Find Reviews by Make:
Lots of leasing, anger at Uber and a hybrid system that works via the suspension? Here’s what you may have missed.
- New Mexico bans Uber, while drivers in D.C. create gridlock to protest ride-sharing services. While New Mexico’s vote was a narrow loss, Teamster-backed taxi drivers were behind the protests, which snarled traffic in the nation’s capital.
- Panoz targets Nissan on DeltaWing design. Racing mogul Don Panoz is running a series of print ads calling out Nissan for what they calim is a very faithful reindition of Panoz’s DeltaWing racing car design.
- Audi plans shock-absorber based hybrid system. Audi wants to recapture the energy lost from shock absorbers (in the form of heat) as a way of increasing fuel efficiency. The system would also theoretically have positive impacts on handling as well as economy.
- Summer shutdowns are shorter in Canadian plants due to strong demand. Plants in Canada (which build high volume vehicles like the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and the Chrysler minivans) are undergoing shorter summer shutdowns, as strong new vehicle sales leads to an increase demand. Other plants, like Chrysler’s Windsor plant, are also re-tooling to make next-generation vehicles.
- Demand increasing for luxury vehicles in the United States. Bloomberg’s headline and premise (that luxury vehicles are outpacing pickup trucks) is a bit misleading, but the interesting tidbit is the prevalence of leasing in the luxury market.
11 Comments on “While You Were Sleeping: June 26th, 2014...”
Read all comments
“Audi plans shock-absorber based hybrid system. Audi wants to recapture the energy lost from shock absorbers (in the form of heat) as a way of increasing fuel efficiency.”
Heat’s an interesting choice. I’d expected some use of piezoelectric generators spread throughout the car could be used for this sort of thing.
My take after reading the linked article is that Audi is putting a generator in the place of the shock to transform the wasted energy of suspension movement into electricity, instead of heat.
I don’t think they are converting heat into electricity via a thermocouple or other similar technology.
My guess is that Audi is using something called the GenShock, developed by Levant Power with help from ZF. We covered it a while back:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/08/zf-and-levant-power-develop-regenerative-active-suspension/
I’m hopeful about energy recovery. The real breakthrough will come with large scale Peltier devices or some other method of recovering the 60%+ of the energy in liquid fuels used in internal combustion engines that now ends up as waste heat.
Gasoline is such a superior fuel that it still makes a lot of sense even with all that waste heat. Imagine how efficient ICE powered cars could be if we could use some of that wasted energy.
With a shock-powered generating system you could fully charge a Tesla with just one trip on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Imagine how efficient cars would be if they did not generate the waste heat in the first place.
Shock absorbers waste energy in the form of heat. It doesn’t saying they’re trying to do something with that waste heat, it says their trying to recover energy that otherwise winds up as waste heat.
New Mexico bans Uber,
And decides they will start making rules specifically aimed at services like Lyft…
The plot thickens. It is important to note that Uber also wanted exemption from some of the regulations like submitting driving records of their drivers.
Bose might have something to say about the whole magnets-in-coils suspenion system. Make sure you watch from 3:25 on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyf4rfT7bHU
Some years ago NJ (and I suppose others) were pushing the concept of pooling and ride sharing. Now that it’s becoming practical, entrenched interests fight back.
Jack and Derek,
Thanks for this series of summary articles. Short, to the point, full of info. Kudos.
Is Uber the service that forces you (the car owner) to mount a large pink mustache on your grille? If so, I saw one of these abominations. Need to get a paper bag to put over your head, while you’re at it.