Auto Manifesto

Pick Up Trucks Plunge

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Essentially for the last 30 years the best selling vehicle in America has been the Ford F-series pick up truck. The market has finally begun to correct itself in response to high fuel prices. Large pickup trucks are selling at heavily discounted prices. In some cases new ones are advertised at 50% (!) below their retail prices.

We are starting to see the extent to which people have bought big pickups to use as transportation. In other words, the public has been buying them for a long time due to want rather than need. A greater proportion of the people who are buying them now simply need them for work uses, while there are fewer "discretionary" buyers.

There are a lot fewer buyers now. In an article in this week's Automotive News, JD Power & Associates estimate that GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, and Nissan will produce roughly 630,000 full size pick ups in the second half of 2008 compared to production of 1.1 7M units in the same period last year, and manufacturers are retooling truck plants to build smaller cars.

F1: German Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:45:00 +0000

Qualifying

Quite uneventful. The only exciting things were that Sebastian Vettel made it to Q3 and the number of times pole position changed hands in the closing seconds with Lewis Hamilton finally taking it. Oh, and Heikki Kovalainen getting refueled with a sophisticated-looking, yet NASCAR-style fuel can. Never saw that before.

Race

Note: I watched a recording of this on Monday evening having avoided all racing news since Saturday, as I had another appointment on Sunday during the broadcast.

The start was relatively uneventful. Robert Kubica and Vettel made a good start. Hockenheim’s current configuration seems good for passing as there are lots of different lines through many corners.

The Hondas are like moving chicanes this year; slow and obtrusive. Hamilton and Kubica were caught behind Jarno Trulli as they exited the pits. Bad luck or timing. Kimi Raikkonen got by Trulli, Vettel passed Fernando Alonso and then Vettel pulled a nice move to get by Timo Glock as well.

If I ran a team I would want Vettel as one of my drivers. He is doing way more with the Toro Rosso than expected, and he’s only 21 – world champion material. Mark my words. If his Red Bull car is decent next year he’ll become a familiar podium guest.

Glock had a big wreck coming out of a right hand turn after his right rear suspension brokes as he rode the curbing. The safety car was deployed and the pits closed for refueling. This rules needs to be changed as it could easily cause someone to either run out of fuel or suffer time penalty which serves no good purpose.

As soon as the pits reopened most cars came in. The pits were stacked, with drivers having to wait while the crews service their teammates. Clearly Hamilton came in ahead of Heikki Kovalainen but did not stop. It appeared McLaren made an error in their pit strategy.

As they exited the pits Vettel forced Alonso wide over the white line. I don’t think Alonso was penalized, and rightfully so as that was the only way he could avoid a collision.

The Vettel/Raikkonen/Alonso battle was terrific. David Coulthard running into Rubens Barrichello was completely Coulthard’s fault. He’s had his time and it’s a good thing he’s retiring at the end of the year to make room for new blood.

Speaking of new blood, Nelson Piquet managed to get his Renault into the lead because he stopped at just the right moment before the pit lane closed. Since he was on a one stop strategy, he was done with all his stops. So when the safety car pulled in and everyone else either went into the pits or had yet to make their final stop, he assumed the race lead. Pure luck.

When Hamilton finally made his stop it was under full green. He came out right behind his teammate Kovalainen. It seems Ron Dennis used team orders and told Kovalainen to let Hamilton by (it was a pretty clumsy pass). The main reason for this is because Hamilton is leading the championship and it’s a really tight battle. Another reason is probably that the team could not service Hamilton during the safety car period because Kovalainen was probably just about out of fuel.

Rather than hold up Kovalainen they just had Hamilton drive on through so they could get Kovalainen refueled, and Hamilton had to pit under green and make up the time through his own speed. Through a series of fast laps he was able to stay in touch with Massa’s Ferrari which was in second place.

So the team orders were a way to correct the team’s mistake. Shades of McLaren’s pit mix up with Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard in the Australian Grand Prix in 1998.

For all the credit that the broadcasters give Alonso, he has not performed as well as he should. Yes, he is fast and makes the Renault look better than it is. But in a number of races he’s throwing away track position with a string of avoidable errors (Monaco, France, Germany) by spinning, and generally pushing over the limit and ultimately losing time, position and points.

Raikkonen just could not get the performance he needed, and Felipe Massa just about fell off the road trying to stay ahead of Hamilton. He didn’t appear to put up much of a fight. It didn’t seem much different to when Hamilton passed Piquet for the lead. Massa is fast but does not cope well with pressure. It would’ve been the biggest fluke if Piquet won the race. He was gifted second place. For his part Hamilton drove a superb race and earned the win.

