Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) producers must be feeling the heat from electric vehicles (EVs) --enter the deltawing car, "half the weight, half the fuel, half the horsepower, all the speed.":
The Deltawing currently only exists as a race car, one that was designed under the mantra “half the weight, half the fuel, half the horsepower, all the speed.” But Panoz (a Georgia-based low-volume car company from the man who invented the nicotine patch) wants to make road-going Deltawings, saying that you don’t need 300 horsepower to go fast; 1.4 L and 138 horsepower should be enough. Oh, and it’ll get 57 mpg combined.
The concept originally appeared when IndyCar requested proposals for a new car for its series. The Deltawing promised speeds would be as fast as ever—about 230 mph at Indianapolis—with just 300 horsepower. An idea too radical for Indianapolis found a more welcoming reception in Le Mans, France, becoming a cult favorite. Viewed from above, it’s obvious why it’s called a Deltawing; the front track (the width between the front wheels) is tiny compared to the rear, with a pair of skinny tires that look far too small to go around corners quickly. Three quarters of the car’s weight is over the rear wheels, and there’s much less of that weight to begin with.
...
Panoz isn’t the only company who think the Deltawing is a good idea. Last year, Nissan revealed the Bladeglider concept car, built to the same idea.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:26AM
At first I was thinking "cool dude" and was going to go off on how the 82 Subaru wagon I had in college got 30 mpg and how that is still a rather high efficiency rate ... then I read this:
Now he sounds like an asshole. Hopefully, someone else builds the car without the bullshit licensing charges built in to the cost and patch boy can go fuck himself.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:46AM
tfa has a link to another article that tells more of the story -- worth reading before you come down hard on Panoz:
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/1503-panoz-vs-nissan-lawsuit-overshadows-deltawing-road-car-plan/ [automobilemag.com]
The court case is continuing and as of this story, Nissan employees appear to have been caught fighting dirty. It's an interesting legal battle--very few private individuals (of any net worth) have gone to court against a large auto company over IP.
Panoz is hardly a patent troll, he is continuing the Deltawing development with a new and very experienced lead designer, Brian Willis:
http://www.deltawingracing.com/news [deltawingracing.com]
Panoz has a history of backing innovative designs including the Panoz GTP with mid-front engine -- fairly successful on the tire sizes that were mandated for the series at that time.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Monday March 30 2015, @04:11AM
http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/nissan-deltawing-and-the-legal-tangle-that-is-the-bladeglider.html/?a=viewall [cheatsheet.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:29AM
From TFA: ". Nissan and Panoz are now fighting over who owns the IP rights to the Deltawing, a legal battle that looks rather vicious from the outside."
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/1503-panoz-vs-nissan-lawsuit-overshadows-deltawing-road-car-plan/ [automobilemag.com]
They do look alike. The difference is Nissan's concept is an EV and Panoz's is an ICE. These days when one can hardly tell the difference between a Mercedes and a Kia from 100 meters, Similar looks hardly seem a good basis for a lawsuit.
http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/nissan-bladeglider-concept-leading-edge-ev-technology-drives-the-future [nissannews.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:01AM
Tied to the "looks" of the Deltawing are a bunch of innovative aerodynamic features. The balance between air drag and downforce is a major factor in the success of any modern race car. The lawsuit is not about the type of powertrain.
Also, the Nissan LeMans car was a hybrid -- with enough batteries to make one full speed lap of LeMans under battery power after the gas tank ran dry. A clever way to use all the fuel in the tank before having to pit and refuel.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:50AM
You don't need hundreds of horses. Way back in 1976, I had a Chevy Nova six banger with "only" 110 ponies. That car would run right up to 100 mph, and hold that speed all day long - or until the gas ran out. The car only got 18 mpg from the factory, but with some bolt-on mods from Clifford Research, and some diddling around under the hood, I managed to squeeze 22 mpg out of it. Open road mileage reached 25 mpg a few times, 24 was more normal. Who drives over 100 mph, anyway?
Today, my commuter is less than half of that horsepower. Depending on who you talk to, the engine produces anywhere between 35 and 50 horses.
