FSAE and EPA Regulation [Archive]

smokebreak

02-11-2016, 05:18 PM

"The existing prohibitions and exemptions in 40 CFR part 1068 related to competition engines and vehicles need to be amended to account for differing policies for nonroad and motor vehicle applications. In particular, we generally consider nonroad engines and vehicles to be “used solely for competition” based on usage characteristics. This allows EPA to set up an administrative process to approve competition exemptions, and to create an exemption from the tampering prohibition for products that are modified for competition purposes. There is no comparable allowance for motor vehicles. A motor vehicle qualifies for a competition exclusion based on the physical characteristics of the vehicle, not on its use. Also, if a motor vehicle is covered by a certificate of conformity at any point, there is no exemption from the tampering and defeat-device prohibitions that would allow for converting the engine or vehicle for competition use. There is no prohibition against actual use of certified motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines for competition purposes; however, it is not permissible to remove a motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine from its certified configuration regardless of the purpose for doing so."

992

The quote above is taken directly from the document. (Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles; Phase 2 (http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0827-0002)) There seems to be a significant amount of ambiguity in the definition of "nonroad" though; "A motor vehicle qualifies for a competition exclusion based on the physical characteristics of the vehicle, not on its use.". One could interpret this many ways. I would say that the physical characteristics of any modified car (like above) could classify it as a "nonroad" vehicle. Just because one may use it on the street doesn't disqualify it from the competition exemption. Then you get to "certified configuration" and the statement seems to contradict itself, I guess you would have to purchase the vehicle or engine in an un-certified configuration to use it in competition, but one would think it would not legal (or cost effective) for a manufacturer to offer such a product.

The rest of the regulation is aimed at emissions reduction in heavy-duty application like the trucking industry, which coincidentally is one of the largest industries in the US. Personally I would rather see standard recommendations and compliance based upon good business practices rather than regulatory compliance, which is the reason that business' continue to scam the system ie. VW. It is less expensive to pay the fines than to meet the standards, and the government knows that and uses its power to increase its size and revenue in the name of environmental protection. Ultimately this is a tax on the Americans who will realized the additional costs in the form of cost of goods increase across the board (all industries rely on trucking in some form). Lowest income hit the hardest, by design. Sorry to get political but this is clearly a politically motivated regulation. Get government out of the way and let the market self-correct, I think we would be much better off.

DougMilliken

02-11-2016, 05:56 PM

Get government out of the way and let the market self-correct, I think we would be much better off.
Since you have added in your politics...

My guess is that you are not old enough to have been in LA before emissions were regulated? It was not pleasant, and was approaching "deadly" at some times. There is no way that "the market" would have ever fixed it. From what I understand, Beijing is now in a similar unhealthy state (for just one example).

It's entirely possible that current light vehicle emission regulations have gone overboard (while giving a free ride to other mobile and stationary sources), often the "social pendulum" is undamped and swings past center -- but there is a real need for government regulation in a number of areas (like quality of life) where profit isn't the best means of feedback.

Swiftus

02-12-2016, 01:02 AM

It would be nice if the battery voltage limit in the US competitions was raised to more of the 'industry standard' for electric cars. I think Teslas, the Leaf, the Audi e-tron, run on ~400V systems, the BMW i3/i8, Chevy Volt/Spark EV, Fiat 500e, Cadillac ELR, Kia Soul EV, latest generation Prius, on ~360V systems, and Fords, the Mitsubishi i-Miev have ~330V systems.

If we start looking at 'performance' vehicles, the Porsche 918 has a 385V battery, the Mclaren P1 has a 535V battery, F1 KERS is ~610V and Formula E is 1000V.

(All of these numbers are from ~10 minutes of google searching, so they may all be wrong!)

If these battery voltages are true, then why the 300V limit on eCars in the US and when 600V is allowed in other competitions? It seems to me that if we are to be using 'the latest and greatest' industry technology in the development of our designs, that technology should be made available for us to use. The turbo regulations were changed because it placed turbos in an 'industry standard' layout. Can the same argument be made for cell layout in batteries?

Al side note which is nice to think about but it only using promotional marketing materials from Chevy. Chevy says their Bolt EV battery gets the price of a kWh down to 150$/kWh. eCars typically have batteries between 5kWh and 10kWh in the current FS competitions. If Chevy were to donate cells to team that wanted to use them, it would cost them between $750 and $1500 a team. That is about the sponsorship level of Briggs and Straton for the Baja competition. For ~175 US teams that sponsorship value is in the $250,000 per year range. Definitely expensive, but a huge enabler in the development of EVs at a university level.

*The above is my own opinion and does not reflect the opinion of my school or team*

JulianH

02-12-2016, 06:36 AM

If these battery voltages are true, then why the 300V limit on eCars in the US and when 600V is allowed in other competitions? It seems to me that if we are to be using 'the latest and greatest' industry technology in the development of our designs, that technology should be made available for us to use. The turbo regulations were changed because it placed turbos in an 'industry standard' layout. Can the same argument be made for cell layout in batteries?

Jay,

I had a lengthy discussion with FSAE (US) about this topic when they basically prevented all European cars from competing in the US. (All FSE cars that are running in the Top10-20 are rated >400V. The last competitive car that would have been legal in Lincoln was our 2012 car with <200V (and some issues related to that..)).

The argument was: "Just because Europe is doing it like that, does not mean the US has to do it as well. We will start like this, because it is industry standard and consider a change later". (E.g. "We just don't want you here").

Looking how fast the machines from Delft, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Zurich became in the last years (they even dominate combustion cars with only 60kW in the UK!), it was clear that they wanted to protect the US teams from getting whipped by the Europeans as they have more experience and more funding.
The problem with FSE cars still is, that you need a decent budget (or sponsorship) to get "good" parts. Batteries are expensive. AMK charges you 10k € for their motors... those little connectors for the battery cost as much as a motorcycle engine...
I understand that they want to protect the US teams from getting destroyed but it also would be a great learning opportunity just to get ahead.

In Europe we have FSE since 2010. A lot has happened in 7 seasons... Of course you cannot directly compete at the front (but examples like Trondheim show that it is possible to have a super decent and quick electric car in the first year).

Time to change that. And don't go for slow FS Hybrid Electric Class cars (which is a challenge for it self, but prevents teams from using one car for both competitions without making compromises).

coleasterling

02-12-2016, 10:44 AM

I don't mean to get too far off the topic, but ~300V has been pretty normal for hybrids. An interesting note is that many of them use boost converters to up battery voltage to the inverter. The older Prius boost converter takes voltage from ~200V to ~500V. I believe it was rated for 20kW? The Lexus RX450h ups that to boost to 650V for their rear diff motor.

I don't have much of an opinion as to whether higher voltages should be allowed or not, although I do see some extra safety concerns. What I would really like to know is why European teams feel the need to run such high voltages, anyway. I would understand if teams were using salvage EV motors that were designed for 500V+, but teams are getting custom motors, anyway. Torque density, assuming the same stator and rotor configuration, is directly related to copper fill and that's (probably?) not significantly changing between winds. Heavier cables?

Swiftus

02-12-2016, 11:31 AM

@Julian - The European teams are certainly further ahead than the rest of the world. But thats what you get when your have manufacturers willing to sponsor 4x€10K for motors + 4x€YK for the controllers + €10K for the battery pack. That probably approaches €75K and you haven't put them drivetrain into a chassis yet.

But! If the electric competition were closer to what companies in the US are actually using in their vehicles, I think it would be easier to gain sponsorship of the expensive stuff for teams in the newly EPA-regulated world of motorsports. Maybe once the Gigafactory from Tesla comes online they might be willing to become a title sponsor of the competition and give everyone cells. That would equivalent to what, 4 Models Ss? I know they are still losing money, but it might be a good investment.

@coleasterling - I didn't know about the boost converters - good to know! I just read the spec sheets of all of the car's battery packs to see their nominal voltage. I think that argument is still valid but the voltage converters still wouldn't be legal under the current rules.

Higher voltages do a lot of things that benefit electric motors... which are not at all my specialty but I'll give the summary a go. The TLDR is power equals Torque * rotations and higher voltages let you stick in more power in a system to get out more rotations. Gear that to give you more torque and you're in business. Additionally, race cars need to be light. P = V^2/R, so if you want to shove the same amount of power into a motor winding, a 12V motor would need wires with 100 times less resistance than a 144V system. That's additional weight to handle the same power output. There are certainly diminishing returns when you go higher and higher in rpms because of emf etc, but I think the crossover point for efficiency with current tech still points to higher voltages than 300V being ideal, which must be why ever car manufacturer has packs at a higher voltage.

nat45928

02-12-2016, 11:47 AM

I am in agreement on the reasons for the voltage limit in the US. Speaking as a US team, we would get whipped by anyone from the top 10 in Europe. We just have not had the time to create solid cars and have not been able to improve on performance yet.

Even with that established, I am not sure it was a good idea to impose the limit instead of outlawing the European teams IF that was actually the end goal. The electric teams over here have now bought and designed systems to work with 300V, if they suddenly bump it to 600V now tools and electrical devices like chargers may have to be repurchased. I personally would have rather seen the limit set at 400V or 600V to help encourage different powertrain designs out of the gate and try to accelerate us to the European level of performance. To go along with this most systems you can purchase, like a new team would, are designed for lowerish voltages or above 300V. You end up with systems that are under performing and have more performance left that you cannot use with the rules as they are(extremely frustrating). It's a major hindrance right now.

To everyone says to have Chevy or Tesla donate cells: Remember the accumulators in these cars are VERY custom. A pack built by a big name that is already in production for a consumer vehicle wont be able to compete with a solid design from a team. The cell donations would be a huge help though. As long as the teams can package them.

@Jay you're on the right track. The high voltages let us use less current which translates to lighter components and more efficient designs. Comp limits the power used and the voltage used, with that you can easily figure out the current needed to apply max power at competition. Also remember your battery voltage will drop as power is drawn and the pack empties so that increases currents if you want the same power (this is why some EVs slow down as endurance finishes). It all ends in high currents which require special, heavy and hard to find parts. There's a reason Formula E uses ~1000V system: it's light and powerful.

I personally cannot wait for that voltage limit to be lifted. In the mean time though the US is a pretty level field which should be interesting this year. If the EPA regulations actually hit we are going to see a HUGE transition in the US, they will wreck the US competitions.

coleasterling

02-12-2016, 12:29 PM

I'm not sure I agree with that line of thought, at least without seeing the math. Some things are simple like cables. Yes, they have to be bigger, that's obvious. How much weight does that actually add?