The Future of Motorsport – Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:31:00 +0000

Racing is great. I love it – actually I’m fanatical about it. But one has to wonder how sustainable it is in today’s increasingly environmentally conscious world. Is there a benefit or purpose to auto racing? I believe the answer is yes – if changes are made. But it’s going to take some explaining

First and foremost racing is entertainment. Any racing series that isn’t entertaining enough will fail. And that all depends on people: Fans, sponsors, teams, drivers, and the organizers. Get the word out, make it easy for people to watch and participate, and get them to come back time and again.

On track the racing action has to be exciting and close. Once they can exceed a certain speed, it doesn’t matter how fast the cars are. It’s how close the racing is, and how many different drivers have a genuine chance of winning a given race that matters.

Second, how can it be beneficial to society at large? It can advance the state of the art by encouraging the development of better automotive technologies. I’ll go into more detail about this in part 2, but in these days of fuel conservation and environmental concerns, any series that is not exploring its potential for encouraging the development of technologies that have real world benefits in energy conservation is at risk of becoming driven out of business because it will become irrelevant.

Finally, how do we go about doing this? We do this by making it accessible and enabling more participation on every level: Driving, team ownership, event promotion, and media. And much of that has to do with keeping costs down which, if done well, has the added benefit of increasing value.

The more people there are involved with a given series, and the more passionate they are about it, the better the show will become and the faster the innovations will come; provided the series was well run and the rules were solid. Innovation and stability are hard to balance. But it is by no means impossible.

Raw Material Deals

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0000

The cost of raw materials has risen so much (metals, plastics, rubber, oil, etc) that Tata (and virtually every other automaker) is having a hard time controlling and absorbing costs.

There doesn’t appear to be any good long term way of hedging against rising prices other than to reduce use, as several Japanese manufacturers have announced.

Reductions would come in the form of using less in the vehicles (lighter weight) as well as reducing waste in the manufacturing process, and making cars that last a lot longer but are upgradeable. Again, I would suggest that’s why we need to take a long look at longer auto lifecycles.

F1: British Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Qualifying

Not too exciting until Q3 where the BMW crew were panicking to get Robert Kubica back out but couldn’t due to a technical problem they couldn’t fix in time. Lewis Hamilton was very fast in the first two sectors but had trouble in the third one, overdriving the car and locking wheels under braking.

At the very end Mark Webber had provisional pole only for McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen to take it away at the very end and earn his first pole position. McLaren team boss Ron Dennis didn’t look pleased. Hamilton was fourth.

The Ferrari team were struggling and off pace. Kimi Raikkonen was third while Felipe Massa was well back due to the team not being able to change a rear tire for his last qualifying run.

Race

The race was super exciting due to heavy rain and constantly changing conditions. It really highlighted the difference in tire choices. Everyone started on “intermediate” tires but there were a couple of drivers who switched to full wets during the course of the race.

Hamilton made an incredible start going from fourth to second by the first corner, tagging teammate Kovalainen’s right rear wheel and nearly taking him out but for a nice save by Heikki. Raikkonen was boxed in by Mark Webber who left the door open for Hamilton to charge by on the inside.

Webber then spun and was well down the order, while his teammate David Coulthard, who announced he will retire from F1 racing at the end of the season, collided with Sebastian Vettel on the first lap and took them both out.

Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen did not change tires during the first round of pit stops which would cost them dearly in terms of lap times. It appears their teams thought the rain would abate and the already worn intermediate tires would provide a performance advantage.

However, the rain increased and slowed them up considerably while Hamilton had switched to new intermediates and was miles up the road by the end. He also appears to be quite hard on his tires so not changing tires probably wasn’t an option.

Rubens Barrichello made the change to full rain tires and was rewarded handsomely as he drove his Honda, normally one of the slowest cars on the grid, to an unthinkable third place finish.

Hamilton drove a near perfect race and stormed to a dominant win. Nearly everyone else had at least one spin during the event. Sebastian Bourdais probably came as close as possible to being taken out without actually being taken out when Adrian Sutil spun in front of him. Sutil was lucky not to flip as his car went airborne sideways a few times over the wet British countryside.

Quote of the day from Speed TV’s Bob Varsha, “Someone get Matchett a tranquilizer!” Nick Heidfeld drove a great race to finish second. He seems very quick when his job is under threat but otherwise no so much.

So now we have a 3 way tie for the lead in the driver standings. This season will probably go down to the wire, just like last year.

Irrational Pessimism & Small Cars?

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Gasoline is now around $4 per gallon. Full size SUV sales fell 26.9% between January to April 2007 compared with the same period in 2008. Likewise, compact car sales increased 36.7% in that same time frame. Does this make sense?

Assuming annual mileage of 15,000 miles and $4/gallon of gasoline, here are the operating costs of two hypothetical vehicles:

The more economical car would save $2,000 per year ($167/month). If mileage were reduced to 10,000 miles per year, here’s the difference:

The fuel sipper would save $1,332 ($111/month). Is it worth the extra cost of buying/trading into another vehicle that gets better mileage if you have to pay more for it?

