10 ms·

McLaren F1 Developer Designs New Auto Driving 100 MPH on 96 MPG

85 points by tankenmate 14y ago

dmlorenzetti 14y ago
Since an iStream factory would be two-thirds smaller, it would consume about 60 percent less energy. This is either a journalist misrepresenting the actual claims, or else the actual claims have no grounding in rigorous analysis. In a nutshell-- he plas to revolutionize auto manufacturing by making the body in two steps rather than five, using composite materials instead of stamped and welded steel, but the basis of his energy estimates is the size of the building that houses the work? A little hard to take seriously.
- tankenmate 14y ago
  The 60 percent figure may be correct, or it may not; depending on the type of composite this might be possible, steel making, forming, and welding vs fabrics and glues. Totally agree on the wording; completely non sequitur.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Watts per square meter is a reasonable way to make a back of envelope calculation for the energy use of a common building typology. Given the radical realignment of energy budgets in the manufacturing process and the attention to energy efficiency in building design over the past two decades, it is not outrageous to argue that a new smaller footprint factory would be significantly more efficient. If one visits an automobile plant, one will see that a lot of energy goes into moving chassis and components from place to place. Smaller lighter pieces over shorter distances combined with fewer moves would have a significant impact on energy consumption.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Actually you will find that Amory Lovins has done a lot of research into the costs of making cars ( http://www.rmi.org/Autos http://www.rmi.org/Autos ) which I suspect feeds into the article's analysis. There are challenges of course, when you collide with something at 70 - 80 MPH and you're in a composite material vehicle without a steel frame the energy gets distributed in harder to control ways. Its not an unsolvable problem [1] but it is another wrench in general acceptance. Another challenge is of course 'style' points but styles change so its less of an issue. I expect that the continued high cost of oil will keep these sorts of ideas popping up. I hope that some of them get to production so that we can iron out the other problems. [1] In the forgettable movie "Demolition Man" a collision system which fills the car with foam is presented. That is actually an actually proposed solution but one where false starts are hard to recover from.
  - darklajid 14y ago
    70-80 MPH collision? Do you have any reliable source for working systems that protect you at that speed? I'd consider collisions at that speed lethal - or it's your lucky day. Ignoring the body material. In DE you are told (not that I can confirm that by experience) in your driving lessons that collisions > 30 KPH (K!) are very, very dangerous and that the statistical 'you might be heavily injured' line is somewhere around there. So .. I'm having trouble imagining something that hits anything else with 70-80 MPH.
    - ChuckMcM 14y ago
      McClaren (the guy in the original article) works on F1 race cars. They regularly have collisions at greater than 100MPH with out any injuries to the driver. (and yes some of them are into fixed objects like the track wall). Here in California there is a wealth of data on injury and damages in collisions between 50 and 100MPH [1]. In general, when all applicable safety systems are employed (seatbelts, nothing obstructing airbags, Etc) the injuries sustained are rarely fatal and for the most part don't required a hospital stay. We have a condition called "Tule Fog" which is a dense low hanging fog that can occur rather suddenly, which every other year or so results in the collective colliding of anywhere from 3 to 75 vehicles at speeds from 10MPH to 60MPH. Again, people don't die in these pile ups generally unless the passenger space of the vehicle is compromised (like being shoved under the trailer of a semi-truck for example). In their table of 'injuries and fatalities' for 2009 [2] out of 201,660 collsions there were 2,594 with fatalities so a 1.3% rate. [1] http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/ http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/ [2] http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/pdf/2009-sec3.pdf http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/pdf/2009-sec3.pdf
    - johngalt 14y ago
      Probably not a good day, but survivable with a modern car. Most crashes have some angle to them which reduces the forces involved. Hitting a brick wall perfectly perpendicular is rare.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Eh, these sorts of "rule of thumb" guesses are quite common in engineering. You fit a line to some data points and you might realize that power usage is roughly proportional to the size of the plant. In aerospace, in preliminary estimates you scale a whole bunch of random things on the gross weight of the aircraft.
nitrogen 14y ago
Sporting chiseled side panels that swoosh back from the front wheels like air currents, they exude quickness and agility. Honestly, "quickness" and "agility" are the last adjectives that come to mind when I look at that picture. Not to mention I don't even think I would fit in that thing. Though I am impressed by the car's supposed 100MPH top speed. OT: if any businessweek.com web developers read this, giant position:fixed headers are even more annoying than 1990s frames. Especially with the trend toward widescreen displays (not that I actually maximize my browser), taking away vertical space is just... wrong.
