Vehicles Blog

Updates from February, 2012

• In the past two years, fuel efficiency has moved forward faster than at any other time. The revolution that’s going on under the hood is designed to meet the stricter emissions standards that are coming down the pipe and to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil-based fuels. The flavour of the month is the use of turbocharger technology. This work is seeing horsepower rise so quickly it makes one’s head spin, yet it is delivering ever better fuel economy. By any standard, this is a win/win situation — power without penalty.

  Audi and Volkswagen have long appreciated the advantages of force-fed engine technology. Both companies put the use of turbochargers to great effect. In simple terms, the key advantage is that blowing the air into the cylinders rather than relying on the cylinders to draw it in allows more fuel to be injected while maintaining the correct air/fuel ratio. Again, in simple terms, more air and more fuel equates to a bigger bang when it is ignited, and the bigger the bang the better the power output. Today, a turbocharged four-cylinder engine is producing the output of a naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine, while a six-cylinder engine is developing V8-like power. On the flip side, these force-fed engines consume considerably less fuel.

  Many of the automakers at the Canadian International Auto Show are embracing turbocharged technology.

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  Ford is doing so big time. It has been pushing its 3.5-litre V6 EcoBoost engine in everything from the F-150 pickup truck to the super-fast Taurus SHO. The validity of EcoBoost technology is found in the numbers. When compared with Ford’s naturally aspirated 3.5L V6, the EcoBoost V6 (as used in the Flex) puts an additional 93 horsepower and 102 pound-feet of torque at the driver’s disposal. That’s an effortless 355 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque at 3,500 rpm.

  Ford is in the process of launching yet more force-fed engines in the form of a pair of four-cylinder motors — a 2.0L that delivers 240 hp and 250 lb-ft of torque, which is roughly the same output as

  Ford’s previous 3.0L V6 but with a 15% to 20% improvement in fuel economy. The same is found in the 1.6L EcoBoost engine — it produces a robust 180 hp and 177 lb-ft of torque. Waiting in the wings is a new 1.0L three-cylinder engine. Now, before you turn your nose up at the thought of an engine that’s roughly a third of the size of the average North American V6, please do not! It puts out 120 hp and 125 lb-ft of torque while sipping about one-third the amount of fuel as said six.

  Having tested this engine, I can tell you it works — there is plenty of pull off the line, the mid-range is just fine and it cruised around a high-banked oval track at 140 kilometres an hour without missing a beat!

  The same holds true for the 2012 BMW 528i: It is powered by a 2.0L engine that is 30% smaller in displacement and consumes 1.0 L/100 km less fuel in the city than the 3.0L in-line six it replaces. Now, that alone is a big step forward. The reward is found in the power output. The turbocharged four produces the same 241 hp, but it twists out 28 more lb-ft of torque (258 lb-ft) at 1,250 rpm than the six did at 2,600 rpm. Now, that is an enormous power gain without the pain at the pump.

  Turbocharging is not limited to gasoline alone; it has been an unqualified success in the raft of turbodiesels on the road. However, it also works exceptionally well with alternative fuels such as natural gas. Audi, for example, will launch a turbocharged natural gas-powered (TCNG) version of its next-generation A3 in 2013, with a TCNG version of the A4 arriving a little later.

  The other technology that’s being ramped up very quickly is that of the plug-in hybrid. In principle, these vehicles operate in exactly the same manner as a normal hybrid by using the power stored in the battery and captured through regenerative braking to reduce overall fuel consumption. The plug-in takes things one step further. By recharging the main battery via the grid, the first few kilometres of the drive (up to 60 km in many cases) is on electric power alone.

  When the battery is exhausted, the plug-in hybrid continues to drive in exactly the same manner as its conventional counterpart.

  The next phase will be the extended-range electric vehicle. At this point, it is the Chevrolet Volt that is leadingthe charge, pun intended. Where hybrids can use both the gasoline-powered engine and electric motor to drive the vehicle, it is the gasoline side that is the primary motivator. The Volt and its ilk (Mercedes-Benz and Audi have extended-range vehicles in the works) is exactly the opposite. The Volt is driven by its electric motor all the time — the gasoline engine is there to drive a generator, which produces the electricity that extends the driving range from the typical electric-only car’s range of just 160 km (on a good day!) to almost 600 km. This does away with range anxiety.

  The use of turbocharger, plug-in hybrid and extended-range technologies is squeezing the very best out of every drop of fuel consumed without giving up on the need to have a fully functional automobile. The reality at this juncture is that the electric-only vehicle is limited to being the second car parked in most driveways because of the paucity of the fast-charge stations needed to service the main battery when it nears depletion. However, with battery technology moving ahead (the lithium ion battery’s power density is rising almost daily, while nano-technology versions are
  automotive@sympatico.ca

  
  

  

  
  10:00 am on February 18, 2012
   

• Detroit • As is the norm, Cobo Hall, the home of the North American International Auto Show, was littered with hybrids of one stripe or another, along with a smattering of full-on electric cars. There was even an indoor arena where journalists and punters alike could take the electrified ride of their choice for a drive. That’s the good news. The bad news is that hybrids are simply not selling.

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  While the number of hybrid and/or pure electric vehicles has grown enormously of late, the number of buyers willing to put their cash on the barrel has not. Canadians have purchased almost 18 million vehicles over the past 11 years. Of that number, just 58,000 were hybrids. So, why the antipathy?