Look at the accumulator to start. For a given pack capacity using the same cell, assuming similar cooling efficiencies, heat wasted in the cells is going to be approximately equal in either low or high voltage configurations. How good are your cell to cell connections? Take a very low voltage system, let's say 100V. That's around ~24 series cells vs. ~140 for 600V. You have around the same number of total connections, but far fewer series cells to contribute to the IR, with better current sharing for more parallel cells. Total pack resistance is easy to drastically increase from cell connections that are sub-par.

On the motor side: For a given stator and rotor configuration, torque is going to be equal, neglecting difference in copper fill. You probably would gain some torque with a higher voltage wind since copper fill would be slightly better with more turns of smaller diameter wire, but is it significant?

I don't know enough about the inverter design to make any comments on it. I'd love to hear about why higher voltages helps/hurts inverter efficiencies, though!

JT A.

02-12-2016, 12:43 PM

If the reason for the 300V limit really is to keep the Europeans out so they don't beat up on us, I would have to say that is a very "un-American" attitude, for lack of a better word. The best way to speed up progress is better competition, is it not? It may also get US industries to kick up their support for American teams. Imagine if we had a competition in the US where American teams and European FSE teams competed under the same rules. What would Ford, GM, and Tesla think when they saw the results? Probably something to the effect of "Shit, we have to recruit engineers from these teams that are DNF'ing 75% of the events, while BMW and Mercedes are getting the kids from Delft, Stuttgart, Munich, & AMZ". If they want a better pool of engineers to hire from, they need to help more Universities get teams started (the cost is a major barrier to starting an Electric team) and get more students involved with internships / technical partnerships to help our students catch up.

Swiftus

02-12-2016, 01:10 PM

I'll second what JT A. has to say. We know this competition was created to get student engineers experience working in larger groups on difficult and long term projects that have a tangible deliverable - something sorely missing in most University systems. And use of 'motorsport' and 'racing' would act as a draw to instigate more involvement and harder work out of the students. We all get competitive so why not use that to teach us some useful skills?

But many of the companies sponsoring and recruiting out of these events want to not only see students learning to work in a more real-world environment solving difficult problems, but they want students learning those lessons with the technology they use or produce. Thats a huge reason for sponsorship. When you have 2 applicants for a job with similar skill and experience levels, but one has worked in modern EFI and one has worked in modern EMI (what is a punny way to say electric powertrain?) and you are a company like Tesla, you'll hire the person who knows more about EMI since they can start making you money sooner.

It will be interesting to see how the US FSAE competitions are affected by these potential EPA regulations. Will there be an 'educational' addendum so it does not apply? Will the competition have to sniff the emissions of the cars? Scrut, Tilt, Sound, Sniff, and Stop might be the new order of technical inspections? Could be interesting.

Maybe if the electric car rules were loosed up the largest companies in the world might be interested in sponsoring the FS competitions? Google and Apple are hiring automotive engineers.

Kevin Hayward

02-13-2016, 12:08 AM

The costs for competitive EV cars are high enough to destabilise the competition if there was no petrol option. Unless some sort of reasonable cost restriction is enabled, such as spec or control batteries (or many other ideas) the EV comp will remain the playground of the minority. Assuming 600 teams 75k per team for a powertrain is over 45 million Euro. The equivalent for a $10k petrol powertrain would be in the order of 6 million Euro.

I would also hope that everyone here is aware that 60kW electric is significantly better than what any decent petrol car can produce.

The current top end EV competition is awesome. In many ways Formula Student is leading the larger automotive world. However if it becomes the only option then costs need to come down a lot. I would hope that these over-reaching EPA regulations do not cause such a thing to happen.

Differences between regulations in different countries is not great though, and serious moves should be made to bring them into line. This might mean limiting the performance of the Euro's (while reducing cost) and bringing up the US teams. It is worth noting that the rules were changed early and dramatically in FSAE to limit vehicle powertrain performance. As good as petrol FSAE vehicles are I am not aware of any world records they could hold, unlike the EV acceleration show-down.

...

US teams should make their thoughts known to their local representatives with well reasoned arguments. FSAE is a great training ground for future community leaders, and maybe letting someone else deal with the problem might impact you more than you would want.

Kev

Claude Rouelle

02-13-2016, 07:16 AM

Doctor Hayward,

Stop whining (for once) and start winning. The money is there, even more in Australia: you just do not know how to find it. Think outside the box.

Claude

jd74914

02-13-2016, 02:25 PM

Wow. Talk about a slap in the face comment for all those hardworking, clever, teams which have not found the magical sponsor unicorn.

After having participated in FSAE in the US for 9 years and personally secured many unique (read: non-automotive) sponsors, I really cannot even fathom how certain schools could come up with that amount of specialty funding (in-kind or monetary).

As far as I've seen, you really need a very special type of university support to do that. Around here most companies with heavy purses would rather sponsor graduate research. The same is true of high-tech companies (batteries, etc.). Without some champion pushing funding away from graduate research and onto undergraduate projects like FSAE I really do not see how funding levels like this are possible. Perhaps there are differences in Europe or other parts of the USA, but these are my observations from living/studying/working in the aerospace belt.

----------------

On a separate note, I totally agree with Dr. Hayward's post. I would love to participate in FSE; the level of controls tuning really brings performance to the next level. Additionally, I think it allows better integration of electrical and software disciplines which seems to be lacking in combustion competitions. My working experience has been that these disciplines could use practical, hand-on experience even more than the ME-types.

Kevin Hayward

02-13-2016, 08:00 PM

Doctor Hayward,

Stop whining (for once) and start winning. The money is there, even more in Australia: you just do not know how to find it. Think outside the box.

Claude

Claude,

I am not sure what was whining in my post. My issue is largely about what should be spent on these cars rather than what can be spent. Building a new car every year is an inherently wasteful exercise, and I have concerns about how much should be spent on these cars each year. My desire is to see as many students run through this program as practically possible. An increase in cost (and undue difficulties) make this less likely to happen.

If we take your view that every team should be gathering sponsorship at the level achieved by some teams (lets say $200k) that works out at $120 million per year for 600 teams. Add to that the costs absorbed by Universities and we would be likely above $200 million per year or more to run this competition. My objection to that amount of money spent on this competition is both moral and economical.

Morally as it represents a large sum of money that can be used elsewhere for more benefit to humanity. Economically, because it does not need to cost that much to achieve the desired educational outcomes.

On a related note a good friend of mine has just completed his PhD at John Hopkins University dealing with Global health issues. During the process he had some involvement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. An interesting point he makes regards how much money is spent on individuals in Western Health systems vs what is spent in third world countries. The cost of improving quality and length of life for a few could save the lives of many. There is nothing inherently wrong with the former, but the disparity is obscene.

I think the same is true of budgets in FSAE. Ultimately this competition is for the educational benefit of the next generation of engineers. Competition helps this as they enter a highly competitive industry. However as a program it should make economic sense. If the same outcome can be met by lower costs (both dollars and time) then it is silly not to do so.

...

For the record I will say that I have been involved with two teams that would have been considered well funded by most teams. Both have been successful, which you are well aware of, hence my confusion about your exhortation to win rather than whine. We are currently in a position that if we wished to push for the extreme budgets required to be a top level EV team we almost certainly could. Although the extra funds would not improve the educational benefit proportionally and doing so would sideline funds from some programs that offer greater benefits to society.

I will admit that arguments about trying to reduce wealth disparity and caring for the wider population are somewhat socialist in nature. For that feel free to label me as a Formula Student socialist. Our difference of opinion on this matter may be as much political as anything else. Maybe I am the Bernie Sanders to your Trump. While you perceive my attempts to encourage inclusion and accessibility as being whining you should note that I see your constant calls for teams to stop being lazy and raise more money as a more destructive form of whining.

Kev

MCoach

02-13-2016, 09:23 PM

On a separate note, I totally agree with Dr. Hayward's post. I would love to participate in FSE; the level of controls tuning really brings performance to the next level. Additionally, I think it allows better integration of electrical and software disciplines which seems to be lacking in combustion competitions. My working experience has been that these disciplines could use practical, hand-on experience even more than the ME-types.

If you think that combustion cars don't have enough electrical and software opportunities, feel welcome to write your own. We write our own engine control strategies for the snowmobile and formula SAE teams. Last year we also made the step to design our own lightweight fusebox/distribution panel/ETC logic panel with SMD components. Not saying that that's a lot, but from there you can go some serious directions. Custom software for traction control, stability control, ABS, engine torque controls, advanced turbo/boost controls, etc.

The engine models and required interactions are a little more abstract than hooking up wires and letting current flow. Fuel injectors, coil dwell, turbos, fuel selection, etc. all have their own non-linear components which can make life difficult. It's not exactly trivial. Even if you run an electric car you can get away with many commercial components: motors, batteries, BMS, controllers. So even on that side of it, you can get away with just hooking some wires up and building a harness, just like the combustion cars.

JulianH

02-14-2016, 10:17 AM

Guys, please stay civilized..

Claude, I agree that getting sponsorship is part of the game and if you want to win you have to have a certain amount of money/parts/favors by external helpers to make it work.
But, there is no need for calling Kev a "whiner". I think his posts are well-leveled and realistic. It probably will not work to have every team catching 200k a year.

jd74914, university support cannot(!) be the answer. I think this is the major flaw in most low-funded teams. They get their fair share of the universities budget and "it always worked with this money" and they don't get out of their comfort zone.
The most successful teams out there get very limited funding from their universities!
(Fun fact: Being a Swiss team, we always heard some really fun numbers how much money our university would give us. I heard up to 100k Euros. We never got a single penny. They gave us a small room with old computers and a working space. We are very grateful for that, yes. But never ever did we receive a money transfer from ETH... And still we were one of the better funded teams out there).

I think the name of the game is certainly "sponsors from outside automotive".
Within our biggest sponsors we have the energy supplier of Zurich, an aerospace company, the company that does maintenance of the Swiss Air planes, a bicycle parts manufacturer, a bank (of course!), some super small specialized machinging companies, car dealers, a train manufacturer, military tech...
Look outside the box, yep, that works.

But still, I think it would be fun to take the batteries out of the game.
They are really expensive, the most dangerous part of it and you don't really get a competitve advantage. The top teams kind of converged to the same cells because they offer enough charge and re-charge rates and have decent energy densities.
So there is not too much in there.

A company like Tesla supplying those and ease the monetary need by a couple of thousand dollars. That would be great yes... But highly unlikely still.

