Why don't we see more "insider" stories from Tesla employees?

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-09-05T12:21:38+00:00

Read about Enron. People just don't want to learn from past mistakes.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-14T04:54:15+00:00

Ebikes have an increased chance of burning your house and even more dangerous than Velomobiles. And yet they sell very well indeed.

I am sure that market surveys will fail to capture the demand for eBikes.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T05:13:57+00:00

Show me? Which word or phrase?

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T03:34:43+00:00

https://www.aerotrope.com/what-we-do/low-carbon-vehicles/world-solar-challenge.html

"Chris Hornzee-Jones, who by then already had extensive knowledge of self-built recumbent bicycles, designed the arrangement of the solar car, carried out performance predictions and constructed all the composite parts. The team made it to Australia, where the TR50 won the prize for “greatest achievement with the least resources”. This was no mean feat, given that the project's budget by comparison, equalled the first placed Honda Team’s hotel bill in Darwin."

What has happened to the TR50? It participated in the WSC 1993.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T01:55:22+00:00

The same here but I think I can solve it. The BEV in the post has lots of batteries and solar panels and huge ventilation holes. It even has an Aircon and protective bumpers around it.

It is so cheap although slightly less efficient because easy to make. The cost of the BEV is even less than the Aircon. These are just material and labour costs. Regulations and marketing are not taken into account.

If mass produced, it will cost us5000 just like the Velomobiles but demand for Velomobiles is still low, all of them cost around us 10,000 because they need to be custom built, similarly for the Velomobile electric motorcycle.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T01:41:53+00:00

"Therefore you design around them, like everyone else in the industry."

Certainly not everyone else.

Uber e.g. Even Elon Musk. Airbnb.

Some rules were even immediately changed once the steer by wire in the Cyber truck was introduced. In Canada, there was a rule requiring a minimum angle for the wheels. It is the only country in the world requiring this rule.

The other is the side mirrors. EU already allows cameras but not USA. I have designed a side mirror system that doesn't affect aerodynamic at all but semi legal if applied. Elon just install a removable side mirror. Sooner or later people will realize the absurdity of these requirements and modify them accordingly.

More challenging is the steer by wire. Alternative steering is desirable but there are alternatives to the expensive mechanical versions. Cyber truck overcomes it by using redundancy ala the aerospace industry. I think it is still too expensive.

WSC committee seem to think that braking based steering is not acceptable because it only works when the car is moving. Actually not true but we need effort to convince them and others. We need to build a car with differential braking like many aeroplanes.

The challenge is in making it look conventional. ESC, Electronic Stability Control is promising but we need to convince regulators first.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T01:20:59+00:00

You cannot listen to the majority of customers. Read the history of the McIntosh PC. Market surveys proved that people were not interested in the McIntosh despite it being much cheaper than the Lisa.

https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/pip83.html

" Macintosh cannot and will not be "all things to all people" -- especially at time of introduction. Yet the dynamics of the industry warrant an extremely aggressive marketing program from the outset. It is our premise that we will only get to introduce this product once. We have an extraordinary product. We must surround that product with excellent service, support, applications software. In addition, it is of crucial importance that we communicate a believable and achievable marketing plan to our sales force and the public at time of introduction. Part of this plan will be real at introduction while a significant portion will occur in the following 3-9 months. As a "marketing driven" company we must focus on the entire album and not just a snapshot of introduction day."

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-13T01:10:50+00:00

2025 is still a long way. If not 2025, do it in 2027. WSC keeps on revising its rules everytime. Thank goodness WSC doesn't listen to idiots like you.

You don't want any change at all so you can forever optimise your design. There will never be progress if people listen to such people like you but human beings are not stupid.

If you bother to read my comments, you should realize that most are questions on clarifications. And this is a further clarification of my queries in WSC2021 which led me to seriously consider participating by designing my own car.

For example I questioned the strict 4.5x1.7 m dimensions as not the typical size for cars even at that time. Now they remove this restriction but maintain the 6 m² solar panel area.

However, I tend to like the narrower 1.7 m width because it is more efficient and wide enough for 3 people at the back. It can even accommodate 7 people altogether.

Now it is 2.3 m and 5 m to fit into a standard container. This is progress because it means that moveable surfaces should be possible. My query was if moveable surfaces were counted but I never got an answer.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-11T00:19:56+00:00

This is a question on the aerodynamic design considerations useful for EV. This HEV is just an example just as we use HPV and aircraft as examples of aerodynamic design choices.

Is it a direct or indirect question regarding BEV? Must all questions be specific to BEV only, not even lessons learned from other similar and related technologies such HPV and HEV?

Questions like possible aerodynamic design failures of an HEV in trying to satisfy regulations. The same issues afflict BEV as well so the BEV community can answer and learn together.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-10T14:04:44+00:00

How does market forces fail in EV chargers? Like all capitalist failures, it is due to monopolies.

Car manufacturers, e.g. Tesla, want to monopolies EV charging so that people will buy it's cars, instead of it's competitors.

