Another thing keeping me awake – although with not quite the gravitas as the last thing – trucks.
I want a Toyota Tundra.
I’d like it to be a hybrid, so I don’t have to use as much gasoline. I’d love it to be a diesel hybrid, so I could have the most fuel efficient type of truck out there.
But, i’ve heard the reason that trucks and SUVs aren’t more fuel efficient has little to do with their weight – its’ merely aerodynamic. Part of me believes that, and part of me thinks its’ a falsehood, so I’ll address both parts. Keep in mind that I’m NOT an engineer.
Here are my top ten ways to improve the fuel efficiency of trucks.
10 . Replace more of the body with an impact resistant plastic polymer. Get rid of the aluminum and steel body panels – it doesn’t really protect you in a collision anyways. You could engineer plastic to do the same thing as the lightweight metal body panels and you’d save weight.
9. Find a simpler transmission. If it’s a manual, so be it. Figure out a way to operate the
manual transmission electronically and there you have an automatic that can still be used
manually if the electronic system fails.
8. Replace a large amount of the seat cushioning with air-cushioning. Redesign the seats to both weigh less and to have less machinery. It will help.
7. Stop putting V8 engines into your trucks. It’s dead weight. Sure you get more torque, but when does that torque ever get used? For normal city driving a V6 is plenty and it probably is for the situations when you are hauling freight. Additionally, if you pair the engine with electrical motors for each wheel, the torque won’t even be an issue – electrical motors are GREAT at generating a ton of torque.
6. Design a system that keeps the tires automatically inflated at the optimum pressure. That alone will keep things more fuel efficient.
5. Design an electronic camera system to take over for the side view mirrors. This will invariably shave a few percent off of drag – maybe enough to compensate for the additional weight of the cameras and wiring. This could also be used for collision avoidance if tied to a radar system that spotted objects that were above the sideboards of the truck that were going an almost similar speed in a direction mostly towards the truck.
4. Make tonneau covers as well as undercarriage covers standard – having a smooth surface underneath the vehicle that funnels air efficiently past it will help to eliminate turbulence and drag on the underside of the truck.
3. Go hybrid with ultralight batteries. This increases the fuel efficiency of the truck almost by default. The ultra-light batteries keep the truck well…lighter
2. Move the air intakes to the sides of the truck, along with the exhaust
1. Make the suspension variable ride height, and automatically minimize that height for city driving. Enabling the truck to rise and fall enables it to have a smaller aerodynamic profile on the fly. It’d probably help.
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There are a lot of good design ideas here. I’m particularly intrigued by your concept of replacing side mirrors with cameras. It wouldn’t make a huge difference on a small car (aerodynamically speaking), but a new Tundra with those huge trailer towing mirrors would likely benefit quite a bit with a smaller standard mirror and some sophisticated cameras that would help towing. This is a good concept I think.
Towing, incidentally, is the reason that most manufacturers haven’t developed a hybrid truck. The transmissions needed must be incredibly beefy, but the system that a lot of hybrids use isn’t robust enough to offer significant towing capacity. Dodge’s Hybrid Ram is a weak attempt, and the tow rating was dropped quite a bit. The net result is a truck that doesn’t do as much as non-hybrids and doesn’t get much better fuel economy (about 10% better, best case) than a non-hybrid either. Most full-size truck buyers aren’t impressed.
Now a hybrid Tacoma (or the A-BAT concept that Scion is supposedly going to have in a few years) makes a lot more sense…
Diesel trucks, btw, would get about the same mileage as a mild hybrid (like the Hybrid Ram) while offering better towing and hauling performance, so I think we’ll see diesel full-and-mid-sized trucks long before we see hybrid versions of the same.
Your ideas on plastic parts and adjustable ride height are good too, but I think the limiting factor is cost. Steel and Aluminum are cheaper to paint and shape, and easier to repair, not to mention most consumers (ignorantly) prefer metal. Ride height is a good idea – costs might not be too excessive if the system were implemented on every model. Hopefully someone is working on that one right now.