Kev,
I think "money limits" are really hard to incorporate in FSAE because you basically never pay full retail price for goods and services. E.g. our self-developed motors are always basically for free due to sponsorship. In order to get comparable ones on the open market, you pay 10k+ (which is still probably an amount where AMK does not earn a lot of money with..).
This is not reflected in a Cost report.. this is not observable from the outside. How would one ever be able to influence/control that?

I'm trying to join the Bernie Sanders side of the game. I think the best design should win, not the best funding. But so far I don't know how one should be able to do that... We should start a committee to come up with solutions there ;)

Thijs

02-14-2016, 12:01 PM

Speaking as a US team, we would get whipped by anyone from the top 10 in Europe. We just have not had the time to create solid cars and have not been able to improve on performance yet.

This may sound blunt, but that sounds like a cop out, while revealing some underlying problems at the same time.

Lincoln FSAE-E 2015 Results (third US event) (http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/results/fsae_ev_2015_result.pdf)

2015 was the third time that the FSAE Electric took place in the US. Just judging from the acceleration event results over the years, not a whole lot has happened in those three years.
Only 20% of teams present (others didn't show up at comp at all) managed to finish an acceleration run. Of those three cars, two needed 5 seconds or more to do it.
Meanwhile, off the top of my head I can think of at least four European teams that were running around the 3.8 second mark with their very first electric cars. All of them with either 1 or 2 off the shelf motors.

Here are the results for the very first German acceleration event:
FSE Acceleration results 2010 (first event) (https://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2010_FSE_Competition_Results_Acceleration_01.pdf)
And the third one:
FSE Acceleration results 2012 (third event) (https://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2012_FSE_ACCELERATION.pdf)
The finishing rates of both lists interests me more than simply how much quicker the cars got in 2 years.

It seems to me that this is not a problem for US teams that calls for custom motors, 4WD, 600V and tens of thousands of extra $'s from schools. Those come in handy if you want to move from top 10 to top 3 in the European competitions.
Looking at how flat the learning curve seems to be, I'm afraid more time and a focus on improved performance (what performance?) will not nearly be enough, but simply 'more cash' will certainly not solve anything.
US teams need to (re)focus on building simple, reliable cars that can extract the maximum performance from the HV equipment that they do have, and build from there.
Also: If US teams are serious about doing well at FSAE-E, they might consider doing what for example Zürich, Trondheim, Delft and a whole range of German teams did, and ditch the ICE car completely so all money and effort can be focused towards that goal.

People like Mr smokebreak may fear that such a move would make students less attractive to ICE car building companies. I seriously doubt that, for the following reasons:
1. Anyone on an FSAE team not concerned with the drivetrain will be attaining the exact same skill set (whether on general engineering principles, vehicle dynamics, aero, composites, ergonomics, even much of the electronics)
2. Forget about those specific skill sets. FSAE students aren't attractive to companies because they've designed an exhaust once. They're valuable because they've worked in an engineering team, with a budget and a planning and a physical product as an end result

As an aside, I'll echo what Julian said about budgets from European Uni's. Delft actually does get some money from their University, but at least an order of magnitude less than what people seem to think, and if anything it's less than we used to get back when we were still building ICE cars.

theTTshark

02-14-2016, 12:06 PM

After being around FSAE for 6-7ish years, all I hear when someone says that the price of something is too much is just complaining. It's the same game and rules for everybody. So you work smarter or harder than the others to try and get more for your team. We found someone to take our car to the PRI Tradeshow for 5 years in a row. The first 3 years it was in Orlando, FL so that was 1300 miles one way, then we would pay for the airfare ourselves to get there. And the first two years was all in the middle of the recession. By the final year I went we had gone from 5 sponsors at the show to 30+. We didn't complain though, this is what motorsports is. In fact we have a far easier time selling ourselves then any other form of motorsports.

There's a giant circle jerk in the FSAE community that the only reason that the top teams are top teams is because of money. It existed in 2009 when I entered, even within my own team. I believed it at first too, but then I saw teams like USF put together the right people in the right places, make good financial decisions, and work smarter in areas to make up what they lacked. I've also seen teams with budgets well beyond what we were able to achieve and squander it all and make poor decisions. The top teams are top teams because they put the right people in the right place and then those people put the right people in the right place to replace them, so on and so forth. This is how the real world works as well.

So while I feel that Claude was a little over the top on the way he presented his opinion, I can see where it comes from. So many teams use the excuse of time and money as the reason they can't compete with X team, when in reality those things are just effects of having the right people. Even though Jayhawk Motorsports didn't experience that much success, especially when competing against the powerhouses of FSAE, I had dozens of people come up to me at competitions or tradeshows over the years and tell me that they could do what we did if they had the same resources. The first couple of times you just try to smile and be polite, but pretty soon you dig back into them because you know how much work it takes. Especially after being in professional motorsports now, it makes any FSAE issue with money or sponsors look like a cake walk compared to what teams big and small have to go through to try and get sponsorships.

When I was a freshman a smart guy on my team told me, "The money is out there, you just have to take it. No excuses."

jd74914

02-14-2016, 12:22 PM

jd74914, university support cannot(!) be the answer. I think this is the major flaw in most low-funded teams. They get their fair share of the universities budget and "it always worked with this money" and they don't get out of their comfort zone.
The most successful teams out there get very limited funding from their universities!

Apologies if it sounds that way, but I'm not advocating for university funding support. Despite our best efforts, we always had problems on the university administrative end. By university rules, our non in-kind funding needs to go through the official university funding organization. This organization was never willing to help us (ie: taking weeks to act on even the most routine paperwork) and we have lost a number of sponsors just trying to get them to act on contracts, etc. Their goal was achieving five figure dollar grants for colleges and not anything smaller.

As best as I could tell, most of our problems were associated with not helping statistics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like most highly successful teams seem to have more publicity support from their universities.

In terms of money, like Trent said, a little can go a long way if you're clever-especially with a combustion car. I'm just with Dr. Hayward that parts for the electric cars seem to be more expensive without in-kind sponsorship.

Kevin Hayward

02-14-2016, 06:08 PM

My apologies for my role in taking this thread off topic. We certainly don't need another thread dealing with cost control, how much should be attempted, and how it could even be achieved. Probably one of the most heated ongoing discussions on these forums.

As a side note Jim (and others) please feel free not to refer to me as Dr. Hayward. I think it is important to let your words speak for themselves to add strength not rely on titles or association to add strength to your comments. I would rather listen to a wise undergraduate than a foolish doctor. This is the main reason why I have no time for lengthy introductions or signatures.

Out of curiosity how likely is it that these EPA regulations will become law? Are the EPA particularly stubborn on these issues, or is the public voice more effective? Also what sort of response has the SCCA given?

Kev

Claude Rouelle

02-14-2016, 07:42 PM

Calling Kevin a whiner was a reaction specifically to Kevin, from whom I keep hearing such complains for about 15 years, but also to many other students, very often from Australia

Let me tell you a bit of my story. Some of you may have heard it, some may have not ….In 1978 (yeah I know, I am becoming an old fart) I designed and manufactured both a wind tunnel and a race car (a Formula Ford because I wanted to design a car that I could build, so F1 was not an option) as the thesis of my master industrial engineering degree and I did not pay for anything. I couldn’t. I had no money. I had no moral support (I left my home at 19 years old leaving behind me a dysfunctional and destructive family) , I worked during night and week end at many different jobs to pay for school – which I have to admit was and is still cheaper in Europe than in the US. There were many days I was hungry. I never considered myself as a super smart guy. I had to work hard to make decent grades. I repeated the first year and had summer exams the second and third year. I had no support from the school. During the second year I openly spoke about my dream to build a race car as the thesis on my engineering degree. The dean of the school called me in his office to tell me he thought it was impossible and I should better concentrate on my grades. Three years later, I presented a rolling chassis (I did not find the money for an engine) to the “jury” and got a 19/20, a quote that the school had not awarded to any student for 17 years. (They were picky Jesuits). I did not pay for anything. Anything. I had the tube of the chassis and te suspension being manufactured is a special steel and at special dimensions. Free of Charge. I had the front and rear upright casted in magnesium . Free of charge. I did convinced Dunlop to give me the tires and Bilstein to give me the dampers. A local spring manufacturer made the spring and the ARB free of charge. I got all the road ends and spherical bearings, wheel bearings, paint, polyester (we did not speak about carbon fiber at that time) free of charge. I found sponsors to pay for the pedal box, the steering rack, the seat belts, the extinguisher…. You name it.

I think I was able to build that car because I was able to share my dreams and to sell my emotions.

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

That is because of this experience that I feel I have the right and I have the guts to sometimes tell students that their best is not good enough, and that they can't dream big.

When I hear people telling me that they can’t find the money, sorry guys, but I hear whiners. I hear people constricting themselves, restricting themselves. Probably another sense of guilt carried by the Judeo-Christian spirit

“….. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. ….. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

I agree with Kevin that too much money is spent on inefficient health care in the US. If you want an another example going this way Swedish spent 1/2 of what Americans spent and live 10 years older enjoying a better life when they are old with less medical support. But is the goal to decrease medical expenses in the US or increase it in Africa?

I am tired of people who can’t think and act big, who keep restricting themselves. It IS possible to thing big and ecologic and healthy and democratic. We need more Henry Ford and more Steve Jobs and more Bill Gates in this world.

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs

May also point out that Formula Student is NOT motorsport and I feel you Kevin would like to consider t that way. Stop whining, start winning

For the record and so that everybody knows my true colors, I do contribute to Bernie Sanders election.

Jay Lawrence

02-14-2016, 10:12 PM

"My life was so difficult.... kids these days have it so much better.... people aren't trying hard enough to satisfy me...................................... Stop whining, start winning." <-- this directed at someone with quite a bit of success under their belt. Righto champ.

Also, Henry Ford was demonstrably a racist moron, and we do not need more of his kind.

To add to Will's initial post, Jalopnik ran a pretty decent follow up story. There are a few knowledgeable commenters too
http://jalopnik.com/the-epas-crackdown-on-race-cars-explained-1758111546

Adam Farabaugh

02-15-2016, 12:36 AM

Money is not the problem for the US EV teams. The problem is kids don't know what the f*** they are doing. It has less to do with the powertrain and more to do with building shoddy 500+ lbm cars, apparently all without reading the rulebook.

