Carbon Fiber Road Wheels?

By Christopher A. Sawyer

“It’s laid up, a full one-piece laminate made up of a series of different elements and preforms,” says Jake Dingle, CEO of Carbon Revolution, and Australian pioneer in the design, development and manufacture of carbon fiber wheels. “It comes out of the mold looking like the final piece. All we do is drill five holes, machine the center bore, and deflash and paint it.” The holes make room for a metal center hub that is mechanically held in place by a process that is the subject of multiple patent applications. Put it all together and you have the fist continuous-fiber carbon fiber road wheel for passenger cars.

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Ford Jumps On the Carbon Fiber Bandwagon

By Christopher A. Sawyer

Ford is about to enter its mid- to long-term implementation phase for improving vehicle fuel economy. This requires more than smaller direct-injection turbocharged engines and better aerodynamics, though more of each are coming. It necessitates dramatic reductions in vehicle weight. One way to do that is to reduce the size of vehicles marginally, and use the resulting weight reduction to cut weight around the vehicle. This, however, has its limitations. People are getting larger and have become accustomed to the interior room they have at present. Asking them to do more with less runs the risk of alienating these buyers, and sending them to the competition.

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Carbon Fiber Heads Toward Volume Production

By Christopher A. Sawyer

Maybe carbon fiber parts for high-volume vehicles aren’t as far away as once thought, especially as automakers search for lightweight materials in the chase for increased fuel economy. Tough Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards in the U.S., tightening CO₂ regulations throughout Europe, and fears that the European Union is planning to introduce its own CAFE standards have car companies scrambling to reduce the weight of their vehicles.

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Under the Hood of the Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell

By Christopher A. Sawyer

The Mercedes SLS is not the first vehicle that comes to mind when you say the words “electric vehicle”. Yet this is the platform on which Mercedes-Benz has decided to build a high-performance battery powered supercar. Working with its AMG performance division, Mercedes basically gutted the standard SLS and started over.

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BMW’s i3 and i8 Break Cover

 

Up to this point, everything written about BMW’s iSeries cars has been based on guesswork, speculation and the occasional leak. However, the covers have been pulled from the cars set to launch at September’s Frankfurt Motor Show, and the details are quite intriguing. Though still labeled as concepts, the i3 and i8 models on the stand at Europe’s largest auto show will be, for all intents and purposes, dressed up versions of the cars consumers will be able to buy in 2013 (i3) and 2014 (i8).

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