Friday, May 3, 2013 at 12:01AM By Christopher A. Sawyer
;)
The 2013 running of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb will have an unexpected addition: Peugeot. Peugeot Sport is bringing a specially designed 208 T16 to Colorado this summer; a car that has more in common with the company’s 908 Le Mans racer than it does the production 208 road car.
Friday, May 3, 2013 at 12:00AM ;)
Volvo road tested a flywheel kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) during 2012, and discovered it to be light, affordable and efficient. According to Derek Crabb, Vice President Powertrain Engineering at Volvo Car Group, “The results show that this technology combined with a four-cylinder turbo engine has the potential to reduce fuel consumption by up to 25 per cent compared with a six-cylinder turbo engine at a comparable performance level. [With] an extra 80 horsepower, it makes a car with a four-cylinder engine accelerate like one with a six-cylinder unit.”
Friday, April 19, 2013 at 12:00AM By Christopher A. Sawyer;)
Prodrive is developing a new approach to the design of race vehicles that, it claims, can slash the cost of developing a competitive vehicles by up to 50%. That has the potential to save a lot of money. The British engineering concern claims the approach focuses engineering resources for maximum return on investment, can be applied across any formula, and will “almost guarantee” a competitive vehicle. Those are brave claims, but ones suited to an increasingly regulation-oriented worldview that seeks to equalize performance and discourage innovation.
Friday, April 5, 2013 at 12:00AM By Christopher A. Sawyer
;)
Note the Sumo sculpture in the forground made of modeling clay.This is the first of a couple of Nissan videos I stumbled across, and know you’ll enjoy. It shows Hiroshi Kato and Naoki Maekawa sculpting the new Nissan Note clay model. Despite a massive increase in the use of digital modeling, it’s still necessary to do a full-size clay model to make sure that the design translates into the real world correctly. It’s only when you have the property sitting before you, and can view it under different lighting conditions and with other vehicles around it, that you can accurately judge whether the design is correct.
Friday, April 5, 2013 at 12:00AM This video is of a 1947 TAMA EV, built in occupied Japan after the war by Nissan and Prince Motor Company. Though Nissan would buy Prince during the last half of the 20th century and keep that company’s Skyline model, at this point it was freshly minted out of the ashes of the Tachikawa Airplane Company.
Fuel was scare in Japan, but excess electric capacity was not, and the engineers got together to harness that energy to power this vehicle. It uses a series-wound 3.3 kW (4.5 hp) DC motor, and speed is controlled by sending the electric current through a resistor. There’s no regenerative braking. This is a total-loss system where any electricity that’s not used radiates out as heat, which explains the need for a cooling system.
The frame was made out of wood wrapped in steel, and the body are panels hand-formed. This makes it a something of a Japanese Morgan, but far less sporty. Hand labor was all that was available in post-war Japan. People needed work, and the industrial capacity of the country lay in ruins. This was the only option.
Overall length/width/height: 119.5/48.4/64.2 inches
Wheelbase: 78.7 inches
Curb weight: 2,425 lb
Seating capacity: 4
Cruising range per charge: 40 miles
Motor (36V): DC series-wound, rated at 3.3kW (4.5hp)
Batteries (capacity): Lead-acid battery (40V/162Ah)
Top speed (economical speed): 22 (17) mph