly reduced - and designing for F1 is already non-trivial! - Carbon fiber is almost impossible to work with on a mass production basis - the nature of the material prevents high-precision parts from being made, which is hell on a production line, but easier when you're hand-building everything And you're right - it's entirely possible for a limited-size team to build a car from scratch - assuming they had all the parts as it is. It's entirely impossible for them to attempt to build the drive train, engine, all panels, structural parts, suspension, etc etc, from scratch. It's also very difficult for them to afford the sort of testing required to get this car to market.