It took a lot of effort for us in our first year to build a car that wasn't finished in time and didn't pass tech let alone run a single event at comp. It was not much more difficult to pull our heads out of our asses and build a similar but simple, non-aero second-year car that won the competition. It seems to me that the euro teams who dropped ICE and switched to EV already had good ICE programs, and passed down their knowledge of how to build a good car (nevermind what powertrain). From what I saw at Lincoln this past year, very few of the EV teams had any good vehicle dynamics knowledge, very few had done even the simplest calculations to say "this car that we are building makes sense" and very few had cars that passed the simplest of all engineering tests: the "looks right" test. And this isn't to say that they're power-electronics experts either. Most everybody runs the Unitek controller and all had similar gearing to us but no one else but us was using field weakening to make the most of the bad situation that is the 300V limit... (side note. 300V limit is, I believe, why FSAE-E accel times are relatively slow and will remain that way for a few years longer than in FSE)

Why did the vast majority of the EV cars at lincoln not pass tech again? I don't know. We made that mistake our first year, but thankfully learned a lesson. I was especially surprised to see some powerhouse schools, both in engineering academia and formula history/legacy, show up after having made the same mistake 2 years in a row (come on guys, build it to pass the technical inspection! one of the few times in your engineering career when everything is spelled out for you!).

I'm curious and have a question for the AMZ guys. Do you guys get engineering assistance with your rather high-tech components? Custom motors, I assume custom inverters, and MR dampers? I would love to have sat down in my senior year and designed a custom motor that's better for FSAE than the emrax but definitely did not gain the skills during my time in school to do it. I'm not sure that there is a school in the US teaching those skills. If I had to do it I would be seeking help from industry experts to at least get pointed in the right direction.

Kevin Hayward

02-15-2016, 03:35 AM

Calling Kevin a whiner was a reaction specifically to Kevin, from whom I keep hearing such complains for about 15 years, but also to many other students, very often from Australia.

Quick factual correction:

We met less than 12 years ago, and if you check my extensive post history you will find that my whining largely began much more recently when I passed 30 years old. June 2009 to be exact. It was at that point that I realised, as all cantankerous men do, that the young kids just don't do it the way that I would. That just really gets my goat.

Peace be with you Claude.

Kev

JulianH

02-15-2016, 05:44 AM

I'm curious and have a question for the AMZ guys. Do you guys get engineering assistance with your rather high-tech components? Custom motors, I assume custom inverters, and MR dampers? I would love to have sat down in my senior year and designed a custom motor that's better for FSAE than the emrax but definitely did not gain the skills during my time in school to do it. I'm not sure that there is a school in the US teaching those skills. If I had to do it I would be seeking help from industry experts to at least get pointed in the right direction.

Adam,

that was a really interesting post.

Sadly, I am not the best guy to talk about motors (I can only do that stuff with the wind and forces to the ground..) but talking about our history:
We started with customized motors in 2011 as a master's thesis of an electrical engineering student at ETH with the help of one of our first team members (part of the team from 2007 to 2011). The motor was designed to work with a standard inverter, was an outer-runner and worked well.
As far as I know, they consulted some electrical engineering professors at ETH and Lucerne University but otherwise did not have that much help from the outside.
That motor got refined for the 2012 season as part of a semester thesis.
We invested big (especially time-wise as one full time team member basically only designed that test-bench. Most parts where sponsored) in 2012 to build a testbench for our motors where two motors run "against" each other. That is an awesome tool to tune the motors and help with the shakedown (you can run the full layout from VCU, battery box, inverter, motors there before putting everything in the car).
In 2013 we switched to 4WD and as the motors moved to the wheel hubs we went for inner-runner motors with a higher voltage. The inverters now come from Lenze Schmidhauser. They are customized to our needs but the basis is still off-the-shelf.
Since then, every year, two students are fine-tuning the motors for the new car. Every year there is a new electrical design and changes in the mechanical design to learn from the errors of the previous year.
They can always consult their predecessors and so the motors keep getting better over the years. The help from Lenze is also great.

For the MF dampers, we work together with the manufacturer of those elements in order to make them usable in the car. We started working with DT Swiss back in 2012 when we wanted their bike shocks in the car that made some internal changes necessary. So we created a rather good relationship till then. I really don't know what the plans are with those in the next years. Should be fun to watch.

For more detailed information on how we did/do things, just reach out to the current team via mail on the homepage or via Facebook. We are always happy to help and take it very seriously as we also had a lot of help when we started something new (I'm looking at you, Monash Aero Department ;)), so you can always expect an answer on detailed serious questions!

Claude Rouelle

02-15-2016, 04:04 PM

Kevin,

Cantankerous at 30? Already? That will not improve with age, man!

Claude

Claude Rouelle

02-15-2016, 04:42 PM

You do not need FSE to see that American are behind in efficiency

http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/shell-ecomarathon/americas/results-and-awards.html

Canadians are way better than US teams and European and Asians are better than Canadians.

Danschwind

02-15-2016, 06:09 PM

I'll risk giving my 2 cents here.

As an old FSAE participant in both combustion and electric, both in very poor brazilian teams, I must say that money does indeed play a big part in the sucess of a team, maybe with some exceptions. Though the university always supported both the combustion and electrical teams (when we didn't had a crisis this big in our country), the maximum value we had at our disposal was, in nowadays currency, 5k USD. That may seem more than some european and american teams, but with the amount of bureaucracy we have to bypass, that sum becomes kinda figurative...we were rarely able to spend half that value on our car since the time needed for that bureaucratic bypass was higher than the time we had between competitions.

So, we were left with our sponsors, but they are scarce. Living in Brazil, means we have almost no motorsport industry. Outside the motorsport industry, there aren't many companies willing to sponsor FSAE teams for a number of reasons, some of them being the constant economical crisis Brazil as a socialist country keeps getting into, the fact that there isn't many things they can provide (except bolts, nuts, some tools) and so on. On our teams, the one sponsor that gave us most resources was a german languague course that gave us 60% of the total cost of a set of Hoosier tyres. We, and maybe all of small/new brazilian FSAE teams struggle to find enough sponsors to allow an, let's say, "easier" approach on the build of a car.

For brazilian FSAE-E teams that gets even more dramatic. Although a brazilian company offers a free motor for any team, providing they already have the batteries, that motor runs at about 6kW peak and weights at around >40kg. And there isn't any other company that is able, or have the interest, of building a motor for a FSAE team. So, the only solution to remain competitive found by the teams is to import the motor. With a >60% import tax, and with 4 BRL buying 1 USD, this gets a little bit difficult, eh?

But we try. Even if that means building a car (our first running, I expect) in 2 years. In the first, we bought a motor that gives us 12kW continuous with a peak of 30kW. This year we are trying to import the batteries without paying taxes (you really need to be creative to be able to do this here). So, although not really competitive with top teams, we aim to achieve maybe a Top-4 in our local competition, since there is really only 2 running - and good - teams.

What our situation has to do with the discussion? I dunno, rly. But I can say that if it is hard for American or Australian teams, trust me that it is harder to brazilian teams. All-in-all, we don't even have a McMaster to get a quick supply of fixtures or etc. Almost everything has to be done on the streets, going shop to shop trying to find the correct thing you need.

On the 300V-600V topic, in my opinion all competitions should be equal. I really can't understand this difference.

American/Brazilian teams would only improve if they go against top european teams. The amount of knowledge is huge. If they are willing to share this knowledge is a big interrogation, but I believe in the best of people :D

Also, Kevin, I don't know you or your background but trust every single word I say: socialism kills you. It is the worst thing that can happen to a country. I live in a socialist country, where the government is a behemoth, regulating every single aspect of people's lives and by experience, that isn't good.

(Sorry for the possible bad english, I wrote this in a hurry! My english is bad anyway haha)

Claude Rouelle

02-15-2016, 06:40 PM

Coming back to the beginning of this thread....

About 8 years ago most Formula One wind tunnel ran 2 (TWO) scale 60 % wind tunnels 365/24/7. Huge expenses. The FIA limited the use of wind tunnel hours and the aerodynamics engineers I know in F1 told me that this rule pushed them to think again Thanks to better data acquisition, better hardware, better data management, they got better results for less money. Smart rules are good. Controlling the cost is impossible but controlling the number of hours that can be spent in a wind tunnel in de facto a cost control

Limiting the number of wheel guns at Le Mans (2 instead of 4) did increased the pit stop duration and team started to think about making, double, triple, quadruple and even quintuple stints with the same set of tires. That is an indirect good cost control.

Extending the number of recces per engine in F1 is a good idea. It pushes manufacturer to get both performances and reliability.

But limiting the budget is not a god idea and there are no way to make that working. The FIA and V8 Supercars sanctioning body tried that; it did not work.

****

While most students try to make a better, faster, more reliable car every year there should be at least one student in each them whose unique goal should be to find more money every year.

****

European cars are more energy efficient because gas there is more expensive. It is more expensive because it has more taxes on it. In the 1970, Europeans governments understood that to limit emissions and fuel consumption and political dependencies from oil manufacturing countries, the consumers were not going to drive less or drive more slowly on their own. They dramatically increased the price of gasoline per liter and it took only 2 to 3 years for all car manufacturers to offer more efficient engines. Such rules are good.

***

If you want to find arguments for not changing anything you will find a lot of them. But that is not how you can evolve and challenge yourself and create a better world. Think big. Think outside the box. Innovations creates more job than it kills jobs. The victims of innovations are the followers. The winners are the creators. And the whiners remain whiners.

Claude Rouelle

02-15-2016, 06:44 PM

Claude Rouelle

02-15-2016, 07:00 PM

Daniel,

Brazilian "democracy" is not democracy. USA either.

Socialism is not and should not be distribution or re-distribution of wealth. It should the distribution of equal chances of mean of education and production.

There are only a few real democracies in the world. Scandinavian countries, New Zealand too, Canada and Australia (a bit less) are probably the best examples in the world where you have high and still relatively cheap education, excellent health care, one of the best life expectancy, transportation (without medical furry), recycling, other cultures tolerance (although recent mass refugees exodus doesn't help), and free and objective press (That is the guarantee of democracy)

But there are good things in any country: you guys know how to smile and be happy, to dance and to make good Caipirinhas! :)

And some Brazilian electrical cars are good: 2 years ago there was only one car that pass tech inspection in USA (Lincoln) and it was a Brazilian car! I judged that car chassis and suspensions and the students knew what they were speaking about!

Danschwind

02-15-2016, 07:26 PM

Claude,

Don't know your definition of democracy, but for me it's just the dictatorship of the majority.

Socialism is not about distribution of wealth. It's about distribution of poverty. In Brazil it's impossible to be rich without the assistence of the government. Brazilian politics are a joke, and only brazilians are able to understand how ridiculous it is.