It only makes sense if the fuel savings is not exceeded by the increased cost of the car. In other words, you’re not better off if it costs another $200/month to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle and you only save $150/month in fuel.

Compared with car prices ($16k to $22k for new small cars let’s say) it seems a lot of buyers are not going to save money if they’re switching vehicles purely on financial grounds – unless fuel prices continue skyrocket. Then again, people who bought gas-guzzling SUVs probably weren’t rational to begin with.

The fact that the market for small and large vehicles has changed so quickly in favor of smaller cars indicates that buyers are pessimistic, and the market believes fuel prices will continue to rise, much like when snow starts to fall, milk and bread start flying off the grocery store shelves.

F1: French Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:36:00 +0000

Qualifying

Not that interesting of a session other than the unofficial rule (?!) that cars cannot put all 4 wheels onto the green strip approaching the finish line. Apparently drivers (e.g. Bruno Senna in GP2) are using the last lap of their sessions to gain a time advantage by passing the line there without slowing down, and risking impact with the wall.

How silly is this? If it's been a problem for over 15 years then either move the finish line further up or extend the wall back like Montreal's "Wall of Champions" to discourage such driver behavior. It's not that hard to change.

The other item from qualifying is that "Quick" Nick Heidfeld now appears to be just Nick Heidfeld. He didn't do too well and ended up 12th, and has struggled mightily to keep up with his teammate.

Race

The Ferraris were in a league of their own with Kimi Raikkonen leading Felipe Massa from the start, and probably would've finished that way instead of vice versa but for Raikkonen's exhaust breaking, slowing the car.

Jarno Trulli did well to bring the Toyota home 3rd after all the dicing he had throughout the event with Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, and Robert Kubica. His race engineer also wins the award for "Most Obvious Advice" over the course of the season thus far, with gems like "Push! Push! Kovalainen is right behind you!"

Nelson Piquet finally started turning his season around. Qualifying wasn't great but he managed to finish the race ahead of his teammate and both were in the points.

Lewis Hamilton started 13th due to his 10 place penalty for causing the pitlane accident in Canada. His driving on this day can best be described as ragged, bumping his teammate in the early laps, missing the chicane when passing Sebastian Vettel (and earning a drive-through penalty for it), consistently locking the left front at the 180 hairpin, and generally sliding all over the road. He's a fast driver with good luck but has a tendency to compound his problems when things aren't going well.

Between the struggles of the two McLarens today, team principal Ron Dennis was sweating like a SWAT team bomb technician on the job.

Kovalainen also made a great move by going around Piquet at the pit exit. Surprisingly, he wasn't penalized for it as he crossed the white line to the right of the lane. This is something that has been enforced further up the exit "ramp" let's call it, but circumstances might have required such a move.

Honda has had the same story every year for about the past 2 years, no improvement. Ferrari is now well clear of its rivals in the Constructors Championship and Massa leads the Drivers Championship, with Raikkonen third.

Lithium Ion Knocking On the Door

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:03:00 +0000

It looks like lithium ion will be mainstream early next decade. Toyota already has a team looking for post-lithium technology, plug-In vehicles from OEMs will start coming on line around 2010 (Toyota, GM, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Nissan/Renault, etc), and a bunch of players are positioning themselves for when automotive Li-Ion batteries are big time. Note to industry: Make sure to build a recycling infrastructure as well.

Automotive News reported this week Bosch and Samsung have formed a joint venture to make lithium ion batteries for hybrid vehicles. The plan calls for investments of $20 million initially, and an additional $500 m over the next 4 to 5 years. The goal is to eventually capture 30% of the hybrid vehicle battery market.

The location for a plant has not been decided, though the plan is to initially produce battery cells and power packs by 2011.
Samsung presently makes li-ion batteries for computers and consumer electronics.

Front Camera System

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Another step in the direction of autonomous vehicles. Next year GM Europe will launch a front camera system that can read road signs and help detect when the vehicle is drifting from its lane. The system works at 30 frames per seconds and can read signs up to 100 meters away. That means that at 100 km/h (62.5 mph) it can "see" about 3 seconds ahead.

F1: Canadian Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:39:00 +0000

Qualifying

The rule that does not allow teams to have spare cars needs to be changed. As Steve Matchett on Speed TV says, it doesn't save the teams any money and just prevents teams from going on track if there is trouble with a driver's primary car.

Jarno Trulli spun a whole bunch of times. The track is falling apart but.... he's spinning more than everyone else.

The pole lap was really amazing at the very last minute. Lewis Hamilton was really on it. Hamilton's driving reminds me of Michael Schumacher's driving circa 1994. He can pull off a fast lap when it counts, though he still stuffs it off the road more often.