ash 14y ago
T.25 diarama photos: http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/t25-diorama-photos.php http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/t25-diorama-photos.php Recent reviews of T.25 and (electric) T.27: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t25/first-drives/murray-t25 http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t25/first-drives/... http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t27/first-drives/murray-t27 http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t27/first-drives/...
Avshalom 14y ago
>goes 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour. It gets 96 miles to the U.K. gallon (1.2 U.S. gallons) >100 MPH on 96 MPG Not to knock 96 mpg at any speed but the headline is rather more impressive than the claim in the article.
- cynicalkane 14y ago
  Yup. This is a common pitfall when talking about European cars. They're sometimes quoted in Imperial MPG even when they're not for sale in Britain.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    No, that's not the flaw (although it is true). It can get 96mpg. It can go 100mph. It _cannot_ do both simultaneously.
    - thwest 14y ago
      The more fundamental flaw is how to drive _on_ a mile per gallon rate.
    - cynicalkane 14y ago
      Thanks, didn't read closely enough and it's too late to edit. :)
- nollidge 14y ago
  So it's 80 MPG U.S.
  - moreati 14y ago
    I think avshalom was commenting that the HN headline implies the car does 96 mpg, whilst travelling at 100 mph. Which would be a truly remarkable feat.
    - Avshalom 14y ago
derda 14y ago
96 mpg (imperial) = 2,94 l / 100km
- bergerj 14y ago
  is that 80 mpg (US)?
  - TylerE 14y ago
    Yes, more or less. 1 Imperial Gal = 1.2 US Gallons.
Gravityloss 14y ago
but what is new? Glass fiber cars have existed for decades. Studies and experience shows that metal stamping is much more cost effective once the manufactured amount grows beyond a pretty low threshold. The article gives no information on how Murray's techniques differ.
excuse-me 14y ago
An Audi A2 diesel does that, with four doors, so does the VW lupo 1.2 diesel. Perhaps they need to re-brand diesel in the USA? They could call it "heavy-oil, a real MAN's fuel" !
- sp332 14y ago
  Diesel has been tainted for at least a generation by memories of the black soot and foul stench of 18-wheelers in summer. Diesel exhaust filters have improved dramatically in the last 10 years or so, but everyone that's currently 25+ remembers diesel being extremely unpleasant.
  - ImprovedSilence 14y ago
    That's changing though. I can count four friends that have bought a VW diesel in the past 2 years. They all love them. They all also happen to be 32 or under. I think the age range of bad memories of diesel is probably 35+.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      +1. I bought a Golf TDI 2 months ago, and couldn't be happier. I'm getting "only" 35mpg overall, but that's just because with a great chassis setup and lots of torque it's hard to keep your right foot out of it. It's that near-impossible combination - an economy car that's actually a blast to drive. Great highway cruiser too - nice to only be turning ~2200 RPM at 70, and getting 45 mpg while doing it.
      - sp332 14y ago
        I know what you mean :) I've got a gasoline(petrol) Mini Cooper S, and even with a heavy foot and occasional turbo-assisted fun I'm averaging 36 MPG.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - darklajid 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
soc88 14y ago
> 100 MPH on 96 MPG WUT? Translation for the civilized world, please.
- mmastrac 14y ago
  2.45 l/100km @ 160 km/h
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- loxs 14y ago
  https://www.google.bg/search?q=96+mpg+in+l%2F100km&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb https://www.google.bg/search?q=96+mpg+in+l%2F100km&ie=ut... 96 miles per gallon = 2.45015191 l/100km
  - nicolasp 14y ago
    They're UK gallons, so it's actually 2.94 L per 100 km.
sr_chase 14y ago
How will this ease congestion? Making driving relatively cheaper will only encourage more driving.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  Even if every current vehicle was replaced by one of these I don't see how it helps congestion. Sure cars can drive slightly closer together but not enough to make a big difference. And unless every road has lane width reduced and new lanes created we won't get more cars abreast either. The only things that will help is fewer journeys at peak times, and some sort of inter-car communication system that manages traffic flow far better than our slow awkward human brains.
  - btbuilder 14y ago
    While you're probably right overall, we all know that larger vehicles slow down traffic for a number of reasons. Therefore there must be some truth that if we all drove smaller, more agile vehicles, there'd be improvements in traffic.
Vitaly 14y ago
iCar? ;) that could be awesome ;)
politician 14y ago
This form factor paired Google's self-driving car tech seems like a no-brainer. High MPG rivals electric cars, cheap manufacturing cost, and for once, even the licensing interests align. I'd buy one.
mcguire 14y ago
"Murray [...] makes his autos out of a lightweight composite material similar to carbon fiber used in race cars. "That allows him to jettison the robots and machinery that stamp and weld about 300 pieces of metal together in a typical car body." That seems to imply hand-layup, which along with the "composite material similar to carbon fiber" makes me have some doubts about the "8,678 euros ($11,000)" retail price for the gas model. Anyone know any more details about the materials and process?

