Dr Automotive Design and Tools

Esattamente come cinque anni fa: squadra nuova e al lavoro da subito. La cura Marchionne per la Chrysler è la stessa da lui adottata nell'estate del 2004 per la Fiat appena dopo il suo arrivo al Lingotto. Nel decidere di praticarla nuovamente in America non può non aver messo in conto la "paura" di cui riferiva ieri il Financial Times. Lo ha fatto, così come lo aveva fatto a Torino, quando mise assieme la squadra con la quale aveva messo in atto la rivoluzione che avrebbe portato al salvataggio e al rilancio dell'azienda torinese. E se ci riprova oggi è perché, dopo aver verificato che qui ha funzionato, non ha motivo di pensare che non possa avvenire lo stesso anche in America. Il suo obiettivo dichiarato è quello di fare in modo che Chrysler non bruci quotidianamente risorse finanziarie come sta accadendo oggi. Tanto più che nei suoi programmi c'è ancora un pezzo di strada da percorrere verso il raggiungimento della soglia di sopravvivenza dei 6 milioni di vetture prodotte all'anno. Su questa strada presto potrebbe trovarsi nuovamente la Opel la cui partita con Magna non è ancora chiusa. E noi siamo pronti, ripetono a Torino, purché ce lo dicano e non continuino col teatrino delle dichiarazioni ai giornali. Ha scritto il FT che il discorso inaugurale del neo ad di Chrysler ha lasciato "stordito" il personale, colpito dall'annuncio della drastica riorganizzazione del personale affidata a una squadra di 23 dirigenti che riporteranno direttamente a lui. Di questi soltanto tre sono di estrazione Fiat mentre gli altri sono stati scelti tra gli uomini della vecchia azienda, come Peter Fong che, terzo livello fino a qualche giorno fa, è stato nominato chief executive del brand Chrysler, il più acciaccato rispetto a Jeep e Dodge. Da Torino, oltre ad Alfredo Altavilla, capo di FPT e gran negoziatore sul fronte americano che farà parte del cda, arriveranno a Auburn Hills, Richard Palmer con l'incarico di direttore finanziario, Pietro Gorlier che sarà responsabile di Mopar (ricambi) e Gualberto Ranieri al quale è stata affidata la comunicazione. Anche a Torino, cinque anni fa, la prima mosse di Marchionne era stata accompagnata da malumori, critiche, qualche delusione: soprattutto da parte degli esclusi. Mentre c'erano anche quelli che mal sopportavano il ritmo di lavoro del nuovo ad e la sua tendenza ad alzare costantemente l'asticella degli obiettivi. I risultati poi hanno dato ragione a lui e per questo egli li ha ricordati nella lettera inviata tre giorni fa ai dipendenti della Nuova Chrysler. I quali dovranno adattarsi al metodo Marchionne, a tutti i livelli. Una conferma? Tornato ieri nel quartier generale del Michigan, quello da lui definito "inutilmente vasto come due volte il Pentagono", l'ad del Lingotto e della nuova Chrysler, ha convocato la squadra per una riunione che si protrarrà anche oggi. Marchionne vuole fare in fretta perché ha promesso che "nei prossimi mesi avrà inizio il processo di trasferimento delle tecnologie Fiat, piattaforme e motori per le piccole e medie vetture di Chrysler". E da subito deve preparare il terreno per la produzione in U.S.A. di Fiat e Alfa Romeo. Nella nuova Chrysler si lavorerà per brand sul piano commerciale e per piattaforme su quello produttivo, l'esatto opposto di come si è lavorato finora. A questa "novità vincente" Marchionne non intende rinunciare.
(Fonte: www.repubblica.it - 14/6/2009)

SAAB Automobile is to be sold to Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg. US automaker General Motors has signed a tentative agreement with Koenigsegg to sell its beleaguered unit, GM said in a statement on Tuesday.

Koenigsegg, founded in 1994 by Swedish businessman Christian von Koenigsegg, has just 45 employees and produces 18 Super cars a year for more than a €1 million ($1.4 million) each. Saab Automobile employs about 3,400 people in Sweden and sold 93,000 cars worldwide in 2008.

Reports from Swedish news service Realtid say that Koenigsegg is eager to get their electric concept supercar, called the Quant - which develops 512 hp (382 Kw) and 715 Nm through its twin electric motors - into production, and the company views Saab’s knowledge and facilities as the key.