I fell in love with Honda's GL500 Silverwing Interstate. Basically, it's half of a Goldwing. 53 mpg, and it runs right up to 100 mph. The limiting factor(s) are the igniters - they will only send 10,000 sparks to the spark plugs per minute. No more, that's it. 10,000 RPM is equal to 100 mph in fifth gear. Yeah, I've gone quite a bit faster on two wheels (and four, and eighteen) but really, WTF routinely drives at 100 mph? Seriously - I really want to know who is actually utilizing all that horsepower in their 200 to 500 horsepower cars?
BTW - many of those claimed horsepower ratings are entirely bogus anyway. Check up on that formula being used to compute horsepower. Those of us who have driven big trucks know what a horsepower does. It moves mass (or weight) from one place to another at some given speed. One must adjust for friction and wind resistance, but a little old 250 hp naturally aspirated Cummins diesel moved 40 tons down the road at speeds of 75 to 80 mph, way back in the '70's. Anyone can do the math, if they choose. Today's automobiles being marketed as having hundreds of horses under the hood simply can't touch diesel engines rated at half that power. Strap those bad boy cars to a dynometer, and put them to the test. Most of them probably won't produce 200 horses where it counts - where the rubber meets the asphalt.
In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, I'm from a previous generation. I've driven muscle cars, "sleepers", and old beaters. I've driven powerful trucks, and not-so-powerful trucks. I've ridden crotch rockets that get real close to 200 mph, and I've ridden little scooters that had trouble reaching 25 mph. I do know what "horsepower" is, and I know how to use it.
Next time some jerk of a salesman tries to sell you on 200 plus horsepower, ask him to PROVE that he is selling all those ponies. Chances are high that he is selling hot air.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:18AM
Apparently your math and physics is bad. You don't seem to understand acceleration, force, drag, etc..
Those modern claimed horsepower numbers are real, but there is an issue with them -- the engine has to be spinning at 5500 rpm or more to achieve that output. A modern 250 hp engine could haul the same truck down the road at 75 to 80 mph, but the engine would be screaming and the life of the engine would be short, but that doesn't mean that the claimed horsepower isn't available on demand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:41AM
Not to mention the second you started actually putting weight in that truck? Yeah good luck even hitting 70mph on the freeway. I'll be the first to admit my Yukon with that big ass Vortec V8 is a piggie but ya know what? I can throw a 3 piece band WITH the gear in there and all of us ride comfortably, or when the daughter-in-law is sick the wife can drive all four kids safely without them being so squished you end up with an hour of "she's touching me!" going on and on AND ON for the entire trip. Vehicles like TFA are for the "sorry about your penis" midlife crisis guys trying to recapture their youth, it ain't got a chance as a day to day car to make a real difference.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, we need a "people's car/truck/SUV" built on the same platform so parts and repairs will be cheap, diesel engine so it can be switched to biofuel down the line, that can haul a decent load and gets a minimum of 40MPG. You do that and get it under $20k along with offering a cash for clunkers to get all the road hogs the poor drive off the road (which is why despite years of higher MPG ratings the USA still has an average of only 20MPG) and you'll make a REAL impact on the environment. As long as the focus is on $80K+ electric toys for the rich, or fricking batmobiles like TFA? It'll have exactly jack and squat to do with the bottom line.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:24AM
I believe that my grasp of horsepower might be better than you suspect. I also believe that you are confusing torque with horsepower. My commuter, with only 35 ponies, has relatively much more torque than most automobiles. My motorcycle accelerates much more quickly than most autos. Meaning, I can get the jump on a cop car, and accelerate madly away from him for the first 1/4 mile or so. But then, I hit top speed, and he continues to accelerate, until he catches up to me - unless I change direction. That precious torque means that I can decelerate, turn, and accelerate out of a turn much, much, MUCH more quickly than he can.
But, back to horsepower. As I mentioned, if a 250 hp diesel can accelerate 40 tons to 80 mph, then how fast should a 500 hp engine get a 1 1/2 ton automobile going? Go ahead now, do the math. Then, tell me which vehicles have actually gone that fast on the salt flats.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:28AM
Well, let's see.
