AUTOMOTIVE WORLD - Airless Tires?

"Michelin, GM Unveil Airless Tires That Eliminate Flats, Reduce Waste" by Stephanie Mlot, Geek.com 6/5/2019

Michelin and General Motors are taking the air out of tires—literally.

The manufacturers this week unveiled a new generation of airless wheel technology, known as Uptis (Unique Puncture-proof Tire System).

Still in the prototype phase, this high-tech tire could roll out to passenger vehicles as early as 2024.

“General Motors is excited about the possibilities that Uptis presents, and we are thrilled to collaborate with Michelin on this breakthrough technology,” Steve Kiefer, senior vice president of GM’s global purchasing and supply chain, said in a statement.

Unlike traditional rubber tires, airless technology makes Uptis immune to flats and blowouts, reducing danger to passengers, and eliminating the need for regular maintenance like pressure checks and puncture inspections.

It also yields massive sustainability benefits by decreasing the number of tires condemned to scrap and scaling back raw materials and energy used in production.

Plus, without wear and tear from over- or under-inflation, Uptis tires simply last longer.

“Uptis demonstrates that Michelin’s vision for a future of sustainable mobility is clearly an achievable dream,” CEO Florent Menegaux said.  “Through work with strategic partners like GM … we can seize the future today.”

Part of the French manufacturer’s VISION concept—a four-pillar strategy for research and development in sustainable mobility—this prototype is a first step in the right direction.

Actual details of Uptis, however, remain a mystery.  Between the self-congratulatory pats on the back and flashy jargon, neither Michelin nor GM has revealed anything about the inner workings of airless wheel technology.

What are the tires made of?  How do they operate?  What differences, if any, will drivers notice?

In an FAQ [PDF download] published by Michelin, the company notes that Uptis “shares some design concepts” with its Tweel technology: a tire-wheel assembly, “spokes” that carry the load, and a shear beam outer ring, among others.

I have no idea what that means.

Neither Michelin nor General Motors immediately responded to Geek’s request for comment.

GM expects to begin real-world testing of the Uptis prototype in Michigan later this year, with a fleet of Chevrolet Bolt EVs.

AUTOS - The Coming of The Jetsons Era

"Drive the car of the future?  No, it drives you" PBS NewsHour 1/15/2015

(REF: The Jetsons)

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A big sensation at the Consumer Electronic Show this year was a preview of the autonomous driving car, a vehicle equipped with a supercomputing chip and software that can recognize other vehicles and obstacles.  Special correspondent Steve Goldbloom takes the passenger seat in one of these connected cars.

STEVE GOLDBLOOM (NewsHour):  If this car looks like it’s from the future, that’s because it is.  It’s the Mercedes Luxury in Motion.  With inward-facing seats and gesture recognition technology, it was drawing a crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show this month in Las Vegas.

Some 20,000 tech products were launched at CES this year, from recreational drones to smart kitchen appliances.  But one of the most buzzed about showings was a preview of the driverless car.

JEN-HSUN HUANG, CEO, NVIDIA:  This is a pretty big deal for us.

STEVE GOLDBLOOM:  Jen-Hsun Huang is the CEO of Nvidia, a Silicon Valley-based technology company that unveiled the Tegra X1 superchip, a brand-new computing platform for cars.

JEN-HSUN HUANG:  One of the biggest revolutions going on right now is the building of and the creating of the autonomous driving car.

WARNING:  Hands-free cars connected to the "cloud" (aka Internet)?  So, right out of a sifi thriller, a assassin hacker takes over your car, waits until you doze-off at the wheel, and takes you over a cliff.

AUTOS - Response to Low Gas Prices

"How automakers and car buyers are responding to low gas prices" PBS NewsHour 1/12/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Since last year’s Detroit Auto Show, gas prices have dropped by nearly a third.  With the new lower prices, demand has gone up for big new SUVs and sedans, but automakers have also switched gears to develop more fuel-efficient cars.  Gwen Ifill speaks with John Toll of The Wall Street Journal about the tension between the two trends and convincing car buyers to think long-term.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  One year ago, when automakers held their big show in Detroit, a gallon of gas went for an average of $3.31.  Now, as the auto show gets under way again, it’s dropped by a third, all the way down to $2.13 a gallon.

And that presents some intriguing challenges this year.  On one hand, manufacturers like GM are creating more fuel-efficient cars, like the Volt, a new electric-powered concept car which is designed to get 200 miles from a single charge.

But on the other end of the spectrum, big new SUVs and sedans are rolling off production lines for buyers now less worried about gas prices.

John Toll is the global auto editor for The Wall Street Journal, and he joins me from Detroit.

After all the bright, shiny things at the auto show, John, what are the trends you’re seeing?