85 points by tankenmate 14y ago

Since an iStream factory would be two-thirds smaller, it would consume about 60 percent less energy. This is either a journalist misrepresenting the actual claims, or else the actual claims have no grounding in rigorous analysis. In a nutshell-- he plas to revolutionize auto manufacturing by making the body in two steps rather than five, using composite materials instead of stamped and welded steel, but the basis of his energy estimates is the size of the building that houses the work? A little hard to take seriously.

tankenmate 14y ago
The 60 percent figure may be correct, or it may not; depending on the type of composite this might be possible, steel making, forming, and welding vs fabrics and glues. Totally agree on the wording; completely non sequitur.
brudgers 14y ago
Watts per square meter is a reasonable way to make a back of envelope calculation for the energy use of a common building typology. Given the radical realignment of energy budgets in the manufacturing process and the attention to energy efficiency in building design over the past two decades, it is not outrageous to argue that a new smaller footprint factory would be significantly more efficient. If one visits an automobile plant, one will see that a lot of energy goes into moving chassis and components from place to place. Smaller lighter pieces over shorter distances combined with fewer moves would have a significant impact on energy consumption.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Actually you will find that Amory Lovins has done a lot of research into the costs of making cars ( http://www.rmi.org/Autos http://www.rmi.org/Autos ) which I suspect feeds into the article's analysis. There are challenges of course, when you collide with something at 70 - 80 MPH and you're in a composite material vehicle without a steel frame the energy gets distributed in harder to control ways. Its not an unsolvable problem [1] but it is another wrench in general acceptance. Another challenge is of course 'style' points but styles change so its less of an issue. I expect that the continued high cost of oil will keep these sorts of ideas popping up. I hope that some of them get to production so that we can iron out the other problems. [1] In the forgettable movie "Demolition Man" a collision system which fills the car with foam is presented. That is actually an actually proposed solution but one where false starts are hard to recover from.
- darklajid 14y ago
  70-80 MPH collision? Do you have any reliable source for working systems that protect you at that speed? I'd consider collisions at that speed lethal - or it's your lucky day. Ignoring the body material. In DE you are told (not that I can confirm that by experience) in your driving lessons that collisions > 30 KPH (K!) are very, very dangerous and that the statistical 'you might be heavily injured' line is somewhere around there. So .. I'm having trouble imagining something that hits anything else with 70-80 MPH.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    McClaren (the guy in the original article) works on F1 race cars. They regularly have collisions at greater than 100MPH with out any injuries to the driver. (and yes some of them are into fixed objects like the track wall). Here in California there is a wealth of data on injury and damages in collisions between 50 and 100MPH [1]. In general, when all applicable safety systems are employed (seatbelts, nothing obstructing airbags, Etc) the injuries sustained are rarely fatal and for the most part don't required a hospital stay. We have a condition called "Tule Fog" which is a dense low hanging fog that can occur rather suddenly, which every other year or so results in the collective colliding of anywhere from 3 to 75 vehicles at speeds from 10MPH to 60MPH. Again, people don't die in these pile ups generally unless the passenger space of the vehicle is compromised (like being shoved under the trailer of a semi-truck for example). In their table of 'injuries and fatalities' for 2009 [2] out of 201,660 collsions there were 2,594 with fatalities so a 1.3% rate. [1] http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/ http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/ [2] http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/pdf/2009-sec3.pdf http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/pdf/2009-sec3.pdf
  - johngalt 14y ago
    Probably not a good day, but survivable with a modern car. Most crashes have some angle to them which reduces the forces involved. Hitting a brick wall perfectly perpendicular is rare.
rayiner 14y ago
Eh, these sorts of "rule of thumb" guesses are quite common in engineering. You fit a line to some data points and you might realize that power usage is roughly proportional to the size of the plant. In aerospace, in preliminary estimates you scale a whole bunch of random things on the gross weight of the aircraft.

nitrogen 14y ago

Sporting chiseled side panels that swoosh back from the front wheels like air currents, they exude quickness and agility. Honestly, "quickness" and "agility" are the last adjectives that come to mind when I look at that picture. Not to mention I don't even think I would fit in that thing. Though I am impressed by the car's supposed 100MPH top speed. OT: if any businessweek.com web developers read this, giant position:fixed headers are even more annoying than 1990s frames. Especially with the trend toward widescreen displays (not that I actually maximize my browser), taking away vertical space is just... wrong.

ash 14y ago

T.25 diarama photos: http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/t25-diorama-photos.php http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/t25-diorama-photos.php Recent reviews of T.25 and (electric) T.27: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t25/first-drives/murray-t25 http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t25/first-drives/... http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t27/first-drives/murray-t27 http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/murray/t27/first-drives/...