Developed in partnership with Swedish company NLV Solar AG, specialists in photo voltaics and electrical power technology, the Quant was launched at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year with wild claims of previously unheard of Flow Accumulator Energy Storage (FAES), a thin layer photovoltaic coating over the entire car and 500 km range.



The NLV Quant is a rear-wheel drive, with four-wheel regenerative braking (no details yet on how the front captures energy), ABS and ESP. It is powered by two AC induction electric motors connected to each rear wheel via in-line planetary step down drive, one for each rear wheel with the twin motor layout eliminating the need for bevel gears or a differential.

It will be very interesting to see how much of this concept car technology makes it onto the production version.

We recently wrote about some new wireless charging technologies that broke cover at the 2009 CES and wondered aloud if some of them might make their way into the electric vehicle market, particularly induction coupling whose simple mat like induction coil antenna lends itself to under car charging in parking spots or even at traffic lights. Well, it turns out the CEO over at WiTricity has had the same thoughts and is announcing a WiTricity product at the "First German Electric Vehicle Conference" in Bonn Germany today.

There will be two configurations used to charge Evs. The first being the aforementioned mat form factor that can easily be installed in home garages and commercial parking stations. The second is a vertical antenna that presumably lines up with a cars bumper. The vertical installation being more practical where perhaps embedding a coil in the road surface is not cost effective such as road side or curb parking.

No technical details have been released as yet but we'll keep you posted.

Hyundai Motor Co has announced they will accept pre-launch orders for their first hybrid electric vehicle from today. The price of the car will be disclosed before its Korean launch on July 8.

Based on the Avante 4 door sedan, the car is powered by a 1.6-liter 4 cyl engine that runs on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) with a 15kW/105Nm electric motor mated to a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) and powered by lithium polymer batteries.

The car has been specifically designed to run on LPG, which is a waste by-product from refining petroleum, and is often sold alongside petrol at a much reduced price. LPG has a lower energy density than either petrol or diesel, so the equivalent fuel consumption is higher. This needs to be take this into consideration when comparing LPG mpg to gasoline mpg figures.

Hyundai say the LPI hybrid covers 17.8 kilometers per liter of LPG, which according to the company is equivalent to 22.2 kilometers per liter in a gasoline-powered vehicle. That's 42 mpg (U.S.), equivalent to 52 mpg (U.S.) in a gasoline-powered vehicle.

Secondo Verheugen, commissario UE all’industria, l’accordo sul caso Opel sembra avvantaggiare solo i russi. Insomma, per il tedesco la soluzione Magna non va bene. In un articolo pubblicato sul giornale tedesco “Die Welt” Verheugen annuncia che ne chiederà un esame accurato presso la Commissione europea. «La Commissione europea non può consentire che questo piano passi automaticamente, deve essere esaminato dalla prima all’ultima riga perché deve offrire garanzie che l’azienda sopravviva e sia competitiva a lungo». La Opel è stata ceduta grazie agli 1,5 miliardi di euro di garanzie fornite dal governo tedesco e ai 700 milioni di euro promessi dalla società di componentistica auto canadese Magna. Secondo l’accordo GM conserverà il 35 per cento della società, i sindacati avranno il 10. Magna controllerà il 20 per cento e la banca statale russa Sberbank insieme alla società automobilistica russa GAZ avrà il rimanente 35 per cento. «Finora nessun investitore si è fatto avanti in tutto il mondo per continuare le attività di GM Europe senza aiuti statali. Questo dimostra che i rischi sono molto alti» sostiene Verheugen, secondo cui «gli unici a correre relativamente pochi rischi entrando in General Motors Europe sono i russi perché avranno accesso a una tecnologia più moderna per costruire una loro industria automobilistica, adatta per le esportazioni».
(Fonte: www.welt.de - 15/6/2009)

General Motors and personal mobility pioneer Segway have revealed a two-wheel, two-seater prototype vehicle they’ve code named Project P.U.M.A (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility). The self-balancing electric “car” is designed to transport two adults in a seated position, and can travel up to 25 and 35 miles (40 - 56 km) powered by large format lithium-ion batteries on as little as $0.60 worth of electricity.