Just thumbing through the April 1991 issue of Automobile Magazine (I have an extensive collection). There was a list of the F1 teams competing in 1990. There were 19! Only six of those teams are still with us in one form or another (Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Benetton, Minardi, Tyrrell). Now there are only 10 teams total. Sure the sport's grown tremendously, but there needs to be more teams and cars on the grid.

Race

Wow. This race is nuts, and still going on. Felipe Massa has just made an awesome pass at the hairpin where we went by both a Honda and the McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen.

Anyway, the start was good and clean. The track has been falling apart this weekend, but so far so good. Nelson Piquet still making mistakes but looking a little more competitive. Don't know what happened to Alonso. Maybe he made a mistake, maybe his gearbox broke while chasing Nick Heidfeld.

Bonehead move of the race goes to Lewis Hamilton who took himself and Kimi Raikkonen out when he rearended him at the end of the pitlane. Lewis is fast (really fast) but he still makes a lot of mistakes. This one is being investigated by the race officials. He deserves a penalty for this.

But also, the rule should be changed or the FIA should come up with a better alternative than stopping race cars at the end of the pitlane during the safety car period.

Next, it seems to me Nick Heidfeld might have let Robert Kubica by at turn 1 because he had already made all his pitstops and Kubica needed to make another stop (thus was faster because of his lighter fuel load). If I were making the call, I'd have used team orders to let Kubica by.

Heikki Kovalanen not doing so well. He's been about as low key lately as Nick Heidfeld, and that is the last thing he needs considering his team mate Hamilton is leading the championship.

Hard to believe Massa didn't get his full fuel load during his first stop and had to make a second one. Sheesh. And then Kazuki Nakajima had awful bump into the pitwall when his broken front wing went under a front wheel and he lost steering.

Well, between Hamilton and Raikkonen the two of them look to be making this championship a matter of who survives their mistakes the best. Maybe Kubica will take his first win, take the points lead and not look back. BMW is definitely coming on strong. Maybe not the pace just yet, but the total package seems to have the potential to do so.

In the closing laps Kovalainen's right front wing looked a little flimsy through one of the chicanes. Kubica wins his first race and BMW's first as a constructor. And Heidfeld was second with David Coulthard 3rd! Never thought he'd ever get there again. This was a great race!

Steel Prices Rising Rapidly

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Automotive News reported huge increases in steel prices, as well as those for aluminum and platinum (used in catalytic converters). The article says:

Steel prices are up roughly $500 per vehicle since January, says analyst John Hoffecker of AlixPartners LLC. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, the average car contained 2,400 pounds of steel last year, while the average pickup or SUV contained nearly 3,000 pounds.

As previously mentioned, the best way to combat the risk of rising commodity prices for manufacturing vehicles is to use less material. Next best is probably to use a variety of materials to further hedge against runaway price increases of any one particular material, though if they all trend up then the creek still gets further and the paddle gets smaller.

If about 1/4 of the steel used to make cars now is eliminated by building lighter cars, the average cost increase since January would be about $375. Sure, a 25% reduction would be a lot but any manufacturer that could do that would have a significant competitive advantage, not only on the financial side but the cars would probably do a lot better in the marketplace as well due improved fuel economy and the very real possibility of better performance.

Power of DC

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:52:00 +0000

On Saturday I took my electric kart to the Power of DC event in Hagerstown, Maryland. The event was an electric car show and autocross. The cars there were mostly conversions of existing vehicles (Ford, VW, Porsche, pick ups, even a Fiero and a DeLorean) as well as a few ‘specials’ like a trike scooter.

It was amazing to see the work that so many people have done on their own, and the different ways they did it. Much of the talk was about battery technology. Most people seem to be waiting on better batteries. Performance is good but the range is still far from being competitive with gasoline.

My favorite car there, a Detroit EV roadster kit car, didn’t run as it was completed the night before and had some teething troubles with the drivetrain.

After the rain (it rained from the time we started until near the end of the day) I took the kart out and did a few runs. Lots of fun. Anyway, I hope someone took pictures (I didn’t) and will post them soon. Here’s the site, which also has pictures from years past:

http://www.powerofdc.com

Public Meeting on Quiet Cars

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:42:00 +0000

NHTSA published a notice of public meeting and request for information today regarding minimum motor vehicle noise levels. The meeting will be held in Washington DC on June 23, 2008, and written comments are due August 1, 2008.

This issue was brought to the attention of legislators and regulators through the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind. The problem is that hybrid and electric vehicles can be so quiet at low speeds that they are not audibly detectable, and represents a potential hazard to the blind.

Overall in the US in 2006 there were 65,404 recorded pedestrian crashes. It is uncertain how much of a problem quiet vehicles are in terms of safety, and that is the main reason this meeting is being held.

