The designer of Formula 1 cars and the McLaren F1 says cars have to diet

[thewayne]

He says the biggest opponent of fuel economy is weight, and it's the opposite of what car makers are feeding us.

I think I'm going to renew my AAA membership and take the spare out of my car and see if it makes a measurable diff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7387432.stm

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/10/1426239


Continuing on that theme, BMW built a concept car without a rigid skin -- I kid you not, the body of this car, called GINA, is CLOTH. It can change its appearance, the way the head lights open up is great. I would love to know what the wind resistance is. Oh, be sure to watch the 2 minute video. And don't argue that it isn't safe: it's built around a space frame and is probably as safe, if not safer, than most of the cars on the road right now. I would also be interested to see how it would perform in crash testing, but there's only one and I'd rather see it in the museum.

THE CAR IS A TRANSFORMER!

Oh, and I also need to shout I WANT TO SEE THE BMW MUSEUM! You know, if I ever make it to Germany, I could probably spend a week or two just in car museums and I'd still be happy as a clam.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/bmw-builds-a-ca.html

Comments

[silveradept]

I like the way these people are thinking about car design to get it so that they're as fuel efficient as possible.

The fabric car? Awesome. Would be neat to see something like that be production-capable, so in case it wrecked, the fabric skin would be able to resist tearing or letting shrapnel through.

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

Car makers are telling people that more weight improves fuel economy? I haven't kept up with this stuff so I didn't actually know they were saying that.

Regardless, weight is the reason why the Prius actually doesn't get the much better gas mileage than the average standard diesel car. Auto racing teams have known that weight is what kills fuel economy (and speed, obviously). It's a major reason why the cars are built as close as possible to the minimum weight limitations specified in the rulebooks. More weight means the engine is working harder, burning more fuel just to get up to and maintain speed.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I don't think the car makers are saying that more weight = better efficiency, I think it is more of a trend in manufacturing. This is America, bigger is better.

Regarding the Prius, it's amazing how much those batteries weigh.