I don't think there must be free healthcare, education or whatsoever. That is all services and must be paid for. Taxes should be as low as possible to allow only the most poor to receive government assistance with a voucher-like system. We have everything free here, even college is free on state and federal universities. It simply don't work.

Yes, there are good things in Brazil. Though I can't dance, I smile alot and know the people that can make you the best caipirinhas in the world, as I just provide the meat for the churrasco.

The 2 electrical cars that are good are Unicamp and FEI. FEI is the all-time best team in Brazil at the combustion competition. I think they won it 7 times, most in a row. They are really really good and their university is a private one and gives alot of support. They also have specific automotive education, which helps. I did a SAE course with an ex-teacher of FEI and he is really awesome, and some old members of FEI are very famous in FSAE and Motorsport circles for being really good.

Unicamp's sucess came after their combustion car got stuck in brazilian customs on the way back from Lincoln/Michigan some years ago (yeah, that happens in brazilian customs). So all their efforts were focused on the electrical car. They are really good engineers, and as far as I can tell they got their motor for free, and it's a pretty good one also.

But, if you watch the other teams, you'll see some with Led Batteries (dunno if there is an specific name for it), Leviathan-weight cars that aren't able to be competitive.

Swiftus

02-15-2016, 09:03 PM

Claude - Changing the rules most certainly requires a reanalysis of one's approach of a situation. If no reevaluation is done, then one can't actually know if what they are doing is still the correct approach. Completely agree! And your examples are pretty good.

The thing that stuck out to me with the proposed EPA regulations is that they raise the possibility of nuking the US combustion competition. If we are no longer allowed to track modified engines, that portion of the competition is basically a non-starter. That is why I originally brought up the FSE section of the competition since it would remain essentially unaffected by any rules changes from the EPA. Cause and effect from a rules change indeed.

02-15-2016, 09:15 PM

LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER!
=============================

... Electrical car is the future anyway.

To all of you who believe this brain-dead nonsense, YOU ARE BLIND FOOLS!

The briefest look at the history books shows that ELECTRIC CARS ARE THE PAST. And despite electric-battery/motors' ~50 year head start, and the countless billions poured into their development since then (in a Claude-esque approach to progress), they are, for the motivation of automobiles, still nowhere near comparable in all-round performance to the more recently developed "explosion-engines".

There is absolutely NO good rationale, namely NO well-reasoned objective argument supported by verifiable NUMBERS, for believing that electric-battery/motor-cars (E-cars) can ever be superior to current explosion-engined cars (call them C-cars) for general transportation purposes. Whether you look at just the E-cars themselves, or take a more holistic approach and look at the global-energetics of an all-electric transportation system, the E-approach is clearly the inferior approach. Chasing E-cars is going BACKWARDS.

Blind-Freddy knows that not even the latest, greatest, E-car has the range to take him any significant distance. But fit a reasonably sized tank to your current C-car (or even a 50++ year old one) and you can cross a continent (do the sums!). Now start thinking about the size of the (highly poisonous!) battery-pack you need for an Electric-jumbo-jet, or an Electric-supertanker!

As for the argument that, "Oh, but the inevitable progress in technology means we will soon have batteries that last almost indefinitely...". Geeezzz!!! Imbeciles who believe this may as well go the whole hog and believe in Perpetual Motion machines! "Yes, yes, that will work. We just have to build cars that don't need any energy input at all. Yeay!" <- I repeat, IMBECILES!

And as for the argument that E-cars mean "We won't have to rely on hydrocarbon fuels anymore, because we can get all our energy from the sun!". Have these fools ever heard of SUNFLOWERS!? Or similar ways of collecting the sun's energy? People are getting stupider by the day...
~o0o~

Note for anyone with a shred of wit:
==========================
There is a better, and very obvious, alternative to either E-engine or C-engine motivation of things.

Current E-cars mostly take the chemical-energy in a hydrocarbon such as coal, convert it by many very inefficient intermediary processes (such as steam-engines, and other processes with even larger losses) to the electrochemical-energy in a poisonous battery, then convert that to electromagnetic-energy in the aether, then finally convert that to the mechanical-energy needed to actually move the body, namely the "work" of a "force acting over a distance".

C-cars take the chemical-energy in a hydrocarbon fuel (perhaps from sunflowers, or grass?), convert it to heat/pressure-energy, then finally convert it to the necessary mechanical-energy/work. All this with relatively good conversion efficiencies overall, compared with the very inefficient E-approach.

BUT (!), and as should be blindingly obvious, it is possible to take high-energy-density and completely non-poisonous chemical-energy, and ... convert it DIRECTLY to mechanical-energy/work.