While it definitely is a valid concern for the blind, it’s also a concern for everyone else as well, so it makes a lot of sense to study the issue in more detail.

Scroll down to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at this link for text and PDF versions:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a080530c.html

Night Vision Systems That Recognize People

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Or is that recognition system that can identify people? Another indication that eventually the cars will (have to) drive themselves.

http://jalopnik.com/394243/toyota-night-vision-system-recognizes-pedestrians

This system, while currently best suited to speeds below 40 mph, shows where we’re headed. It can recognize pedestrians walking along the road. As technology progresses I’m sure it will eventually enable recognition capabilities close to, if not superior to, those of people.

Monaco Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:15:00 +0000

Heikki Kovalainen has to have some of the worst luck in F1 this year. It didn’t improve today when he either stalled on the grid or the engine failed to fire before the start of the formation lap, so he had to start from the pitlane (and dead last).

The race started off wet and Lewis Hamilton got a great start passing Kimi Raikkonen for second. Nico Rosberg damaged his front wing and drove a couple of laps with it dangling until pitting on lap 3.

Not long after Hamilton clipped the wall with his right rear and had to come in for a change. Then Fernando Alonso has an incident as well.

Raikkonen was then given a drive through penalty for not having his tires fitted within 3 minutes off when the cars rolled off for their formation lap. Granted the rules are the rules, but F1 issues a lot of penalties for the car and driver for non-track events, which is just plain stupid. As long as the car is ready for the start it should not matter. The FIA again ruined a good race with this one.

Also, the rule that does not allow refueling during a safety car period is ridiculous because it prevents everyone from refueling the entire time the safety car is on track, when all it is meant to do is prevent everyone from coming in simultaneously.

What the rule should do is simply limit the number of cars that can enter the pits during a safety period, and the cars in the pits can then have whatever service needed. If a car is damaged and the pit limit has been reached, the car should be allowed in but only then should refueling not be allowed.

Anyway, David Coulthard crashed into the armco coming up to the casino, and then he’s tagged by Sebastian Bourdais who spun as well. It looked like a slick spot caught both of them off guard.

Then Alonso tries a boneheaded move on the inside of Nick Heidfeld at the hairpin. Didn’t work, broke his wing. Kovalainen got a nudge from a Williams in the ensuing traffic jam though nothing seems to have been damaged.

Robert Kubica leads briefly after Felipe Massa misses the apex for St. Devote, and Adrian Sutil runs as high as 4th. Raikkonen has a moment or two.

Timo Glock had an interesting spin captured with his onboard camera looking back.

Alonso was the first to change to dry tires even as rain was predicted to arrive in 6 minutes. The rain never came and everyone else followed suit.

Nelson Piquet and Nico Rosberg were having a heck of a battle with Piquet doing his best to hold off Rosberg while on full rain tires to everyone else’s intermediate tires. Alonso started setting fast laps on slicks, Piquet not so much as he crashed out.

Rosberg later had a big crash leaving debris all over the road and bringing out the safety car. First to arrive were Heidfeld and, I believe, Kovalainen. Heidfeld punctured a tire.

Hamilton lost his 40 second cushion as the field closed up behind the safety car.

Adrian Sutil did the drive of the race but was robbed of a near certain points finish when Raikkonen lost control and had a huge tank slapper exiting the tunnel and running into Sutil’s right rear. Life just isn’t fair some times.

Well done Hamilton and Kubica. Rubens Barrichello and Kazaki Nakajima did very well, and Sebastian Vettel did a superb job in bringing his Toro Rosso from 18th to finish 5th. What a race.

By the way, the GP2 race broadcast prior to the F1 race was quite interesting to watch. The cars are a bit slower but considering it costs maybe an average of 50 to 100 times as much to run an F1 car, that’s a good value that F1 might want to follow more closely.

Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:27:00 +0000

Always fascinating to watch Monaco.

It’s hard to draw conclusions from looking at the final times. This is because they are set in different sessions depending on a driver’s final qualifying position. We’re not comparing times from the same event.

On the surface the final times show that Fernando Alonso out-qualified his teammate by a mere 0.081 seconds. But the true gap is whatever Alonso’s time from Q1 was compared to Nelson Piquet’s final time, which was set in Q1 since he did not advance beyond that. Everyone remaining had a different fuel load in Q3 than they did in Q1 (and the track conditions also likely changed), so the times are not comparable. It’s not as close as it looks.

In other words, the final qualifying results do not accurately show the performance of the drivers. The first session is better for that.

The best driver in today’s event was Nico Rosberg, 0.8 seconds off the pole time but only trailing the Ferraris, McLarens, and one BMW which are currently the cars to beat.

Felipe Massa is possibly the strongest qualifier in F1 over the last two seasons, though he’s hot and cold. Kimi Raikkonen is more consistent in race performance. Ferrari’s line up is superb.

