Designing an FE Car from the ground up.

[Mighty Mira]

Originally Posted by Sludgy

I'm surprised that nobody posted drivetrain designs. Efficiency starts with the engine, transmission and its accessories. Here's my candidate for an ultra-efficient drivetrain:

Thanks for that, very interesting!

My point with starting off with the aero stuff is that it once you determine (minimize) the maximum and steady state load conditions, then you are in the best position to select an appropriate engine size and even the basic type of engine (electric, gas, almost rubber bands etc). Although potentially it will do a bit of chugging on acceleration and hill climbs. With all that you'd be able to get away with a smaller engine and thus the load on it would be higher and more efficient. With a 1.5l engine it'd be a sportscar.

Very interesting about all the belt driven accessories.

[The Toecutter]

I think such a car should be designed with the possibility of there being a choice multiple drive systems one could buy for their vehicle.

For instance, the above diesel concept I mentioned. It should also be designed so that it could accomodate an electric drive and lots of batteries. Imagine, for instance, if there was this huge space under the floor to fit 2,000 pounds of lead acid batteries. In a car that aerodynamic, it could have 150-200 miles highway range on cheap lead acid batteries, no NiMH or Li Ion needed. Sure, the car might end up weighing 4,500 pounds in such a case, but with a dual 8" motor setup and Zilla 2k controller with a series/parallel shift in place, it would still do 0-60 mph in 6 seconds. It would probably cost the same as its diesel counterpart, sacrificing some range and incurring a long refeulling time for the benefit of more performance and dramatically lower operating cost. Or for increased performance and range but with higher cost, give the option for advanced batteries, say a Li Ion option to cut the weight down to 2,900 pounds(same as diesel counterpart), extend range to 300 miles, and drop 0-60 time to 4 seconds, but it might cost $20k extra.

The same platform should also be designed around a CNG engine and tanks as well.

Imagine the buyer being able to walk into a dealership and choose which kind of fuel they want the car to run on. With 150 miles range, many would be able to use the pure EV on cheap lead acid batteries for all of their driving needs, while some would rather have the diesel and run it on B100.

The whole idea is to keep costs down though. Going to a plug-in hybrid would mean paying for two drive systems, which would bring the ciost up quite high.