On the car, there are effectively two forces acting: One ultimately coming from the engine, driving the car forward (I'll ignore friction losses in the mechanical power transmission to the wheels), and air friction (independent from mass, but heavily dependent on speed). I'm going to ignore road friction because at the speeds involved, it won't be significant compared to air friction. The car is at its maximal speed when the friction force compensates the driving force from the engine (if the driving force were larger, the car would accelerate; if it were lower, it would decelerate).
So we have Fengine = Ffriction.
Since we will ignore any transmision losses, the engine force is easily calculated: We just have to solve the relation between force and power, P = Fv, for the force; F = P/v. What we already see here is that the force the engine can provide goes quickly down with speed.
Air friction goes as Ffriction = ½ cW ρ A v². We see that it grows dramatically with speed. We also see that the mass does not enter at all (ρ is the air density, not the car density). The mass is relevant for acceleration, but not for maximum speed.
Equating the forces and solving for velocity therefore gives v = (2 P/ρ cW A)1/3.
We are interested in the relation between the maximal speed of a passenger car and a truck. The air density (and the factor 2) cancel out. For the power, the assumption you gave is that the passenger car has twice the power of the truck. I think for the cross section area, I think we can safely assume the one of the truck is 3 times as large. For the drag coefficient, Wikipedia gives a list here. [wikipedia.org] The lowest ones that are found in ICE cars with substantial power is 0.24 (the three below are a low-power car and two electric cars). A typical truck, according to the same list, has a drag coefficient of 0.6. That's a factor of 2.5 for the truck.
So inserting all that, we get vpassenger ≈ vtruck × (2 × 3 × 2.5)1/3 ≈ 80 mph × 2.5 = 200 mph
However note that many car manufacturers (like Mercedes and BMW) artificially limit their cars to 250 km/h (155 mph). So for those manufacturers, the speed is not limited by horsepower, but by electronics.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:23AM
Beautiful post, Maxwell.
I am also quite impressed with your mastery of getting mathematical formulas formatted properly complete with the proper Greek symbology.
Do you use a special editor to do it?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:11AM
No, just the character map (to find the greek character — ρ is U+03C1, BTW), the Compose key (to easily enter ½ — [Compose] [1] [2] — and × — [Compose] [x] [x]), and the fact that SoylentNews supports the HTML tags <sub> (for subscripts, cw) and <sup> (for exponents, 21/3). Oh, and since I'm using a German keyboard layout, the raised 2 character (²) can be accessed directly as [AltGr]+[2]. The editor I used is the standard Firefox text input box.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:57PM
Wow... I have some practicing to do...
I did not think you could do it with standard issue tools.
Thanks!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:28AM
You're doing a fair job there. But, only fair. You lost it when you stated "The mass is relevant for acceleration, but not for maximum speed." Over time, the definition of a horsepower has changed somewhat, but I'll take the metric horsepower for convenience.
One metric horsepower is needed to lift 75 kilograms (avg. body weight of a person) by 1 meter (3.28 feet) in 1 second.
As you can see, the definition is highly dependent on mass. If no mass is being moved, then no work is being done, therefore, there is no horsepower.
No friction? Do you really mean that friction is negligible? Really, seriously? Please, get out of you 4-wheeled cage, and study motorcycling. Begin reading any of the masters of the motorcycling sports, and you will quickly realized how very dependent we cyclists are on friction. My little quarter ton machine generates one HELL of a lot of friction, and I use it, I rely on it, to control my machine. Elementary physics will tell you that automobiles and trucks generate proportianately more friction. That is, a typical auto experiences about six times the friction that my machine does, a large SUV or pickup 8 x, and a loaded eighteen wheeler about 160 x the friction.
And - your very LIFE depends on that friction! Without that friction, you couldn't hold your vehicle on the road when you come to a curve!
Next time you drive hard to get somewhere, take a moment, and feel your tires. Just get out, put your hand on your tires, and see how warm they are. How do they get so hot?