Lewis Hamilton might’ve been on pole considering his speed in the first sector but he struggled a little in the other two sectors. There’s something about the way he drives that is fast yet different from most of the others. Supposedly he is much harder on the front tires. Not sure how this will affect his race tomorrow, but I’m guessing he’ll have to make more than one pitstop, though that’s probably the faster strategy any way. McLaren’s drivers are quite strong but it’s too early to tell as they’re both only in their second year of F1.

David Coulthard had a big crash coming out of the tunnel though it looked like it may not have been driver error. Luckily he had more run off room there than anywhere else. The Red Bull doesn’t hang on to its wheels very well after impact.

Nick Heidfeld and Piquet were way off the pace, outqualified by their teammates by 8 and 10 positions, respectively. It seems Nick Heidfeld has all the speed needed but lacked motivation. Then when Robert Kubica joined the team it lit a fire under him but now he’s starting to accept that Kubica is faster and hasn’t done well lately. As for Piquet, he’s just not ready for F1. Renault should try to sign Vitantonio Luizzi for the rest of the year and put him in the car immediately.

The fact that positions 5 through 9 on the grid are occupied by different teams means that F1 is extremely competitive and the driver makes a big difference now that driver-aids have been eliminated, especially at Monaco. It will be a surprise to get through tomorrow’s race without a safety car period.

Diesel Engine Notes From SAE (Belated)

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Fascinating presentations on diesel engines. About 70% to 75% of an engine's energy input is lost to the atmosphere as waste heat and to the cooling system. Ten percent is lost to idling and auxiliaries, so only about 15% to 20% is effectively used for propulsion.

The projected solution to improve diesel engine efficiency is to use hybrid power to bring about a 15% to 20% improvement, engine stop/start to eliminate idling will save about 6 to 7%, and 10 to 15% optimization and electrification of auxiliaries, as well as another 7% to 10% improvement from downsizing the engine and downspeeding RPM.

Thirty years ago maximum injection pressure was 500 bar. Now it's close to 2,000 bar and direct injection allows for higher compression ratios, more torque and a higher knock thresholds.

In addition to consuming less fuel, downspeeding results in lower friction and wear, and also keeps the weight down. Engines need forced induction for torque, and sequential turbos are even better to eliminate the turbo lag of one big turbo.

Americans Now Driving Less

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:45:00 +0000

It appears that between the rising cost of fuel and the PITA (Pain In The....) factor people are finally starting to drive less. A Reuter's article cites Department of Transportation statistics which show a reduction 4.3 percent reduction in the miles driven in March of 2008 compared to March of 2007.

The same article goes on to say that gasoline use has slipped about 1 percent this year compared to last. Well, that's a start. If this trend keeps on going perhaps we'll one day have articles like this about post-car life in the US.

Wrecked’em? Damn Near Killed'em!

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:37:00 +0000

Riding home from work yesterday, it started raining. It’s two miles. I only have to ride about two blocks on neighborhood streets. The rest of the way it’s a bike path. I’ve ridden it literally hundreds of times.

On a downhill stretch half a mile from home I’m going about 25 to 30 mph. Head and tail light on. My rain coat is in my backpack. A pick up truck is headed the other way when he begins to turn left, directly in front of my intended path. There’s no intersection there, just a driveway to a utility access area.

I can’t stop in time and I have nowhere to swerve. On one side there is curbing and trees. The other side is oncoming traffic. Proverbial rock and a hard place. I scrub off as much speed as I can while yelling at the driver, and low side the bike. I continue sliding toward the side of the pick up on my side and back with the bike still between my legs until it abruptly stops when it hits just ahead of the truck’s rear tire.

The driver is still unaware of me and proceeds to drive over the intertwined mass of my bike’s back wheel and my legs, while I struggle to avoid getting run over. It happens so fast I cannot even tell for sure if my legs were run over.

I stand up for a moment to check if I’m ok, hope adrenaline isn’t giving me false hopes, and then decide I’d better sit back down. Then I roll over and crawl to the curb while the driver comes out and checks on me. He pulls my bike to the curb, tells me that he didn’t see me coming. I believe him. No one would do something like that on purpose. And actually stop.

I lay there for a minute trying to be sure I’m all right and deciding what to do. In the end, I get up and he gives me a ride home. Just a guy going to the park with his two little kids who didn't see a bike coming.

This morning I brought the bike to the shop and handed it over “as wrecked”. It’ll be ready June 3rd. Before I began to protest that it’s entirely too long, I realized I might not be ready to ride by then.

Afterward I went to visit my doctor. He examined me and found nothing more than superficial injuries. I got away with a slightly strained rotator cuff in my left shoulder, a mildly sprained finger, and some road rash. I should be as good as new in about 3 weeks. It could’ve been a lot worse. Reminds me of Chris Farley in the movie “Black Sheep” when he says “Wrecked’em? Damn near killed’em!” (say it aloud).