JOHN TOLL, The Wall Street Journal:  Well, the trend is definitely back toward big trucks and SUVs, in terms of the conversation right now that we’re having about the immediate environment.

The economy is doing well.  Gas prices, as you mentioned, are down to $2 a gallon or less, and there is a lot of what a lot of automakers think is a natural progression toward the SUV and truck body style in most of America.  So they’re catering to that right now.

At the same time, you have this tension.  While dealers want more and more trucks and SUVs, regulators want more vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt or the Nissan Leaf, or the Tesla Model S, vehicles that can run on electricity or batteries and — or can get significantly better fuel economy.

CAUTION:  Gas prices are NOT going to stay low.

THE SLEAZE FILES - Takata's Profit Before Human Safety View

"Takata fights nationwide recall for exploding airbags" PBS NewsHour 12/3/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Air bag manufacturer Takata was back in the spotlight today over its refusal to endorse a nationwide recall of defective air bags.  The Japanese firm faced questions on that decision and others in a hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives.

The hearing came just hours after a deadline for Takata to expand its recall, as demanded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA.

Deputy Administrator David Friedman.

DAVID FRIEDMAN, Deputy Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:  First of all, I was deeply disappointed by Takata’s response and Takata’s failure to take responsibility for the defects that their products — for the defects in their products.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  The problem lies with inflators that activate so violently, they cause the air bags to explode.  There have been at least five deaths and dozens of injuries linked to the defect worldwide.

Takata Senior Vice President Hiroshi Shimizu insisted again today that only people who live in humid conditions are at risk.

HIROSHI SHIMIZU, Senior Vice President, Takata:  The data still supports that we should remain focused on the region with high temperature and high humidity.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  In line with that thinking, about eight million vehicles have been recalled in the U.S., mostly in Florida, Hawaii, and along the Gulf Coast.  Takata says a nationwide recall would double that figure.  The company remained adamant today that a nationwide recall isn’t supported by the evidence.

But NHTSA’s Friedman pointed to reports of air bag explosions in other parts of the country.

DAVID FRIEDMAN, NHTSA:  Between the fact that the root cause on the driver side is not clear, now that it’s clear that it is outside those areas of high temperatures and high humidity, and the fact that we now have six total incidents, it is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate for the driver-side air bags.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  The agency had threatened to take legal action and impose fines of up to $35 million unless Takata complied.  But the air bag maker took the position today that Washington doesn’t have the legal authority to make a parts maker enforce a recall.  And Friedman acknowledged it could take a protracted fight.

WOW! - Porsche 918 Spider Hybrid

"Porsche 918" Car and Driver

Overview:  It took Porsche years to develop a worthy successor to the vaunted Carrera GT supercar, but at last, the 918 is here—and it’s a plug-in hybrid!  With a combined 887 hp and 944 lb-ft of torque from its mid-mounted V-8 and electric motors—one at each axle—the 918 delivers Bugatti-like acceleration, tenacious handling, and a 211-mph top end.  And of course, it’s every bit as exotic-looking as any near-million-dollar supercar should be, with a low-slung, targa body, and ultra-futuristic cabin.

Funnyman Louis C.K. does a widely known bit summed up by a phrase uttered early in the performance:  “Everything is amazing and nobody’s happy.”  (Go ahead and Google it now, but promise you’ll come back to us.  Beware the YouTube wormhole!)  He’s talking about personal technology, but the perspective applies to today’s car industry, too.  Take a moment to count your blessings as a car enthusiast in today’s world, and you’ll quickly realize you’re going to need a longer moment.

We have Miatas and BRZ/FR-Ss, GTIs and Focus STs, 300-hp V-6 Mustangs (and 400-hp V-8s), 495-hp Jaguar roadsters, 11-second Mercedes-Benz station wagons, and a handful of exotics (and sometimes even near-exotics) in the 10s.  There are also 200-mph sedans, beautiful things, weird things—in short, there’s no shortage of something for everyone.  This, plus forums to talk about these things, eBay and Bring a Trailer to buy them, and a mind-blowing generation of video games that let us realistically experience the dreams we can’t afford.  Yet the mood in the automotive sphere tends to be a little dreary.  We yearn for the good old days or, more often, fear the bad ones to come.  Diesels and hybrids and EVs are the future, and they’re going to ruin it all.

Except they won’t, so you can put away your sad trombone.  On top of all that other great stuff comes a curious new phenomenon:  The million-dollar, 900-hp hybrid hypercar.  Want even more evidence that things are going well?  In the past decade, several companies have quit making minivans, yet now three different automakers build these insane hybrids.  We’ve yet to drive the Ferrari LaFerrari or McLaren P1, but we just clambered out of Porsche’s 918 Spyder, and it turns out that hybrids can be pretty awesome.

