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By EWAN KENNEDY
3 May 2010
Any
car enthusiast looking at a story headline saying, ‘Lotus Looks
At Lightweight Cars’ may shake their head and wonder where the
author has been for the last 50 years. Because the founder of the
famed British sports and racing car marque, Colin Chapman, was
rightly famous for his engineering work in reducing mass – which
is an important way of improving car performance.
No fewer than six drivers have won Formula One World Championships
in Lotus cars; need we say more?
Chapman came up with the famous saying that the first thing you
had to do in a successful car design was, ‘Add lightness’, an
interesting way of describing the principle and one that certainly
grabs attention.
Of course, any automotive engineer is well aware of the benefits
of light weight in reducing emissions and fuel consumption, as
well as making the car more nimble and pleasant to drive. And a
car that's light on its wheels also has advantages in primary
safety, because it gives a good driver an added way of getting out
of trouble.
Studies by other organisations have shown that reducing the weight
of a car by 33 per cent can cut its fuel consumption by 23 per
cent. Obviously a reduction of mass by 38 per cent would have been
even better results, however we don’t know of any calculations
that show that figure.
The trouble is that decreasing weight takes a huge amount of
specialist engineering expertise and can be very expensive. Or so
we have been told by the mainstream car makers who, with a few
exceptions, have been avoiding the mass reduction issue for
decades.
Though Chapman died in 1982, Lotus Engineering, one of the
spinoffs from his racing operation, continues to this day. The
British company has just carried out a major study on ways of
reducing weight in affordable production cars.
Lotus Engineering says a car’s mass can be reduced by as much as
38 per cent and can be achieved at an extra cost of only about
three per cent. This would be an enormous improvement by any
standard. (Note that Lotus didn’t include the powertrain in its
research.)
Such a major improvement can't be made immediately. But Lotus says
that techniques and technologies viable for mainstream automobile
manufacturing should be available by 2020.
Using a late model Toyota Venza crossover SUV as a benchmark,
Lotus looked at all every possible aspect of body design, both on
the exterior and interior of the vehicle. For the body it
considered not only different types of metals, but also ways of
minimising the number of components, as well as better ways of
fastening the parts to one another so that greater strength could
be achieved while using less material.
Lotus also said that major gains could be made by using different
materials and designs in suspension components.
Research on car interiors included the type of glass used, the
seats and how they are fixed into the car, trim materials, audio
systems, air conditioning, switches, knobs – everything.
On the downside, some of the changes suggested by Lotus
Engineering may not appeal to car owners. Such as using
non-opening side windows and only having carpets on the car floors
not on the centre tunnel and door sills. The latter areas would
receive some sort of a textured pattern in place of carpets.
Keep in mind that this report shows the extremes that can be
achieved in mass reduction, it's up to individual car makers to do
their own research into what pleases – and displeases –
potential customers.
If you find this subject interesting, Lotus cars currently sold in
Australia already use many ways of reducing mass. They are pure
sports cars and aimed very much at the driving purist.
Nevertheless, you may care to call into a Lotus dealer to see just
what can be done.
Lotus presented its report, ‘An
Assessment of Mass Reduction Opportunities for a 2017 – 2020
Model Year Vehicle Program’
to the International Council on Clean Transportation. It can be
viewed online at www.theicct.org/documents/0000/1430/Mass_reduction_final_2010.pdf
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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