How does this relate to the blog? As more modes of transportation are used, especially in densely populated areas, compatibility issues are inevitably going to arise. The interaction between different types of vehicles is increasingly important.

There is a huge inequity in some of these interactions. If you are a bicyclist (or pedestrian or motorcyclist) around a car driver, and THEY make a mistake YOU still pay. That’s a bad bet and I’m just damn lucky I didn’t lose much this time.

Wind Power Circa 2030

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:08:00 +0000

The AP reports this week that a study by the Energy Department indicates that wind power could generate 20% of the nation's electricity by the year 2030, the same portion currently produced by nuclear reactors. Right now wind energy accounts for roughly 1% of the country's electricity.

The report indicates that electricity has the potential to be generated for less than half a cent per kilowatt hour using wind turbines. To reach the 20% share, there'd have to be more than 75,000 new turbines installed as well as a major expansion of the power grid as electricity from high wind generating areas to places where the electricity is needed. But it would make a significant difference in the quest for renewable energy.

SAE Government/Industry Meeting Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:59:00 +0000

SAE Government/Industry Meeting Notes

John German from Honda made some excellent points during his presentation in a session about fuel economy, CO2, and CAFE. Since 1987 advances have been used to improve attributes other than fuel economy (http://www.epa.gov/oms/fetrends.htm). If the benefits had been directed entirely toward fuel economy we would be averaging 38 mpg today.

The reason it hasn't been so is because the market wants other benefits more than pure fuel economy (according to their surveys fuel econ has been low on the list of top considerations by consumers). And when/if the price of fuel stops rising a lot of current behavior changes. People will revert to the way they behaved before.

There are currently far too many technical options, requiring manufacturers to hedge their bets. What's needed is a clear path, not technology du jour. This is because there's a limited number of engineers. If there are multiple standards, their efforts would be diluted and thus progress would be slowed in order to comply with the differing standards.

The Internal combustion engine (ICE) continues to be the benchmark by which alternative technologies are compared. However, it is a moving target as it too continues to improve.

Later in that same session, Keith Cole from GM made an informative presentation with regard to three things. One is the so-called 3 legged stool for reducing greenhouse gases which consists of improving vehicle efficiency, reducing the carbon content of fuel, and reducing vehicle miles traveled/reducing congestion/improving infrastructure.

The second item consists of next generation ethanol, and why GM invested in Coskata and Mascoma (sounds like a disease). According to him, Coskata's feedstocks for ethanol can come from multiple non-food sources, and resulted in an 84% reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) compared with regular gasoline on a well-to-wheel basis. He further claimed that the energy produced is 7.7 times as much as the energy it takes to make it, and that it costs producers less than $1 per gallon to make it (didn't specify if that was with or without the tax credit).

Finally, he made an excellent point that CARB's proposal to regulate CO2 of vehicles sold in California would not be effective for national fuel economy. This is because increasing the average fuel economy of vehicles in that state would enable a manufacturer to have a lower average elsewhere in the nation if the CAFE (Federal) standard was lower than the California standard. In the end, the national average would still be dictated by the national standard.

Audi R10 On Display

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:18:00 +0000

I’m attending this annual conference in DC this week and have a lot of notes to follow up on soon. But a pleasant surprise was walking out to the front of the hotel and finding a diesel-powered Audi R10 race car parked like any other car. So I whipped out the camera phone and snapped away. A real treat.

As you can see I’m no photographer but there are some interesting tidbits about the car. The steering wheel is not real – kind of like the TVs you find in a furniture store, it’s for display only. Notice the bottle of Mother’s wax in the interior. Lots of ducts, vents and scoops.

For more on the R10, Wikipedia has a good article, as does Mulsanne’s Corner.

Cars Should Be Plug & Play

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Cars are too complicated, a pain to work on in many ways. But a lot better than buildings and homes. Still, nothing is simple to unbolt/unscrew and replace.

Check out the heater on my MR2. The slider for the temperature control was stuck. After completely tearing out the center console to pull the HVAC panel out (along with the stereo, cigarette lighter, hazard light switch, and vent ducts) I got to the bottom of it. Hopefully it’ll all go back together ok.

This is a good illustration of the basic problem. Things aren’t made to be replaced. The whole vehicle is. There should be clearer boundaries between subsystems, making it easier to replace specific components.

Take my MP3 player. I can plug it into a computer with a USB cable and swap files between the two, as well as charge it.

Then I can plug in earbuds when I’m out and about or I can hook it up to speakers when I’m home. There are very few things to break or fail with solid state electronics. If something fails, I just get a replacement.

The HVAC controls in a car should be like that. The old school way of a bunch of wires and cables, while generally reliable, is out of date and a pain to work with.