The 300 lb (136 kg) zero-emissions vehicle has a top speed of 35 mph (56kph) and is powered by two electric wheel motors. The control system is based on the original Segway with dynamic balancing and drive-by-wire for acceleration, steering, and braking. It also features vehicle-to-vehicle communications, digital smart energy management and a dockable user interface that allows off-board connectivity.

Pricing wasn't announced but is expected to be one-fourth to one-third the cost of what you pay to own and operate today's automobile. GM said it hopes to have the vehicle in production by 2012. The Segway Personal Transporter debuted with great fanfare in 2001, and has found a niche market, but failed to "be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy," as its inventor, Dean Kamen, predicted. We're not sure that what is effectively a two seater electric wheel chair with a roll cage will fair any better but it's encouraging to see GM actively working on electric vehicles with wheel motors and drive-by-wire automated dynamic controls. It will be interesting to see if those developments are incorporated into more conventional GM electric vehicles in the future.

It's also possible for the technically skilled to build their own open source DIY balancing electric vehicle.

As electric vehciles go, the Segway is certainly a unique way to get around and to the casual observer, the way the device operates might seem to defy gravity. There are quite a few DIY projects around the Internet including standard two-wheeled upright versions, unicycles and one wheeled skate boards that operate on the same self-balancing principle. Now a kind soul named Geoffrey Bennett has released an open source version of the firmware required to operate a ride on robot free, allowing anyone with basic mechanical ability and some electronics skills to build their very own self-balancing transport.

The ride-on robot named "Meta" was built by Geoffrey who openly admits that “hardware isn't my thing” so mechanically it’s of fairly simple construction with dimensions based around the choice of motors and batteries used. It couldn’t be simpler, two pieces of wood, one broomstick some duct tape and miscellaneous parts from the local hardware store.

Basic construction

The basic requirements are two wheels driven by motors, a platform to stand on, batteries to provide power, sensors to detect leaning, electronics to drive the motors and software to drive the electronics. The motors selected for this project are off a used electric wheel chair. The motors come complete with a hub, wheel and gearbox all in a single unit. Some rudimentary brackets can be used to mount these between the two wooden boards. The batteries used are six 12 volt sealed lead acid batteries chosen because they are cheap, heavy for ballast and easy to recharge. These are mounted between the motors on the wood platform.

The sensors used in are an accelerometer, which measure gravity or G and a gyroscope that detects changes in angle. These components may sound exotic and something you might only find in a spacecraft. With many thanks to the auto industry these components have been in mass production for quite some time to be used in safety features such as airbags and stability control. Both the accelerometer and gyroscope chips can be bought for as little as UDS$115 on a small circuit broad from robotics hobby stores.

Affordable electronics

Next on the list of electronics is something to drive the motors. This project uses something called the Open Source Motor Controller (OCMC) and again robots enthusiast web sites come to the rescue with a 50 volt 160 amp DC motor controller being available for USD$169 in kit form. This is a simple H Bridge type motor driver and it uses one for each wheel.

The electronic fun starts with building a circuit to drive those two motor control boards. This circuit needs to take inputs from the accelerometer, gyro and steering joystick, do some calculations and send pulse width modulation signals to drive the motors. To do this we need some computer power but not the kind of PC you are no doubt reading this story on but something with a small faction of the power. This DIY project uses an Atmel 8-bit processor that only has 1kb of ram and 16kb of memory.

Most people are familiar with how a self-balancing ride on robot operates but lets review the basics. The original Segway is a 2-wheeled self-balancing vehicle. To move forward the rider leans forward, to go faster he/she leans forward more. Lean back to slow down, stop and go backwards. To turn twist the handlebars (a joystick in this case). The primary function is to remain upright. If you lean forward, the circuitry moves the wheels forward to try and make the vehicle upright again. The rider is in fact in a controlled fall towards the ground with the vehicle catching the fall. To do this with software requires some complex mathematics called Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) and that’s where the ‘open source’ part of this project comes in very handy. PID is a very well known and often used software technique but well beyond anyone with only a casual interest in mathematics or software development. Luckily there are many free examples available that are no harder to burn onto a small processor than burning a CD.

So if you want a Segway-like steed but don’t want to pay the price and don’t mind the DIY, then join the legion of high schools kids around the world who have made their own for a fraction of the cost and learned a great deal into the bargain.

Follow this link for video, code and a slide presentation on Meta.