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Environmental champion Amory Lovins argues that modern cars weigh too much. New composites could change that. (http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/feb2007/bw20070212_315092.htm?chan=autos_autos+index+page)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/548/Chevrolet_Volt_-_Front_Page_2.jpgChristopher Palmeri - Business Week - Feb. 12, 2007

The Chevrolet Volt concept relies heavily on GE plastics to reduce weight by 30 - 50% where used.

Amory Lovins has his pitch down. The chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit, environmental consultancy based in Snowmass, Colo., delivers it in staccato fashion, laptop in front of him. He has a formula for kicking America's oil addiction and it involves free-market solutions, not government fiat. He practices what he calls "institutional acupuncture," poking large companies to get them on a path to eco-wellness. His focus today: ultra-lightweight vehicles.

The scene was the first-ever Designing Sustainable Mobility summit, organized by the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Lovins' speedy Feb. 8 presentation was given, appropriately enough, in a former wind tunnel once used by the neighboring California Institute of Technology. The hangar-like space was accented by orange-and-green mood lighting. Ecofriendly vehicles were parked near the entrance. On either side of the room, Art Center students jotted down notes on a large white sheet of paper or painted on an even larger canvas, inspired by what they heard from the stage.

Market Solutions

Focusing on the environment does not need to come at the expense of economic growth, Lovins says. The last time the world looked so intensely at fuel economy was the period from 1977 to 1985. The U.S. gross domestic product grew 27% during that time. Oil usage fell by 17%. "We customers turned out to have more power than the oil supply cartel," he says. Nor should politicians or government bureaucrats try to help. "No new mandates," Lovins says. He believes, for example, in eliminating the "illegal 100% tariff on Brazilian ethanol."

Lovins' goal is simply to "get us out of oil" by 2040. (His strategy is laid out on www.oilendgame.com.) Doing so, Lovins figures, will create 1 million new jobs, particularly in the farm belt where more labor will be needed to grow agricultural products for energy use. In the meantime, jobs presently at risk in the automotive industry will be saved, because foreign competitors would not be seizing market share from Detroit. As a bonus byproduct of the end of oil dependency, carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by 25%.

Lovins says the public and automotive industry impression is that eco-friendly cars have to be "small, unsafe, sluggish, costly, and ugly." What Detroit needs is a technological leap, akin to the one that brought the music industry from vinyl records to compact discs and now digital downloads. "We can get better products as a byproduct of better engineering," he says. "People will want to buy [eco-friendly] cars because they're cheaper, rather than because they're good for the environment."

Composites to the Rescue

The biggest enemy of fuel efficiency is the weight of today's vehicles. The average weight of U.S. cars has risen by more than 40% since the mid-1980s, he says. Just 1% of the energy produced by gasoline goes to actually moving the driver. The solution is lightweight composite materials. To demonstrate his point, Lovins pulls out a bowl-shaped object produced by Fiberforge, a company he is involved with. He hits it and a gong-like sound is produced. "Plastics have changed a lot since The Graduate," Lovins says. "You don't need the weight of steel for safety. If you did, your bike helmet would be made of steel and not carbon fiber."

The poster child for this new way of thinking, Lovins says, is Boeing. Its former executive vice-president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Alan Mulally, embraced composite materials in building the new 787 Dreamliner plane. The innovation saved the company. Conveniently, Mulally is now running Ford, where he presumably can accomplish a similar transition.

Can he? Following Lovins' presentation, representatives from Honda Motor, Ford, and BMW Group took to the stage. Ben Knight, vice-president for auto engineering at Honda, pointed to his company's first-to-market hybrid car, the Insight, and the company's new private jet made of lightweight composites, which is 35% more fuel-efficient than previous small planes. Larry Erickson, chief designer at Ford, described an unsuccessful attempt he made early in his career to get an expensive new car design to market at General Motors. "Everyone's trying different things, including composites," Erickson said. "When you get in the car industry, the numbers that have to ponied up," added Christopher Bangle, the black-clad chief designer at BMW. "Investment rates become important."

So much has been said about better fuel economy, but so little about making vehicles lighter. A 200-pound driver could be in a vehicle that is from 2000 to 8000 pounds!