Imagine if you could dissect a car almost as easily as a Lego set. There’d be a lot less scrap because cars would last longer and be easily upgraded. Like remodeling your house without the hassle of redoing drywall. This is what I meant in this previous post.

Turkish Grand Prix

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:49:00 +0000

It was kind of a snoozer. The most interesting thing so far is that Super Aguri went out of business, which leads to the debate about the health of F1. Peter Windsor interviewed Bernie Ecclestone on Speed TV and he said the sport is healthy and growing with new events being added to the calendar. I disagree.

There are now only 20 cars. It is simply too expensive and consequently there are fewer cars now. There even used to be pre-qualifying because there were only a maximum of 26 (?) slots on the grid.

Governments can and will subsidize races for a multitude of reasons. Not all of them are for sporting purposes. But industry has to fund the teams and you can see there’s not enough funding to go around in the current sports climate.

Anyway, the start of the race was a downer. The safety car has been getting a lot of use this season. Both Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Raikkonen made poor starts. Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, and Fernando Alonso made up places at the start.

Is Kovalainen generally unlucky? He qualified well but between losing out to the safety car period in Australia, the massive accident in Spain when his wheel failed, and today’s extra pit stop, I’m wondering how well he’ll turn his season around. Still he provided some great racing dicing with Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg further down the grid today.

Another driver having a tough time is Nelson Piquet. While he had a nice scrap with Jenson Button, his driving has been ragged and he’s made a lot of mistakes.

Don’t know what happened to Vettel, but at least he survived the first lap and finished the race but had to make 4 stops which is why he finished last.

Raikkonen’s race was essentially blown at the start and when he lost 1.2 seconds to Hamilton during the last round of pit stops (7.1 seconds vs 5.9 seconds), finishing 0.5 seconds adrift.

Jarno Trulli’s race engineer often gives him comically obvious motivational advice via radio to catch up to the drivers ahead. Trulli’s response today was “Don’t worry, I’m already pushing like hell”.

On to the technical details, the items of interest this time around were the thermal imaging cameras of the cars as they pitted. Interesting to note how white hot the exhaust, transmissions, and rear brakes were. I’d like to see a side profile of the cars and the front brakes with these cameras.

Also, Steve Matchett had some insightful comments on McLaren’s struggles running with the soft compound tires. Finally, there was talk about the margin of safety of the cars and the weight of various components. It seems like if the FIA wants to improve safety, they should specify minimum weights for certain components such as wheels, in addition to the overall minimum weight of car and driver.

Oh, and Felipe Massa won the race for Ferrari. The next race is Monaco in two weeks.

Detroit vs. Denmark

noreply@blogger.com (Davewin) — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Last Sunday I flew to Detroit ahead of several days of meetings. While waiting for my rental car I was reading the current issue of Bicycling Magazine and was blown away by the contrast.

Here I was an automotive engineer in Detroit waiting for a rental car. What could be more mobile than that? But I was transfixed on the article about Denmark and the use of bicycles there for transportation, and how well it worked.

Meanwhile, after half an hour of waiting in line (they were understaffed) I got the car. After pulling out of the lot I followed signs for I-94. Within a few blocks I almost stopped the car because it looked like the road had ended. Upon further inspection, the road was just a gigantic series of potholes and patches. It looked like a test track for evaluating durability.

The car I had was a newly redesigned compact from a domestic nameplate and it rode the bumps surprisingly well. But once out on smooth highway it was numb, as if the front tires were underinflated (they weren’t). Why the manufacturer bothered to redesign it I’ll never know. Let’s call this model Mediocrity 2.0 (M2.0).

So I’m motoring along just fine in Michigan and I’m thinking, as a visitor to the area, I didn’t know of a practical way I could bike from Detroit to Ann Arbor. But according to the article about Denmark, people there routinely bike the same distances, and their quality of life is supposedly higher than here in the US.

There is bicycling hope in the States though. The article mentioned a number of US cities that either are already bicycle friendly or are becoming more bicycle friendly such as Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Colorado, Washington DC (yes!), and so on.

I must say I was impressed with the anonymous government agency (begins with the letters E.P.A.) bike room in Ann Arbor where employees store their transportation. It was no more than a parking space but it did indeed hold a dozen bikes, just like the stats from Bicycling Magazine.

My whole point? The M2.0 is a product of its environment. Developed by a company based in Detroit, it’s reasonably well suited to cushioning the bumps of pockmarked roads and getting people from A to B in about as dull and numb a manner as possible. On the other hand, the environment in Denmark has enabled bicycle use, and its use has become an integral part of daily life there.

We need enablers. If the American landscape were more bicycle friendly, more people would ride instead of drive, not just for recreational purposes but also for transportation. It’s refreshing to see some of the changes occurring here, and I hope it’s a trend that continues.