To see how to do this ... put your hand in front of your face ... and LOOK!!!
~~~~~o0o~~~~~

Back to the original topic. I have not bothered reading the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, but...

From Bill Cobb, page 1:
The EPA regulation reads,

“Certified motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines and their emission control devices must remain in their certified configuration even if they are used solely for competition or if they become nonroad vehicles or engines”. 80 Fed. Reg. 40138, 40565 (July 13, 2015). “

Solution seems simple. Build your own UNCERTIFIED engine.
~o0o~

Daniel,

If you are still doing C-cars in Brazil, and want to compete in US, then EPA problem might be solved by building your own engine. I suggest a "VW-Single" (ie. 1/4 of a Beetle engine!). Many parts for such an engine available in Brazil.

Which also gets to the heart of the "More $s = Better???" matter.

IMO, Too-many-$s = Too-complicated-car = Expen$ive-LO$ER. (<- Claude approach, and many of these cars in FSAE-world.)

But, ... Really-fast-car-built-with-very-few-$s (= "Brown-go-kart") = Cheap-winner! (<- Z approach, and slowly catching-on... :))

Z

Danschwind

02-15-2016, 09:38 PM

Z,

not into FSAE-C anymore, though I may still do some research for maybe a master's degree or else with combustion engines since they are my passion and also what I think I have most knowledge about.

Getting a CB-600 Hornet engine in Brazil isn't impossible, and when I joined the team back in 2011 they already had that engine, which blew up on 2014 and we were able to buy another. Combustion cars can do well with the availability of resources in your country, although some fancy stuff like carbon fiber monocoques were just seen 1 time a long time ago.
You keep saying on the forums you like alot of steel and prefer a tubular chassis than a carbon fiber one. Well, Brazil is the place where people are only making tubular chassis and doing well mostly of it.

Too many $ on FSAE-E comes from the fact that batteries, motors and some electrical components have to be imported. That by its own multiplies the overall costs by 5.6, considering cambial and tax costs.

coleasterling

02-15-2016, 11:02 PM

Z,
Too many $ on FSAE-E comes from the fact that batteries, motors and some electrical components have to be imported. That by its own multiplies the overall costs by 5.6, considering cambial and tax costs.

Daniel,

Do you have any hybrid cars in Brazil? Are there any resources to get parts from those, if so?

Danschwind

02-16-2016, 10:11 AM

Cole,

Formula SAE Hybrid? No.

Hybrid street cars? As far as I know, from the regular brands, just a Ford Fusion Hybrid. It costs +140k BRL and honestly, I never saw any on the streets. It's safe to say it is impossible to salvage parts from one of those.

Claude Rouelle

02-16-2016, 11:09 AM

All the engineers I speak to at BMW, Audi, VW, Honda, Toyota, Lexus, Nissan, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Peugeot, Renault, Citroen, Fiat, Alfa-Romeo, Jaguar Land River, Hyundai .... you name it, tell me that by 2030 most of new manufactured cars will have electrical motors. What they are not sure about if it will have batteries of fuel cells. The Honda approach with Hydrogen fuel cell and a network connecting energy producers and all individual homes (a bit like solar panels) seems to me to be very smart. The German government (Germany is the most ecological of all "industrialized" countries) and industry seem very convinced about that definition of the automotive future and they work very hard in that direction. Only time will tell who will win between Z and the rest of the world. For my part I learnt to never say never. In the last 4 weeks I just spent times in Delhi (I was at FSI, a short report to publish soon), Seoul, Singapore (visited FS team at NUS) and Kuala Lumpur. You cannot breath in these cities; electrical motors in cities do make so much sense. Cities like Paris, London, Athens, Berlin will soon either exclude cars or only allow zero pollution vehicles. It is both a political and social and ecological necessity.

coleasterling

02-16-2016, 11:51 AM

I should have been more clear. Yes, hybrid street cars...No Prius? There are several people in the DIY world working on using the Synergy drive from a Prius and the IMA inverter from Honda as the base for custom controllers to drive any motor, which is probably the most promising thing to come out of them. The Prius motors are wound for ~500V, so not especially useful in stock form. I haven't seen anyone do it, but it would be interesting to try rewinding one. MG2 is rated for around 50kW peak and ORNL tests say that'spretty accurate. It is an IPM, so you'd have to develop a control strategy for it. No clue about over there, but Prius transaxles and drives are dirt cheap here.

Claude Rouelle

02-16-2016, 12:57 PM

Claude Rouelle

02-16-2016, 01:09 PM

Danschwind

02-16-2016, 07:58 PM

Cole,

Toyota in theory sell Prius here, but I've never saw one. Considering it costs 120k BRL, it's no wonder people would buy another car instead of it. There is no tax discount for electrical vehicles here as far as I can tell.

Kevin Hayward

02-16-2016, 09:46 PM

Student Formula Japan check engine emission of each car after each dynamic event. To my knowledge they are the only Formula Student organization doing this. If I remember well the emission test was sponsored. If points are also given for the cleanest combustion engine, this could be a proactive way to put the EPA on the FSAE side instead of against it.

This is a good idea (probably for all competitions). In many ways the fuel efficiency event could include some form of emissions testing. The main issue to combat would be that a number of teams (including cars I have been involved with) can alter engine settings very quickly without needing to plug a computer in. Multiple maps or a variety of trim knobs etc.

Although students learning how to beat emissions tests might help a whole new generation of OEM employees (tongue firmly in cheek for this comment).

...

On a side note I think that the regulation for formula student limiting teams to one set of untreated tyres is one of the best cost limiting and environmentally friendly rule changes in recent years. At the same time it doesn't lessen the challenge of understanding tyres and getting the most out of it.

Between all of the degreaser used, rolls and rolls of race tape, tons of aluminium and steel swarf, melted rubber, destroyed brake pads, lots of shipping and so on the emissions and fuel used are probably one of the smaller concerns environmentally for this competition. I have always found it quite humorous to arrive at a competition with 20 or so people that have travelled 3000+km with a car that has been purpose built for only one event that will use two to three sets of tyres and be worried about whether we have used 3.3 or 3.5L of fuel in the endurance run.

This environmental impact is similar for most of the industry affected by this EPA push. The push for less environmental impact by car enthusiasts (racing included) will almost certainly continue, and some sort of sensible dialogue between the relevant groups might help direct regulation to areas that really matter. Some sort of dialogue between the EPA and the US FSAE community should be initiated.

Leaving it to the automotive manufacturers will almost certainly not end up in a good place for the enthusiasts, as there are perceived advantages (for some) of not allowing consumers to defeat software etc. of their products. This is part of a growing issue with regard to how much do we own of the things that we buy. Many manufacturers are making the claim that we should not be allowed to modify the products they sell, presenting the idea that we license technology rather than own it. Almost all of these arguments assume a zero sum game where the idea of a dollar spent in the aftermarket industry is a dollar lost to the manufacturer. However, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that highly motivated 'modders' increase the pool of money available to the industries in question.

One of the great aspects about FSAE/Student is that the people involved are very creative and hands-on. It is a community that is not representative of the larger population. I am sure that most of the people on these forums would identify with being creators before they are consumers. This means that this sort of regulation (along with many others) may have lasting effects on the life you intend on living and the activities you intend on being involved with. I am sure I don't need to quote the well known poem by Martin Niemöller. (Check here if you don't know what I am talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...)

I have read through a few more follow-ups to the issue, and still cannot grasp what the end result for FSAE (and Baja) will be. At the very least very direct questions should be asked of the EPA for the purpose of clarification.

Kev

Claude Rouelle

02-16-2016, 10:42 PM

"..a whole new generation of OEM employees (tongue firmly in cheek for this comment)"

Gunther and Birgitt just had a nice, romantic dinner in Frankfurt.
Good wienerschnitzel and a lot of good Riesling wine.
Birgitt is becoming very exited thinking about the rest of the night.
She whispers to her man's ear; "Tell me something dirty"
Gunther whispers back to Brigitt's ear: "Volkswagen Diesel"

Claude Rouelle

02-16-2016, 10:51 PM

I made this suggestion long time ago: Create a special prize to be given during the award ceremony for the team using the manufacturing techniques that are the least damageable to the environment and/or the car that has the greatest amount of parts that can be easily recycled.

Where I disagree with you Kevin is that it seems that your ecological purpose (that any reasonable person can only agree with) is somtimes preventing you to think big. it is possible to think democratic, entrepreneurial, ecological and global and big.

02-17-2016, 06:03 PM

Claude,

All the engineers I speak to at [many car companies...] tell me that by 2030 most ... cars will have electrical motors.

The problem here is the complete lack of any attempt, by society in general, to apply REASONING to a given problem.

Like lambs going to the slaughterhouse, you and all your "engineers" are quite delighted to keep going were you are going, because, well ..., everyone else is also going there! Yep, everyone else is doing it, so it must be a good idea! A bit like "double-wishbones-and-push/pull-rods-and-rockers-and-all-the-other-junk-that-dimwits-put-on-their-FSAE-cars-because-everyone-else-is-doing-it...", which you, Claude, also support.

BTW, you are old enough that you should remember that 15 years ago "all the engineers" were saying "by 2015 most cars will have electrical motors...". Dreaming about nonsense is NOT engineering. Nor is it good reasoning.
~o0o~

In the last 4 weeks I just spent times in Delhi, ... Seoul, Singapore ... and Kuala Lumpur. You cannot breath in these cities...
Cities like Paris, London, Athens, Berlin will soon either exclude cars or only allow zero pollution vehicles. It is ... ecological necessity.

The ecological effect of cities is to take hundreds of square kilometres of the Natural world, and ... ERADICATE every single last living bit of it, and then cover the dead remains with concrete and bitumen. While E-cars do make sense for inner-city dwellers, any support of cities is support of ecocide. This is an obvious truth, which makes it hypocritical nonsense to suggest that E-cars = clean cities = ecological niceness.

Furthermore, one of the main reasons there is so much dust and haze in cities is that the dust pollution can never settle down, because it is constantly being stirred up. Grassland, bushland, and forests are great at trapping dust pollution, but there are very few such natural dust-traps in cities. Instead, just vast expanses of hard pavement for all the cars. And all those E-cars you are looking forward to, including all the soon-to-be self-driving E-cars (empty of passengers, but still cruising around ... because they can), will do a great job of constantly stirring up that dust.
~o0o~

... Germany is the most ecological of all "industrialized" countries...

I have just read a short article about the VW factory at Wolfsburg. Quite a big factory it is, covering 6 square kilometres of very "industrial" looking land (= no "nature"), with 2 square kilometres of factory roof, and TWO of its very own, on-site, power-stations. The many smoke-stacks visible in the aerial photo, and the text of the article, say these are COAL-FIRED (steam-engined) power-stations!

I can see the blurb now - "Your clean, green, Electric-VW. Built by coal, powered by coal."!!!

I also recently read another piece about Germany's problems with the radioactive waste from their now defunct nuclear power-stations. Apparently this highly toxic waste is now starting to leak out of the old salt-mines they dumped it in.

Yep, why bother thinking your way through a problem, when you can just follow the rest of the flock?

Z

JulianH

02-19-2016, 01:37 PM

Z,

if electric cars are not the future. What is the future then?

I agree that electric cars have a huge problem, but what is the alternative?
Hydrogen? Synthetic fuels?

In the end Oil is endless. We all probably will not life during the days when really "the last drop is pulled from the earth" but it will happen at one point of time... Or at least it gets so expensive to produce it will not make sense anymore.

BMW is trying to build emission neutral plants for their i Models by the way. Their CFRP plant in California basically runs on water and wind energy. Still probably not scalable for the mass market, but it's a start...

Interested to hear your side here...

Claude Rouelle

02-19-2016, 04:12 PM

20 Minutes drive from OptimumG office there is NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). I go there quite often. 2300 people working there. ENERGY FREE! They runs about 50 electrical cars and cell fuel cars of which the energy is exclusively created from wind and sun.

What about using more often the word "possible"?

MCoach

02-19-2016, 11:05 PM

Why not nuclear powered vehicles?

FSAE Nuclear 2017 launches new competition! ....oh wait.

02-19-2016, 11:24 PM

Claude,

... 2300 people working there. ENERGY FREE!
...
What about using more often the word "possible"?

The more appropriate word here is "bulldust"! All energy use has a cost. There are entire third-world countries devastated by the mining of rare-earths that are used just for the magnets of E-cars...

Let's try using more often the words "rational analysis" and "numbers".
~~~~~o0o~~~~~

Julian,

If electric cars are not the future. What is the future then?
...
Interested to hear your side here...

First the BAD NEWS.

As the crazy old-fart (me) has said many times, the future is a slow decline into The Next Dark Ages.

FWIW, and to put numbers to it, TNDA are ~300+ years away, give or take 200. The current (natural!) cycle of warming is now near the level of the "Mediaeval Warming", it is approaching the peak of the "Roman Warming" (2000+ years ago), but nowhere near the "Minoan Warming" (3.3kya) or other earlier ones. Warmer climate invariably means wetter world, and taken together they mean more food and more life. Think of a place on the planet that is very warm and wet now, and India comes to mind. Abundant food means no need to think or work hard, or have a good education system, but still a massive population is possible.

Unfortunately, the many ~1,000 year cycles of warmings going back to last big ice age were all separated by coolings, which are also drier, which also means less food. And, of course, all human civilisations/cultures have a finite life-span. None has lasted more than ~1,000 years, yet. At least not without massive changes, usually a severe thining out, or "restructuring".

Draw your own conclusions...
~o0o~

I agree that electric cars have a huge problem, but what is the alternative?
Hydrogen? Synthetic fuels?

Now the GOOD NEWS (for anyone who cares to follow it).

The alternative is incredibly simple. As I said earlier, it is as obvious as your hand in front of your face. But I will first put some numbers to this obviousness.

We are looking for a way to carry around a large amount of "energy" in a small, and reasonably safe, bottle. Very importantly, the over-riding aim of carrying this bottle around with us, is so we can occasionally release small amounts of the "energy" and convert it into useful "mechanical-work", namely "a force acting over a distance". The whole point of the exercise is to use the Force x Distance to move stuff around (ie. the vehicle, its cargo, us...).

You mentioned hydrogen and other fuels, which I will take as stores of "chemical-energy". Importantly, most of these chemicals are only the smaller part of the total "fuel" used, because they rely on you (or the car) picking up the rest of the fuel along the way. Namely, the OXYGEN!

Here are some approximate numbers. (These vary a lot depending on details, so more accurate numbers welcome! Also there are many "no O2 required" fuels, such as high-explosives, that are not considered here, but should be before ruling them out...).

"+O2"-Fuel ~MJ/kg ~MJ/L .. ~RON .. A/F(m/m) ~MJ/(Kg Air)
======================================
Petrol ....... 47 ....... 35 ....... 80-99+ 14.7:1 ..... 3.2

Methanol .. 20? ...... 16-18? . 120 ..... 6.4:1 ..... ~3.1
Ethanol .... 25-30? . 20-24? . 120 ..... 9:1 ........ ~2.8-3.3?
Butanol .... 36 ....... 30 ....... 100 ...... 11.2:1 .... 3.2

Diesel ...... 48 ....... 39 ....... N/A ...... 14.5:1 .... 3.3
Biodiesel .. 40 ....... 35 ....... N/A
Veg-Oil .... 38 ....... 34 ....... N/A

(All below as liquids!)
Hydrogen . 130 ...... 9 ........ ? .......... 34.3:1 .... 3.8
Methane ... 55 ....... 25 ...... ? ........... 17.2:1 .... 3.2
Propane .... 50 ....... 26 ...... 120 ....... 15.7:1 .... 3.2

So, with typical HydroCarbon fuels like petrol, alcohol, or diesel, you take 1 kg of the fuel out of your bottle, add ~3 kgs of Oxygen plucked from the air (along with ~10 kg of Nitrogen that you don't need, but it comes free) and you have 30 to 50 MEGAJOULES of "chemical-energy". Of this you can extract ~30+% of the chemical-energy as useful mechanical-work via an explosion engine. So, practically you have ~10 - 20 MJ of useful energy, per kg of fuel in the bottle.
~o0o~

The outstanding number in the above table is Hydrogen at 130 MJ/kg. This partly explains why so many people are besotted by it, together with the nonsensical reason that "the only emission is water" (<- might cover that later). But the really big problem with Hydrogen (H2), and also with Methane (CH4, aka "natural-gas"), is that no matter how hard you squeeze these small, and thermally energetic, molecules, they insist on staying in a gaseous state. And gaseous fuels take up impractically large volumes, even for small amounts of energy.