Avshalom 14y ago

>goes 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour. It gets 96 miles to the U.K. gallon (1.2 U.S. gallons) >100 MPH on 96 MPG Not to knock 96 mpg at any speed but the headline is rather more impressive than the claim in the article.

cynicalkane 14y ago
Yup. This is a common pitfall when talking about European cars. They're sometimes quoted in Imperial MPG even when they're not for sale in Britain.
- TylerE 14y ago
  No, that's not the flaw (although it is true). It can get 96mpg. It can go 100mph. It _cannot_ do both simultaneously.
  - thwest 14y ago
    The more fundamental flaw is how to drive _on_ a mile per gallon rate.
  - cynicalkane 14y ago
    Thanks, didn't read closely enough and it's too late to edit. :)
nollidge 14y ago
So it's 80 MPG U.S.
- moreati 14y ago
  I think avshalom was commenting that the HN headline implies the car does 96 mpg, whilst travelling at 100 mph. Which would be a truly remarkable feat.
  - Avshalom 14y ago

derda 14y ago

96 mpg (imperial) = 2,94 l / 100km

bergerj 14y ago
is that 80 mpg (US)?
- TylerE 14y ago
  Yes, more or less. 1 Imperial Gal = 1.2 US Gallons.

Gravityloss 14y ago

but what is new? Glass fiber cars have existed for decades. Studies and experience shows that metal stamping is much more cost effective once the manufactured amount grows beyond a pretty low threshold. The article gives no information on how Murray's techniques differ.

excuse-me 14y ago

An Audi A2 diesel does that, with four doors, so does the VW lupo 1.2 diesel. Perhaps they need to re-brand diesel in the USA? They could call it "heavy-oil, a real MAN's fuel" !

sp332 14y ago
Diesel has been tainted for at least a generation by memories of the black soot and foul stench of 18-wheelers in summer. Diesel exhaust filters have improved dramatically in the last 10 years or so, but everyone that's currently 25+ remembers diesel being extremely unpleasant.
- ImprovedSilence 14y ago
  That's changing though. I can count four friends that have bought a VW diesel in the past 2 years. They all love them. They all also happen to be 32 or under. I think the age range of bad memories of diesel is probably 35+.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    +1. I bought a Golf TDI 2 months ago, and couldn't be happier. I'm getting "only" 35mpg overall, but that's just because with a great chassis setup and lots of torque it's hard to keep your right foot out of it. It's that near-impossible combination - an economy car that's actually a blast to drive. Great highway cruiser too - nice to only be turning ~2200 RPM at 70, and getting 45 mpg while doing it.
    - sp332 14y ago
      I know what you mean :) I've got a gasoline(petrol) Mini Cooper S, and even with a heavy foot and occasional turbo-assisted fun I'm averaging 36 MPG.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - darklajid 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

soc88 14y ago

> 100 MPH on 96 MPG WUT? Translation for the civilized world, please.

mmastrac 14y ago
2.45 l/100km @ 160 km/h
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
loxs 14y ago
https://www.google.bg/search?q=96+mpg+in+l%2F100km&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb https://www.google.bg/search?q=96+mpg+in+l%2F100km&ie=ut... 96 miles per gallon = 2.45015191 l/100km
- nicolasp 14y ago
  They're UK gallons, so it's actually 2.94 L per 100 km.

sr_chase 14y ago

How will this ease congestion? Making driving relatively cheaper will only encourage more driving.

rogerbinns 14y ago
Even if every current vehicle was replaced by one of these I don't see how it helps congestion. Sure cars can drive slightly closer together but not enough to make a big difference. And unless every road has lane width reduced and new lanes created we won't get more cars abreast either. The only things that will help is fewer journeys at peak times, and some sort of inter-car communication system that manages traffic flow far better than our slow awkward human brains.
- btbuilder 14y ago
  While you're probably right overall, we all know that larger vehicles slow down traffic for a number of reasons. Therefore there must be some truth that if we all drove smaller, more agile vehicles, there'd be improvements in traffic.

Vitaly 14y ago

iCar? ;) that could be awesome ;)

politician 14y ago

This form factor paired Google's self-driving car tech seems like a no-brainer. High MPG rivals electric cars, cheap manufacturing cost, and for once, even the licensing interests align. I'd buy one.

mcguire 14y ago

"Murray [...] makes his autos out of a lightweight composite material similar to carbon fiber used in race cars. "That allows him to jettison the robots and machinery that stamp and weld about 300 pieces of metal together in a typical car body." That seems to imply hand-layup, which along with the "composite material similar to carbon fiber" makes me have some doubts about the "8,678 euros ($11,000)" retail price for the gas model. Anyone know any more details about the materials and process?