It's not just using more plastics or carbon-fibre, but making materials stronger, so they can be used in smaller amounts.

I'm glad my Insight had a lot of aluminum to lighten it up, but the challenge for future cars is to do the same thing in a more economical way. This deserves the same amount of research hybrids and clean diesel is getting.

One problem with lighter weight is a perceived and often times real reduction in safety. With 2, 3, and 4 ton :eek: behemoths ruling the roads, few want to be the first to take the light weight plunge.

One problem with lighter weight is a perceived and often times real reduction in safety. With 2, 3, and 4 ton :eek: behemoths ruling the roads, few want to be the first to take the light weight plunge.Especially when you hear some behemoth drivers openly declaring, "this way I know that when I hit something I win." Seriously, I've heard this. Not in private but on the news.

"Plastics have changed a lot since The Graduate," Lovins says. "You don't need the weight of steel for safety. If you did, your bike helmet would be made of steel and not carbon fiber."

Funny, mine have always been made from expanded polystyrene. :D

Especially when you hear some behemoth drivers openly declaring, "this way I know that when I hit something I win." Seriously, I've heard this. Not in private but on the news.

So some drivers would live with themselves after someone else died in a collision? :(

I read from a magazine that increased US car safety standards killed off the possibility of Honda ever making a car as light as the CRX HF again. So it's US safety standards that are too blame for cars getting heavier. It so pathetic - like the 2008 Honda Fit is worse tah the 2007 one and my 1999 Honda Civic HX gets better mpg than all the new 2008 small cars!

99HXCivic, that canard about safety standards being to blame for weight increases is total BS. It accounts for a couple hundred pounds, max. I've heard that one from everybody from car dealers to automakers since I started complaining about increasing vehicle weights over 10 years ago. It might be difficult to make a car quite as light as the CRX again, but you could still come within 10%. That "safety standards" scapegoat doesn't explain all the 5000 to 8000 pound behemoths on the road.

The reason the Fit doesn't come close to the CRX HF is that it's a much bigger car with a bigger, much more powerful engine and much lower gearing. Given its volume and utility, it's a small miracle that the Fit only weighs 300-400 pounds more than the HX or the VX before it. It does come close to what the standard CRX got, and IIRC actually beats the CRX Si. I bet if you sliced a cylinder off the Fit's engine and geared it right, you'd have a car that meets or beats the HF as well as the '92-95 VX, and handily trounces even the 5-speed HX. Add on the lean-burn option found in your HX and in the previous VX and it would be no contest.

By the way, the reason the '08 Fit does worse than the '07 is that the EPA changed the mpg test. 2008 EPA ratings are not comparable to 1985-2007 EPA ratings.

Delta Flyer, I think the answer to your question is absolutely yes. It's been proven over and over again that buying a larger vehicle doesn't make you safer (because historically those vehicles have been more prone to solo accidents and tend to do less well in weight-independent crash tests) -- and categorically makes others less safe -- yet more and more drivers continue to equate size with safety.

So yeah, I don't think the average Joe stays awake at night worrying about whether his decision to make himself "safer" will result in someone else getting killed.

I've heard people -- many people, in fact -- say with a straight face that they want their teenage son or daughter to have a large vehicle so they'll be "safer", specifically because they're MORE likely to get in an accident.

Of course, the fact that increased likelihood is entirely due to accidents their child will be at fault in, and the fact that they're compounding it by making it more likely that they will maim or kill someone else, never seems to register on most people's consciences.

It is experiences like this that convince me that the average American is an A-hole.

I read from a magazine that increased US car safety standards killed off the possibility of Honda ever making a car as light as the CRX HF again. So it's US safety standards that are too blame for cars getting heavier. It so pathetic - like the 2008 Honda Fit is worse tah the 2007 one and my 1999 Honda Civic HX gets better mpg than all the new 2008 small cars!

I'm curious to see the mileage you're able to achieve on the HX. Have you started a log yet?

You want to lighten the load on these cars, here you go.

http://www.seiboncarbon.com/

I wonder how much you could rack up replacing your whole body with carbon fiber...