You do get points for observing that auto manufacturers artificially limit speed. That was made obvious with the Ford Taladega, and it's wins in racing. The racing associations changed the rules, and established limits to the horsepower available to race cars.
Production vehicles have a similar, but more secretive history. You'll find precious few production automobiles that can compete with the Ford Taladega. In fact, the Taladega had a very limited production run, becuase that vehicle broke some of the unofficial rules. No production vehicle is ever supposed to be that damned fast!
And, my motorcycles have a similar history. Today, the Hayabusa is the fastest production motorcycle in the world. Only the bad boys ride them. The United States doesn't like that bike. The government really and truly does NOT like that machine - and there is plenty of noise about banning the machine from being imported. The Hayabusa breaks the rules - to much power, to much speed, and the cops can't catch it.
And, THAT is the bottom line for law enforcement, and those who depend on law enforcement. If the cops can't catch it, then it has to be outlawed.
Of course, us REALLY bad boys know how to modify a production motorcycle, so banning the 'Busa won't solve anything for law enforcement.
It's a game. The cops and the "Law and Order" people generally win that game, but a lot of us have to keep challenging the bastards.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:42AM
"The mass" here of course referred to the mass of the vehicle. The mass of the air is, of course, very relevant to the maximum speed (as it enter the air friction through ρ, the mass density). Of course that should have been obvious to anyone with a minimum of reading comprehension.
And what exactly did you intend with the quoting of the definitioon of the horsepwer? Yes, it contains a mass. And the definition of the second contains a caesium atom. Does this mean that the number of caesium atoms in an object is relevant for the time that object needs e.g. to fall down?
In determining the maximal speed of the vehicle the road friction (not friction in general; I explicitly used air friction) is negligible. This is so not because that friction is negligible in general, but because at the relevant speeds the air friction is much larger than the road friction (that is, that friction which tries to slow down the car; that is different from the friction that is needed to actually transfer wheel torque into a force on the vehicle — you generally want to minimize the former, but maximize the latter), and therefore the road friction at that speed (did you get that yet?) would only affect the maximal speed top an amount far below any uncertainties introduced by other factors (like the using of rounded values).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @04:58PM
Alright, I ask you to perform and experiment. Get a vehicle, any vehicle. Find out how fast you can drive it with only your own body mass inside (or on) the vehicle. Afterward, drive down to your local lumber supply, and purchase as many sacks of quik-crete as can be loaded inside of the vehicle (or on it). We want the tires to squat now. A lot of this depends on the vehicle you are using, but make those tires squat and bulge a little. We don't care about the suspension much, it's the tires that count more than anything. If you are afraid of damaging your vehicle, beg borrow or steal an old beater that you don't care about. Take that loaded vehicle out on the road, and see how fast it will go. Please post here the make and model of your vehicle, it's tare weight, and the gross weight on both runs, along with the maximum speed attained on both runs.
Mass is very important to the whole equation. And, that is why auto manufacturers have been lightening vehicles for the past 40 years, and continue to seek new ways to remove weight from the vehicles.
The mass is most obvious during any accelerating maneuver, but mass remains important in straight line driving on the open road.
Experiment. I promise that there will be a difference in top speeds. You may or may not dismiss that difference as "negligible", but auto engineers don't dismiss it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 29 2015, @03:42PM
Given the rest of your post, your grasp of horsepower is worse than I suspected. You accuse others of not understanding the difference between torque and horsepower, yet, you show a lack of any understanding of these.
Top speed is dependent not on the mass of the vehicle, but instead it depends on the drag forces (assuming an infinite time and distance to accelerate to that top speed). Thus, in your question it is not possible to "do the math" and your suggestion that I "do the math" shows that you don't know what you are talking about.
Really? You think that you understand torque and power? With that statement? Or is it that you don't understand the function of the gearbox in the drive train?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:02PM
I'm pretty certain that I understand the difference between torque and horsepower. As noted above - I CAN outrun a police vehicle on a winding, twisting road with a rather small engine, although he can easily catch me on a straightaway. There is no doubt in my mind that I can apply my understanding of horsepower and torque to real life situations. Reality. What a concept, huh?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:38PM
I just love it when people set up an incorrect hypothetical and then use it to *prove* that they are correct.