The Hybrid Ambassador

There’s no family-hybrid-esque Atkinson-cycle four puttering away beneath the 918’s perforated engine cover.  Think, instead, high-output V-8 bristling with modern engine technology.  Porsche says the engine was derived from that in the Le Mans class-winning RS Spyder, but you really need to stretch the definition of “derived” for that to be the case.  In large part, the only commonalities between the RS Spyder’s 3.4-liter and the 918’s 4.6 are that they both have flat-plane cranks and 90-degree vee angles, and saying that 90-degree vees on two eight-cylinders implies shared roots is like claiming you and Billy Joel must be cousins because you both have goatees.

But if the 918’s engine shares little with the racing car’s mill, it also shares little with those of any lesser Porsches.  For starters, it breathes in reverse.  Air enters from the outside of the heads and is exhausted in the valley of the vee.  Then, rather than wind their way to the back of the car, the spent gases simply exit skyward from a pair of gaping cannons mounted immediately aft of the occupants’ heads.  There’s not room for much muffling before this happens, which is fine by us—not to mention a boon to driver alertness.  The block and the heads are aluminum, the connecting rods are titanium, and the exhaust system is Inconel, a lightweight and super-expensive nickel-based alloy.  Keeping the internals light and the crank flat means the V-8 can rev to 9150 rpm, a speed at which it emits a scream of such intense, pure rage that we felt obliged to apologize.  (The V-8 continued screaming nonetheless.)

Carrera GT + 930 Turbo = 918 Spyder

The V-8 makes 608 horsepower, three more than in Porsche’s previous limited-edition flagship, the Carrera GT.  But the 918 then adds roughly the output of another old flagship, the 930 Turbo, via two electric motors.  One wedges in between the V-8 and seven-speed PDK transmission; the other sits aft of the front cargo hold.  The battery pack sits low behind the passengers within the carbon-fiber monocoque.  Total system output from the engine and motors sits at 887 horsepower and a maximum of 944 lb-ft of torque.  (For even more details on the 918’s powertrain and its operation, check out technical director Don Sherman’s prototype drive here.)  We weren’t able to gather instrumented test data, but figure on a 0-to-60-mph time of 2.6 seconds and a quarter-mile time of about 10 flat.  And in case you missed it, the 918 Spyder is the first production car ever to break the seven-minute barrier at the Nürburgring.  Not only that, but Porsche’s drivers say they were told to exercise caution and insist they could do better than the 6:57 they stamped into the record books.  Chalk one up for hybrid goodwill.

It’s a good thing the seats back up to a bulkhead, because under full throttle, the 918 feels as though it might rip them clean out of the floorboards.  Every time you floor it, you get a preview of your first (or next) face lift.  The pull is relentless.  With two different types of electric motors spinning at two different speeds, a gas V-8, and Porsche’s seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox all operating in concert, this is among the most sophisticated powertrains on the road.  But occupants feel no transition of power flow between motors and engine.  To the end user, it simply feels incredibly fast and unbelievably seamless.  Not since we discovered QWOP and browser-window Asteroids have we been so happy with computers.

Yes, We Are That Good

If Porsche were actually concerned with keeping the seats moored, it would have had to hem in its lightweight buckets on all sides, because this car generates stupefying g forces in all directions.  What’s truly amazing, though, is how approachable this car’s supernatural powers are.  We lapped Spain’s 2.5-mile Circuit de Valencia behind a 911 Turbo S—no slouch itself, logging a 7:27 on the Nürburgring—piloted by Porsche’s own test driver.  While the 911 savant in the Turbo S manhandled his mount around the track, wringing every millisecond from his lap time, we flounced along behind, a little bored by the lack of effort required to stay on his bumper.

All-wheel drive is a major factor in the 918’s stability, but the motor on the 918’s front axle hits its 16,000-rpm redline and disengages at 165 mph, so keep that in mind before executing any rapid directional changes at ludicrous speeds.  A center of gravity right around the wheel bearings contributes to the 918’s having all the roll and dive of a parking block.  The steering is of course electrically assisted, but we almost don’t believe that this helm, so heavy and direct and alive, could be.  Rear-wheel steering helps the 3750-pound (or 3650 with the weight-shaving and über-expensive Weissach package) 918 turn in as immediately at low speeds as would a much smaller car, while it lends the stabilizing sensation of a longer wheelbase above 50 mph.

And when you want it all to stop, the 918’s brakes are some of the strongest we’ve experienced in a production car.  The brake pedal here is ever so slightly squishier than the benchmark pedals in other Porsche sports cars but still better than about everything else on the market.  And, yes, the brakes incorporate energy recuperation—up to 0.5 g of braking, at which point the honking, 15.4-inch carbon-ceramic rotors finally get bit by the Acid Green calipers.  But as with the powertrain, any trade-off is imperceptible to the driver.  To the sole of your foot, the pedal just feels firm and progressive.

Whisper-whisper-whisper—HEY!