One option is to freeze the little buggers, to force the molecules into the much denser liquid state. But this requires expensive cryogenic cooling systems and insulated tanks, which adds a lot of cost, mass, and PITA factor. Another option with Hydrogen is to combine it with some other chemical that puts it into a liquid or solid state, but that requires the vehicle to carry around a lot of the other stuff, so back to square one.

But (!), stick 8 Hydrogen atoms onto a string of 3 Carbon atoms and you have Propane (C3H8), which can be conviced to take the liquid state at quite low pressures, so your energy-bottle is a simple tin can (see "Primus-camping-gas" bottles). And this is a cracking good fuel, as the other numbers show. Remove a Carbon from the Propane and add an OH group, and you have Ethanol (C2H5OH), which also has good numbers, is liquid at normal temperatures, and is so "clean" you can drink it! Get rid of the OH and use longer Carbon chains, and you have the Vegetable-Oils (~CnH(2n+2)), again with good numbers, and EDIBLE.

Most importantly, many of the HydroCarbon fuels on the above list are very easily made by sucking some CO2 out of the atmosphere, adding a drop of H20, mixing in some sunshine, and bingo, you have the chemical-energy in a clean, safe, dense form, ideal for converting into mechanical-work. Sunflowers do this remarkably quickly and cleanly, producing the energy dense Oils. Fungi and grasses do a similar job producing the Alcohols.

And many more examples of this, all in fully sustainable cycles that go back hundreds of millions of years on this planet, if not billions of years. They used to teach this "Carbon-cycle" stuff in primary schools...
~o0o~

We should also briefly consider the current, typical, on-board E-car energy stores. Frankly, I haven't bothered looking up any recent numbers, because last time I looked they were still well below 1 MJ/kg! (<- Anyone have numbers for the best modern batteries, super-capacitors, or other?)

Furthermore, this energy mostly gets into the E-car only after being extracted from COAL, by rather inefficient STEAM-ENGINES. Not to mention the many other, very inefficent, conversion processes that are involved (AC-transmission-losses, AC-DC-AC-conversion, +++). Oh yes, the coal-industry surely does love those E-cars!

Bottom-line here is that the various, presently available, means of storing energy in a way that can be easily used by E-motors are far too heavy to be a practical alternative to the above HC+O2 fuels (and this is mainly because you collect the O2 along the way). A half-ton E-battery that gets you ~100 miles is plain stupid!
~o0o~

So, what about "fuel-cell" powered E-cars?

These just take the chemical-energy in one of the above HydroCarbon fuels, or from straight Hydrogen, and convert it into electro-magnetic-energy, which the E-motor then converts into the useful mechanical-work.

So, if we accept that HC or H-only fuels are practical, safe, and can be "made from sunshine", then the relevant comparison is only between the relative costs, sizes, and efficiencies of,
1. Fuel-Cell + Electric-motor-drivetrain, on the one hand, and,
2. Explosion-engine-drivetrain, on the other.

In both cases, we should expect the "energy-bottle" (= fuel-tank) to be of similar size, cost, etc., for a given energy-capacity, and hopefully similar range of travel. Except that currently the common-as-muck HC-tanks (except Methane) are much more practical than H-only-tanks, and option-1 is still a lot bulkier and less efficient than option-2 (<-corrections welcome).
~o0o~

But, looking at all this in a Big-Picture way, the above two alternatives boil down to this.

1. Chemical-energy -> Electrical-energy -> Mechanical-work.
2. Chemical-energy -> Heat/pressure-energy -> Mechanical-work.

To repeat the obvious, once again..., there is another much simpler alternative. Namely,

0. Chemical-energy -> Mechanical-work!

Namely, cut out the middle-man!

But word-count is getting excessive now. So, for now, I numbered that last alternative with "0", because it was here a long time before 1 and 2. At least 500 million years before!

Put your hand in front of your face and LOOK! :)

Z

Swiftus

02-20-2016, 08:54 AM

Z - My neighbor has a 1964 Chevy Van 6 cyl diesel which has been converted to run on vegetable oil. He has a refinery in his backyard and they thing smells like french fries when he drives off to work each morning. Did I mention it is painted like the Mystery Machine? Its perfect.

I have a couple of questions for you since you have quite thought a lot about the sunshine to fuel conversion. If we grow our fuel with sunshine, it naturally is going to compete for space with vegetation we are growing for food. And the current population of the Earth sits at ~8B. Last I read it is expected the population of the world will grow another 50% in the next 100 years.

In the States the primary vegetation fermented into ethanol is corn and in Brazil sugar cane. If we ignore the reasons why corn was chosen, the plain fact here is that the current space which is being used to grow fuel can quite quickly be swapped over to growing food. What do you think can be done to grow fuel from sunshine in a way that doesn't impair the growing of food from sunshine? I've heard of possibly seeding 'cheatgrass' (although it doesn't really need much help...) since cheatgrass can grow just about anywhere is able to yield 400+lbs of seed per acre per year. But cheatgrass is so invasive there have been huge efforts to eradicate it from the States. Corn is on the order of 7000lbs per acre, but corn is harvested at ~27% by weight moisture.

Danschwind

02-20-2016, 03:33 PM

The primary vegetation for ethanol fermentation in Brazil is sugar cane, not corn.

02-20-2016, 08:23 PM

Some further additions to my earlier post (and specific response to Jay's post above).
~o0o~

1. Take 1 kg of Hydrogen gas (H2), add ~8 kg of Oxygen gas (O2), and a small spark, and 130 MJ of "chemical"-energy is released (as per previous table). This gives about 14 MJ/kg energy release for the TOTAL amount of fuel, which is not much more than any of the other HC+O2 fuels listed in the table (see example below). Hydrogen only has it "outstandingly high" figure when it is considered ALONE, and this is only because of its unusually lighweight nucleus. (The nuclei play no part in chemical reactions, with "chemistry" down to changes in the outer electron shells only.)

Nevertheless, since you can pick up the O2 along the way, the lightweight nature of H2 can be a big advantage because only a light fuel load is needed for long journeys. But, as noted, gaseous H2's very low volumetric energy density makes it rather impractical (unless frozen..., and even then it is quite low, taking up 3 to 4 times the volume of the other fuels).
~o0o~

2. Here is the CARBON-CYCLE (in brief).

The first half of the cycle begins with some kind of stationary plant, usually something greenish in colour that looks like ... a natural plant (although artificial plant/factories are possible, see below).

CO2 + H2O + Sunshine + Magic-of-photosynthesis => CmHn (ie. hydrocarbons) + O2

I didn't "balance" the equation because many different types of hydrocarbon (or carbohydrates = Cm(H2O)n, or other stuff) can be made.

The second half of the cycle is the useful one if you want to move around a lot, and you need some energy-dense fuel to do it. I show this half-cycle with the carbon in the form of propane (C3H8) to put numbers to the balancing.

C3H8 + 5 x (O2) => 3 x (CO2) + 4 x (H2O) + ENERGY!

In terms of kgs and MJs it is (roughly..., corrections welcome),
1 kg x propane + 3.6 kg oxygen => 3 kg carbon-dioxide + 1.6 kg water + 50 MJ energy,
(which is ~11 MJ/kg of the total mass of the input fuels).

BTW, propane is a cracker of a fuel! It should be allowed in FS/FSAE. The pressure bottles are very safe (I have seen them breeze through bushfires). It burns very "cleanly" (no soot). It has very high octane rating, plus good cooling effect when injected as a liquid, which means that close to diesel compression-ratios can be used in spark-ignition-engines, hence high thermal efficiency. A well-designed aircooled single running on propane would blitz all the usual FS engines, and return the best fuel-efficiency numbers by far (for a given car)!

Oh, and "LPG" (= liquid-petroleum-gas) is propane + butane (<- C4H10, also good) + water+rust+dirt+++. "Camping" or "BBQ" gas is normally straight propane, with less dirt.
~o0o~

3. Jay's question.

If we grow our fuel with sunshine, it naturally is going to compete for space with vegetation we are growing for food.
...
What do you think can be done to grow fuel from sunshine in a way that doesn't impair the growing of food from sunshine?

This is a common objection to "biofuels". It is really rather baseless. Ultimately, we have to decide whether to feed ourselves, or feed our "horses", or feed our profligate and energy-expensive lifestyles, or whether we can do a bit of each... Can we share the "food" around?

The same argument against biofuels (ie. that they take away our food), also works against the idea that "E-cars are the future, because we can collect all the energy they need from the sun, via solar panels". Okayyy... so where do you put all those solar panels? If you put them on farmland near the cities, then ... they steal all the food-crops' sunshine. Put them out in remote deserts ... and there are long transmission line losses...

Err, so maybe put the solar panels in a remote desert, and use the electricity they generate to turn water into Hydrogen (+O2), then pipe or truck the H2 back to the cities? But, if you are taking water out to the desert, then ... why not just grow sunflowers out there!? I have seen half-a-dozen crops of sunflowers pop-up out of the ground (from farmer's seeds) in one year, after one single flood in outback Oz.

All the above thinking can be extrapolated a long way. Ultimately (???), we might build a huge sphere of solar panels that completely surrounds the Sun. Exery single drop of sunshine is collected. But what to do with it? How to share it out? Is it all for us, or do the horses get some?
~o0o~

4. Whatever way the energy is shared out, I still reckon the best way to "package" it is in the form of chemical-energy trapped in the Carbon-cycle products of HydroCarbons + Oxygen.

The most obvious reason for this is that it suits our lifestyle so well!

Oxygen is a highly aggressive, corrosive, plain NASTY element, yet we get on quite well with it. In fact, no O2 for more than a few minutes and we keel over and die. We MUST be constantly surrounded by the stuff. So it seems reasonable that one part (and the larger part!) of our fuel-energy-store is simply pumped into the atmosphere that we MUST have surrounding us all the time. A great place to store the fuel, IMO!

And as for those HydroCarbons, well some people keel over in sheer delight from the merest whiff of a deep-fried cholestrol burger! (I prefer ... mmmmm ... chocolate!). In short, HC+O2 is the most palatable way of storing our, or our horses', energy needs, with the least likely toxic waste products.