There is no point arguing with someone who is so boneheaded. Your rebuttal of Maxwell Demon is so wrong and shows that you don't have a high-school level of understanding of mechanics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @04:15PM
WTF routinely drives at 100 mph? Seriously
My guess? In near future a car controlled by a computer....
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:06PM
That is a scary thought. Do YOU trust your computer that much?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:12AM
For people struggling to visualize the cars, here are a couple [wordpress.com] of examples [tocmp.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by janrinok on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:13AM
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday March 29 2015, @02:19PM
Those examples look really useful compared with the Deltawing. They can actually carry passengers and some luggage.
I am in the UK, and you still occasionally see a Reliant Robin (the example 2); they tend to be driven by die-hard old enthusiasts. Years ago they were used by younger guys (probably the same guys) because you could drive them with a motorbike driving licence (rather than a car licence). In Bristol, in Wellington Hill, a guy used to have about six of them in his tiny front garden stood in a row on their back ends like a stack of surf boards. They have either gone now or got covered by bushes.
You don't need to be a genius to design an extremely economical car that can only carry its driver and his briefcase. But I can't see that Delta lugging the sort of stuff I need to carry around from time to time. This will go the way of all the other "breakthrough" quirky cars that are announced every few weeks.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:19PM
And before those you had Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car [wikipedia.org]
The concept seems to pop up whenever there's an interest in fuel economy, never seems to take hold though...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:43AM
Now with just a hangar to park each vehicle, this fantastic idea will... take off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:23AM
A car with 25/75 weight distribution and a narrow front track? The handling must be truly terrible.
Small, light vehicles are not an innovative idea. We just don't get many because they are unfashionable and suffer various trade-offs to comply with government safety regs.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:41AM
A link to the specific handling problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-wheeler#Lateral_stability [wikipedia.org]
3-wheel cars roll over in turns almost as bad as SUVs.
If SUVs can be marketed as "safety" then these can also be sold despite both being the opposite. Then again "we" banned 3-wheel ATVs after they killed too many people for the same reason.
Not mentioned in the wiki article is the stereotypical solution to rolling 3-wheelers of moving the weight way way back, is that makes massive understeer which brings its own problems. Now if you replaced the IC engine with two electric motors and some very fast drive electronics, maybe you could patch around the understeer with differential drive, but the point was to keep burning gasoline even if it makes the car totally suck.
From a cultural perspective, much like the giant SUV/truck is a manhood replacement today, "wastefully" burning gas in a commuter car will be conspicuous consumption and/or manhood compensation in the early era of cheap fast electric vehicles. So I'm not seeing this as selling very well, if from a marketing perspective its essentially a condom marked "extra small size". So the market of the future will be people operated by brains buying electric and people showing off their wealth or compensating for having a tiny weiner by getting the largest truck possible to publicly burn that $50/gallon gas. And this thing will fit in the market... where? Oh, nowhere, thats right. Good Luck selling that thing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @04:07PM
... Not mentioned in the wiki article is the stereotypical solution to rolling 3-wheelers of moving the weight way way back, is that makes massive understeer which brings its own problems.
I've watched the races that the Deltawing has been in. It is as well balanced (in cornering) as any other well sorted race car -- not particularly understeer or oversteer. Because the designers had a clean start (working outside the normal rules of LeMans) and support from a tire company, they could adjust the weight distribution, downforce distribution and tire size/performance to match.
This was all done in advance, by vehicle dynamics modeling, before they designed parts -- a very impressive demonstration of their analysis capability.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @04:09AM
It can be stable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_INdbXMqsw#t=2m20s [youtube.com]
But I personally don't think it will be that suited for 4 people passenger cars just like an F1 car layout won't be suitable either.
The deltawing might be fine for a 1-3 seater.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday March 30 2015, @05:44AM
With a delta wing, how would one fit a 4 or 5 person family and groceries in there?