In a typical hybrid, great care is taken to soften the transition from electrical to gas-fired operation.  Here, it’s sort of hard to hide.  Remember that part about the 608-hp flat-crank V-8?  The 918 is mischievous, always ready to startle you with a deafening bark from behind your ears.  The driver has to push past a detent in the accelerator travel to light the engine, but it’s like intentionally triggering a mousetrap:  The snap still makes you twitch.  With the roof panels consuming all but about half a cubic foot of the trunk and the eight shrieking past 7000 rpm, conversing requires you to shout so loudly your vocal cords will hurt.  With the roof panels in place, it’s only slightly quieter.  The sound doesn’t just enter your ears—it fills the cabin with a tangible pressure.  It’s exhilarating. And when you finally back off and the rowdy V-8 shuts down, the silence is equally jarring.  Then, though, occupants can hear the whine of electric motors, the brushing of the brakes, and the crunch of pebbles beneath the tires.  The 918 puts on a show for the people behind, too, as heat shimmer suddenly appears over the gaping exhausts when the engine fires up and disappears the instant it shuts down.  You didn’t expect an $847,975 Porsche hybrid to behave like a regular car, did you?

Indeed, the 918 teems with special touches.  Atop its sweeping center console is a touch-screen complete with an Audi-style writing surface that accepts inputs via fingertip scribbling, which will surely trickle down to workaday Porsches.  All the knobs and even the vanes in the HVAC vents are real aluminum.  And that mesh engine cover?  It’s stamped from a solid sheet of stainless, and then a laser cuts 7335 holes in it over the course of about four hours.  Our favorite detail, though, involves the tire sidewalls, portions of which are laser etched for a texture remarkably similar to that of suede.  (The 911 GT3 offers the same touch at a saving of about $700,000.)

The Official 900-hp Hybrid of Black Friday

Before you start complaining that the 918 is too expensive, consider this:  At a starting price of $847,975, it actually represents a saving of about a half-million bucks compared with its Ferrari and McLaren contemporaries.  Those two, though, at 950 and 907 horsepower and each about 3300 pounds, have the potential to best even the 918’s astounding Nürburgring record.  Those two are also sold out—the Ferrari before the public even knew anything about it.  Porsche, on the other hand, still has about half its 918-unit 918 production run available.

Yes, it’s expensive, but so were the first microwaves, and now people who don’t own one of those are weird.  We already know the next-gen Nissan GT-R will be a hybrid, and it’ll probably be a lot more affordable than this Porsche.  Before you know it, hybrid hypercars will cost as much as a Chevy Cruze!  Won’t that be a great day, when you meet somebody and decide he’s strange because he doesn’t have a 900-hp hybrid?  We’ve a lot to be thankful for today, but tomorrow looks even more amazing.  View Photo Gallery

TECHNOLOGY - Researching Self-Driving Cars of the Future

"On tiny racetrack, scientists test self-driving cars of the future" by Frank Bi and Joshua Barajas, PBS NewsHour 4/30/2014

In a robotics lab at the George Washington University, there’s a small-scale race track, complete with a loop-the-loop.  A battery-powered car hurls itself around the room, flipping over jumps and around the vertical spiral.  “They are really robust, so when a grad student destroys 10 of them, it doesn’t cost very much,” says Gabe Sibley, the lab’s director.  No one is driving the fearless little machine — it navigates the course all by itself.

At the Autonomous Robotics & Perception Group at G.W., scientists teach robots and computers how to see.

“We worry about understanding the world, typically from the point of view of cameras,” explains Sibley.

The researchers at G.W. have “toys” of all shapes and sizes, from the small robotic cars to a full-sized 416 horsepower 2014 Lexus ISF sedan, which they drive around downtown Washington, D.C., testing a rig that uses lasers to detect pedestrians, obstacles and other cars.  The car doesn’t drive itself yet, but it’s a critical platform for testing the technologies that could drive our vehicles in the future.

The technology in Sibley’s lab is always advancing, and the latest iteration looks like an ordinary cellphone.  Equipped with the ability to make a quarter million 3-D measurements every second, the tiny sensor represents more than a decade’s worth of robotics research packed into a pocketable device.  In partnership with Google, the Washington, D.C. university has been working on the phone, dubbed Project Tango, for more than a year.

The technology offers a leap for robotics engineers, specifically in the area of localization, or helping robots find their position in the world, said Nima Keivan, a postdoctoral student.  Previous forms of the technology took up a closet, so a cellphone-sized device opens the door to many more possibilities.

Google introduced Project Tango in February as a technology that could augment future Android phones, help the visually impaired or map the insides of buildings.  But the compact system could also become the eyes of an autonomous car or robot down the road.

Watch the video (below) to take a tour of the G.W. lab, and see through the eyes of a self-driving car.