So, if we ever get around to building that Sun-surrounding-sphere, then I reckon we should pipe all that sunshine-energy to some "plant" (could be an artificial one, though green slime also works...) and use it to produce lots of HCs and O2s for consumption by us and our horses.
~o0o~

5. Which leaves the question of how to convert the chemical-energy in HC+O2, into the mechanical-work of a force acting over a distance, which is the whole "useful" point of this exercise?

Should there be an intermediary stage of Heat-energy, ... or Electrical-energy, ... or can it be done DIRECTLY?

Z

rmk36

02-22-2016, 02:47 PM

For the record and so that everybody knows my true colors, I do contribute to Bernie Sanders election.

Claude, just out of curiosity, why did you set up shop in Denver as opposed to Europe? I know you have often applauded the European way of government and many of your seminar jokes poo-poo the normative US economic ways.

Claude Rouelle

02-22-2016, 04:20 PM

Ryan,

The short answer is Love.

*****

That being said I criticize US and give praise to European countries when I teach seminars in the US....and vice versa when I am in Europe. I am controversial; otherwise I would not be a design judge!

And Denver is a very nice place to live. http://www.thegoodlifedenver.com/2014/10/21/its-official-young-people-love-denver/

For the food, Denver is good but there is no place like Italy! :)

Claude

MegaDeath

02-22-2016, 08:06 PM

For the record and so that everybody knows my true colors, I do contribute to Bernie Sanders election.

Not here to provide any benefit to this discussion, just want to drop this off.

rmk36

02-22-2016, 09:25 PM

Ryan,

The short answer is Love.

Claude

Claude,

If I can convince Bernie to propose a total ban on yaw moment diagrams, will you stop contributing?

Mbirt

02-22-2016, 09:26 PM

The short answer is Love.

Hillary loves NASCAR.

Danschwind

02-23-2016, 09:07 PM

Pro-tip from a guy living a socialist country: Don't be a socialist.

Kevin Hayward

02-24-2016, 04:09 AM

Pro-tip from a guy living a socialist country: Don't be a socialist.

Danschwind,

A US socialist is usually pretty far removed from a real socialist.

I found living there that the right wing in Australia more closely resembles the US left wing. We would see someone like Obama as being pretty centrist, and the Clintons more likely to be in our right party (Liberal). Probably a holdover from huge over-reaching socialist scare campaigns in the US. I would also argue that the Australian left wing is probably far from the socialist agenda of your own country. Trump probably scares people in our country about as much as Castro would.

On top of that there is no real clear example of real people being all left or all right. I would probably hold to a view of financial conservatism and personal liberty. Keep the red terror away from from long term investment, but don't let the capitalist scum dismantle public safety nets. The reality is that elements of both socialism and capitalism have merit.

My Claude equals the FSAE Trump comment was playful in intent. While we have differences in how we approach the comp, I know that we have much closer political opinions.

Encourage and allow people to soar, but be there to catch them if they fall.

Kev

Danschwind

02-24-2016, 09:14 AM

Keep this line of thought and in a 20 years span, you will be living in a socialism like Brazil is now.

The gradualism is strong in your speech, and that is the way most leftists build their power. I know because I've felt its effects.

There is absolutely no merit in socialism. Only a free-market system, with civil liberty, is capable of generating wealth.

Bernie is more to the left than Dilma Rousseff or Lula is, and trust me: they simply destroyed our country, both in economical ways (and their solution for that is, guess what, MORE state, MORE control, MORE taxes) and with a classes-war that is unbelievable for anyone not living it.

And I'm not telling people to vote Trump, Cruz, Clinton...I'm telling them to vote Paul in the next oportunity :D

Kevin Hayward

02-24-2016, 07:27 PM

The gradualism is strong in your speech, and that is the way most leftists build their power. I know because I've felt its effects.

Whoa,

Steady on there big fella.

I take voting to be a great responsibility and privilege, and am glad to be living in a democratic country. Since I have been of voting age I have voted for both our left and right parties, based on the policies and character of the people running for office at a given time. Blind following of an ideology without consideration of current circumstances is a recipe for disorder.

Kev

Danschwind

02-24-2016, 08:32 PM

That is exactly what brazilians thought in 2002. "If it is bad the way it is, lets change!"

Result: 16 years in power. Legislative, Judiciary and Public-Owned Companies (!!!!) dominated by ideologists of the ruling party. Attempt to change things? STRIKES!!!!!!!!!

Swiftus

02-24-2016, 09:20 PM

4. Whatever way the energy is shared out, I still reckon the best way to "package" it is in the form of chemical-energy trapped in the Carbon-cycle products of HydroCarbons + Oxygen....
Z
I am really interested in this line of thinking in general. President Obama mentioned artificial photosynthesis in his State of the Union address when he was talking up renewable energies. UC Berkeley has a research program which recently published a paper entitled "Nanowire–Bacteria Hybrids for Unassisted Solar Carbon Dioxide Fixation to Value-Added Chemicals" (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01254?journalCode=nalefd). Essentially, they have figured out a way to get sunshine to turn water and air into hydrocarbon chains with electricity and bacteria. Pretty neat research.

The primary idea is that you could cease the extraction of hydrocarbons from the earth and simply recycle the carbons already in the atmosphere and they re-run them through the same kinds of combustion engines we have right now. Straightforward and very easy to implement with the current infrastructure around the world. We just have to solve the issues with NOs that end up being emitted.

3. Jay's question.

This is a common objection to "biofuels". It is really rather baseless. Ultimately, we have to decide whether to feed ourselves, or feed our "horses", or feed our profligate and energy-expensive lifestyles, or whether we can do a bit of each... Can we share the "food" around?

The same argument against biofuels (ie. that they take away our food), also works against the idea that "E-cars are the future, because we can collect all the energy they need from the sun, via solar panels". Okayyy... so where do you put all those solar panels? If you put them on farmland near the cities, then ... they steal all the food-crops' sunshine. Put them out in remote deserts ... and there are long transmission line losses...

Err, so maybe put the solar panels in a remote desert, and use the electricity they generate to turn water into Hydrogen (+O2), then pipe or truck the H2 back to the cities? But, if you are taking water out to the desert, then ... why not just grow sunflowers out there!? I have seen half-a-dozen crops of sunflowers pop-up out of the ground (from farmer's seeds) in one year, after one single flood in outback Oz.

All the above thinking can be extrapolated a long way. Ultimately (???), we might build a huge sphere of solar panels that completely surrounds the Sun. Exery single drop of sunshine is collected. But what to do with it? How to share it out? Is it all for us, or do the horses get some?
~o0o~

Heh - extrapolating all the way to absorbing all of the Sun's energy is a little too far sighted for my thinking. Maybe our future terminator robot overlords will be faced with that issue.

As for the competition - I think there are many places on earth where an energy production like solar will not compete with 'food' production of any kind simply because there are places which are very inhospitable to life. But your larger point of how to store the energy generated is one that is very interesting. The folks over at Berkeley have the similar idea of storing it in a fuel which is 10 times as energy dense as our current batteries.

02-25-2016, 08:46 PM

Jay,

Essentially, they have figured out a way to get sunshine to turn water and air into hydrocarbon chains [+O2] with electricity and bacteria. Pretty neat research.

I don't want to labour the point, but Nature figured out how to do that billions of years ago. And Nature does a cracking good job of it, in many different ways. We humans don't really have to add, or INVENT, anything, because we can get a lot further ahead than we are now, by just copying what Nature has already been doing for aeons.

I recall one proposal that involves some sort of "algae farms" out at sea. Not sure of all the details, but algae is basically "green slime" that can photosynthesize. There is much acreage of sunlight shining on the oceans, and I recall very reasonable numbers for megajoules-put-in-a-HC-bottle, per acre.

Another real-world example was Brazil in the 1970s after the first big OPEC "oil-shock". I recall Brazil being a bit miffed at the sudden increase in oil prices, so ... pretty much overnight they shifted their vehicle fuel economy to ethanol, which was derived from their then huge surplus of sugar-cane. Perhaps Daniel has better knowledge of the details, but I recall ethanol being well over half of the total fuel consumed. (Edit: But when oil prices dropped again, the use of ethanol also dropped. Daniel?)

And given the obesity problems in much of the Western world, shifting corn production in USA and elsewhere (which mainly goes to corn-syrup "sweeteners" for human consumption), to "food for the horses" would probably benefit everyone.
~o0o~

The primary idea is that you could cease the extraction of hydrocarbons from the earth and simply recycle the carbons already in the atmosphere and then re-run them through the <strike>same kinds of combustion</strike> engines we have right now. Straightforward and very easy...

Yep, the Carbon-cycle is well proven. A real winner on this planet!

The problem is with the entrenched elements in our societies that profit from digging up those buried hydrocarbons.

Taking coal as an example (because there is enough of it for a long time yet), I reckon the coal-lobby are among the greatest supporters of the "Electric cars are the future!" ideology. As noted, the "free electricity from the sun" argument has two flaws, in that the solar-acreage needed either 1- competes directly with food production, or 2- it has to be sited so far away from where it is used that there are huge transmission costs and losses.

"BUT (!)", say the coal-lobby, "what if we build a brand-new, shiny power-plant, right next to the city? It is VERY SMALL in area, so it doesn't compete with the farms. And it produces CHEAP, CLEAN, ELECTRICITY, perfect for all the urban-greenies, who can drive their EMISSION FREE E-CARS all around town. And ... [note this now common argument->] any emissions from our combustion power-plants are much easier to treat at the single, central source, rather than from all those horrible little IC engines!"

Yep, E-cars sure are good news for the coal-industry. :)

(Of course, it is up to all you young people to use your "critical thinking" skills to determine whether "E-cars really are the future". Just because someone (Big-Coal, Claude?) says it is so, does NOT necessarily mean it is so.)
~o0o~

We just have to solve the issues with NOs that end up being emitted.

It is worth noting that the holy-grail of Hydrogen-power, "Whose only emission is PURE WATER!", has this same problem when used in IC-engine form.

Any process that heats air up to a few thousand degrees C, such as happens in all common heat-engines, risks converting some of the N2 molecules into NOs. The solution, as has been thoroughly tested by all the past research into IC engines, is to get the gases hot enough to give good thermal efficiency (= Carnot-cycle, etc.), but not so hot that the N2s start breaking up. Apparently Nitrogen bonds are exceptionally strong, so high temps for good efficiency are still possible, just as long as you don't go too high.

But ... the better solution, IMO, is still to cut-out the middle-man. Do away with the conversion-to-heat-energy step in the middle.

Go from chemical-energy in HC+O2, DIRECTLY to mechanical-energy/work.

Big hint on how to do that in my first paragraph of this post. :)

Z