All Entries in the "Auto News" Category

Active Aerodynamics and Pickup Truck Fuel Economy

Aerodynamics plays more of a role in automobile fuel efficiency than many people realize. In fact, when looking at vehicles as large as trucks even small tweaks to a body shape’s aero profile can pay dividends in terms of reducing gas consumption at highway speeds.

What Is Active Aero?

In the pursuit of better fuel economy, many automakers are turning to the field of active aerodynamics. Performance enthusiasts are most likely familiar with active aero applications in the racing and high-end sports car world, where spoilers deploy at certain speeds to help achieve greater straight-line stability, or air brakes pop up in order to haul racers down from triple digit speeds as quickly as possible. When it comes to fuel economy, active aerodynamics plays a more subtle, but no less important role in changing the flow of air around an automobile in order to maximize its slipperiness and reduce the amount of energy needed to keep it moving forward at a specific speed.

Safety and Fuel Economy Regulations Conspire To Reduce Truck Weight

One of the easiest ways to improve fuel economy is to reduce vehicle weight. Estimates range, but it’s safe to say that a 10% reduction in vehicle weight can boost fuel economy at least 5%, and perhaps as much as 10%. Weight reduction is also desirable because, unlike other fancier technologies (i.e. direct injection, variable valve lift, hybrid-electric, etc.) it’s a relatively simple and inexpensive process. If you want to cut vehicle weight, you:

• Find plastic you can replace with thinner plastic
• Find lightweight metal you can replace with heavy duty plastic
• Find steel you can replace with lighter metals

Simple, right?

OK – maybe not simple. Replacing a steel frame with a magnesium alloy (the most likely replacement material) means re-designing the entire vehicle…magnesium alloy is a different material with different assembly methods, so it’s not a matter of just swapping parts. Still, it’s less complicated to use alloys than it is to design fancy new engines, etc., which means that weight loss is a desirable method of fuel economy improvement.

Reducing the weight of the average pickup truck will improve fuel economy, but will consumers like the side effects?

Because pickup trucks are heavier than the average vehicle, and because a 10% improvement in truck fuel economy represents a greater fuel savings than a 10% improvement in car fuel economy, it’s logical to conclude that trucks must lose weight. The trouble is, consumers don’t necessarily want lighter vehicles (truck owners especially).

Thanks To An Earthquake, a Tsunami, and a Bail-out, GM Will Be World’s Largest Automaker Once Again

Thanks to $60 billion+ in U.S. and Canadian funds that saved the company and a tremendous, once in a thousand years natural disaster that’s crippled Toyota production, General Motors will likely be the world’s largest automaker for 2011. GM was the world’s largest automaker between 1932 and 2008, before losing the title to Toyota in 2009. While the value of being the “world’s largest” anything is dubious, there’s no denying that some people think being the world’s largest is an accomplishment.

If you find yourself talking to a person who thinks GM’s sales title is some sort of accomplishment, I’ve got some talking points for you.

1. Who cares? Does being the world’s largest automaker come with some sort of technological or economic advantage? Does every GM vehicle owner get a $100 rebate check as soon as GM becomes the world’s largest automaker, or does their GM product get an extra mpg after the award is announced? There’s nothing noteworthy about this statistic other than the statistic itself.

Excuses For Why The US Auto Industry Failed, And Then The REAL Reasons

GM icon Bob Lutz has a deserved reputation in the auto industry for being a visionary and an innovator. Lutz is a former Marine Corp aviator, a successful businessman, and he’s had a hand in developing a long and distinguished list of vehicles including the Dodge Viper, Ford Explorer, BMW 3-series, Cadillac CTS, the new Camaro…the list goes on.

In an interview at last week’s New York Auto Show, Lutz listed off five reasons for the failure of the US auto industry between the late 60’s and the last couple of years. These reasons are:

1. Government fuel economy regulations
2. Unfair Japanese exchange rates propped up by government subsidies
3. Auto execs who were too focused on the bottom line
4. The UAW (with the caveat that this was also partially a management failure)
5. The media

You can read all of Lutz’s interview comments here (subscription req’d), but let me save you the trouble. Lutz just repeated the tired old excuses US car companies have used for decades. Here’s a break down:

More Signals That Ram Will Bring Out 1500 Diesel

Since TundraHeadquarters.com was founded way back in March 2007, we’ve been pining for a diesel Tundra. Anyone who has driven one of the big diesel trucks from Ford, GM, or Chrysler-Fiat will testify to the power, performance, and efficiency of the modern turbo-diesel. I’ll go a step further and say that – disregarding cost – a diesel is the best pickup truck engine option for a hauling or towing.

The trouble is, I have to qualify my statement by saying “disregarding cost,” and that just doesn’t reflect reality. Despite their performance benefits, no automaker has offered a diesel engine in a light-duty truck in recent memory. The general reason is cost, or more specifically, emissions. US vehicle emissions rules are strict, which means US diesel engines need a lot of emissions controls, which means they’re expensive….which means the rest of world enjoys torquey little high-mileage diesels while we don’t.

However, recent comments from Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne – combined with some interesting rumors about a Ram 1500 diesel we reported back in December 2010 – indicate that Ram might be the first company to offer a diesel in a light-duty pickup.