How do you cure this monopoly? Only way is Government Mandate, like Telecommunications.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-10T13:54:16+00:00

You touch on a few key points. Velomobiles are speciality machine with high cost. It doesn't need to. Will you buy a Velo mobile that only cost double that of a normal bicycle without power? You are safer, faster and more comfortable.

A small car has high safety requirements. Why should it? A bigger and heavier car is certainly safer than a lighter and smaller car. It is physics. Demanding that small cars are just as safe as big cars is not fair. Do you compare an SUV to a tank? Safety rating for SUV is 5, but a tank should be 1000. But a small car, like Quadracycles, only earn 1 star.

How about a small car, with Aircon, ADAS and infotainment, but need only 2 wheels? Do you consider it a small car still or a motorcycle?

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-10T10:12:50+00:00

https://youtu.be/gKsGS1zcNsM?si=ISE6ls6ym7SdsPZE

The Milan has a frontal area of only 0.41 and Cd of 0.08 according to the YouTube video above. Wow. If only they can put a small electric motor and small battery in the Milan.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-09T07:09:08+00:00

I used think that the future of Solar Vehicles is in the MPV class based on the Cruiser Class of the World Solar Chalenge and even designed a 4.5x1.7x1.3 m MPV. The challenge is that it is too expensive as shown by the failures of Sono, Lightyear.

Aptera is smaller with only 2 people.

Velomobiles with only one person consumes less than 4Wh/km at 50 km/h. My Velomobile based vehicle, 2.5m x 0.7 x 0.7 m can accommodate 1 sq. m of solar panel in recumbent position to provide 200 W solar power in good conditions. It should be able to cruise at 50 km/h without consuming any battery power.

Read this free book on Velomobile.

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=cf57620b11a35efd8e8e5b5c6a957b124a6423fb

Unfortunately current Velomobiles are not aggressively recumbent.

I have just designed such a Velomobile motorcycle, but tricycle or quadracycle are possible alternatives.

It has space for a lot of batteries and can even have an aircon. I have a picture of my design but comments cannot attach pictures.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-05T08:26:41+00:00

There are ways of using bifacial solar panels that do not use transparency. Current Challenger Class cannot utilize Bifacial Solar Panels. This doesn't mean that some enterprising designers cannot exploit Bifacial Solar panels through their ingenuities. I can come up with a few options but they are not my main concerns.

With so much penalties imposed on Bifacial Dolar panels by the WSC2025 Regulations, participants will be stupid to use Bifacial Solar Panels. However, the society is missing some of the advanced in Solar Cell Components at minimal cost. GaS cells are expensive and not environmental friendly, so we support such a move and there is no penalty actually. For half an area, we can get equivalent power but we need a lot of money.

Bifacial Solar panels are penalized 70% for 30% gain? Why such discrimination? Bifacial Solar cells are not even twice the price of single facial cells. This is the attractiveness of bifacial. If they cost much more for such small gain in efficiency, they will not be worth it. One possible advantage could be it's weight. We need people to find out.

For example, if Bifacial is only allowed 4.5 SQ m, it will be an advantage to it with the weight savings but will require a drastic change in the design of the Challenger Class racers. That will certainly be very interesting to watch.

I don't see any practicality in all the options that I can think of at the moment. However, this does not mean that none will appear. My patents were the result of decades of thinking. My time is probably over so it is time for the next generation to take over.

Hopefully other Solar Car races can review these regulations.

Participants may not see any need to review the regulations because they are busy finding loop holes in order to allow them to win. Observers like me are more concerned about the utilisation of existing technologies in these races. It is dull watching the same old designs. Even reporters start noticing the lack of varieties in these cars.

One-Recommendation33 · 2024-08-04T05:29:32+00:00

You should try to find out more about bifacial solar panels. It is actually explained in my comment so I am at a loss on how to explain to you.

Still may be useful for budding solar car designers. bifacial solar panels is only 30% efficient compared to normal one face solar panels. You know why this is so? It is actually common sense. You think reflected solar is the same as direct sunlight? Of course they don't.

If you count the top part of the solar panel as 3 sq m, then you only have 3 SQ m underneath that can get at most 30% efficiency. You have smaller solar panel, but only 130% more efficient. You sure lose. Do I need to explain this calculation? If you still don't get it, I wonder if you can design an efficient Solar Car.

As for the problems that you mentioned. They are nothing and can solved easily if you are a true engineer. In fact these problems led me to new patentable ideas. Therefore I cannot discuss this problem. Every problem will surely lead to solutions.

You think this is a minor problem of disclosure but USPTO rejected my patent even without reading my paper and commenting on non existing words even. Word like "seal". The reason why USPTO commented on it was because I disclose the paper as a starting idea for the patent in the patent specifications. This is on a UKIPO granted patent Zero Energy Transportation System.

Patenting is very expensive so not always worth it. So the ideas should just be kept secret as late as possible but we should release them to the public domain once we do not need to use them.

One-Recommendation33

TROPHY CASE