  In the earlier days, the reason was likely the fact that this was emerging, untested technology. As such, many — wisely to my mind — applied that old axiom of not buying a new car in its first year.

  That was then. To date, the modern hybrid has proven to be as reliable as anything on the road. There are many Toyota Prius taxis that have 300,000 and 400,000 kilometres on the odometer, and they still purr away as quietly and efficiently as ever. And many of them are still storing electric energy in the original battery.

  The next step is the addition of plug-in capability to a regular hybrid. Ford will launch no fewer than three plug-in hybrids within the next year or so, including the next C-Max. The plug-in advantage is simple — the electric-only driving range rises enormously, which cuts fuel consumption and emissions. This is one part of the green solution. The better solution, however, is found with the extended-range electric vehicle. At this point, the only extended-range electric vehicle available — and, make no mistake, it is an electric vehicle and not a glorified hybrid — is the Chevrolet Volt.

  The Volt’s strategy is very simple. Plug it in, recharge the main battery and, for the first 60 km of the drive, the car is powered electrically. When the battery is exhausted, a gasoline engine comes to life and begins to drive a generator that then powers the electric motor. At no time does the gasoline engine ever drive the vehicle — there is no physical connection.

  The Volt also stores excess power produced by the engine as well as energy captured through regenerative braking. This allows it to run on electricity even after the battery’s driving range has been exhausted. It all sounds very complex, which it is, but it also works so seamlessly that, when tooling about town, the Volt drives like an electric vehicle, and that includes the time the gasoline engine is servicing the electric motor.

  The proof of how well the whole lot comes together is found in the numbers of my Volt tester: It had consumed an average of 3.6 litres per 100 km over the first 4,353 km put on its odometer. That, by any standard, is exceptionally good. For the commuter who has a round trip of less than 60 km, the Volt could actually suffer from a problem, albeit a welcome one — bad gas!

  The Volt is about to get some competition in the form of the Mercedes B-Class E-Cell Plus concept shown in Detroit, which will go into production in 2014. When the B-Class was totally redesigned (the next-generation model will hit Canadian roads later this year), it was designed to accommodate all powertrain forms. As such, the platform will accept anything from a conventional gasoline engine and gearbox to the fuel cell-powered version coming down the road. Between these two bookends sits the E-Cell Plus. In principle, it operates just like the Volt but with a twist — as well as driving a generator at speeds below 60 km an hour, the engine can be used to power the E-Cell at highway speeds. It uses both the electric motor and gasoline engine to drive the vehicle through a newly developed automatic transmission.

  The E-Cell’s electric side comprises a 136-horsepower electric motor and a lithium ion battery. While Mercedes-Benz does not list the battery’s size at this point, the company says it will supply 100 km of electric-only driving, which is enough to satisfy the demands of 80% of all commuters. The gasoline side features a three-cylinder turbocharged engine that puts out 67 hp. While this may seem a little on the light side, Mercedes says the electric/gasoline combination delivers enough power to whisk the E-Cell Plus to 100 km/h in less than 11 seconds and on to a top speed of 150 km/h while returning an extended range of 600 km.

  The extended-range electric vehicle is going to provide the bridge between the need to cut automotive pollution and the dawning of the hydrogen age. These vehicles are extremely frugal, which means they produce significantly fewer emission than the very best gasoline-only automobile and conventional hybrids. However, key to this technology’s success is found in the fact that it does not leave the driver with a bad dose of range anxiety after driving 80 km. That is the single biggest hurdle facing all pure electric rides such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf.

  
  

  

  
  5:40 pm on January 13, 2012
   

• At the dawn of the automotive age, many vehicles used acetylene to light the road ahead. Since those dimly lit days, the headlamp has evolved to produce the sort of illumination demanded today.

  The first real step forward arrived in the form of the halogen headlight. It produced much more light than the previous incandescent bulb while consuming considerably less power. Then, in the early 1990s, came the xenon headlight. It, too, produced a much cleaner light while consuming even less power. Heading toward the electric era, the consumption of power is going to become an ever more important part of the headlight’s contribution to driving range.

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  Any reduction in power consumption, however, must not come at the expense of the illumination a headlamp provides. The importance of adequate lighting is found in the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) numbers — almost 50% of all traffic-related fatalities occur at night, yet just 25% of a motorist’s driving time is in darkness.

  For now, the future is the LED or light-emitting diode. The diode itself measures about one square millimetre, which is not much larger than a grain of sand. The reason for this tiny speck’s growing popularity is that it uses electrical energy to generate more white light than any conventional light source, and it does so very efficiently. Regular bulbs produce waste heat in the process of generating light — the LED converts power to light with little heat buildup. The irony here is that the lack of heat means that the lamp itself must be heated to clear away the slushy buildup winter driving brings.

  In terms of efficiency, the current-generation LED headlamps are four times more energy efficient than halogen headlights. As with the computer chip, each year brings a vast improvement in overall efficiency. The prediction is that, by 2018, LEDs will be about eight times more efficient than halogen bulbs. The importance of efficiency comes home to roost when you look at the numbers. Cumulatively, Audis sold in 2008 equipped with LED daytime running lights have cut fuel consumption by about 10 million litres a year. Imagine the potential if all cars were to adopt LED-based lighting.
  Of course, the fact that LEDs offer an extremely long service life and react faster than traditional bulbs adds to their allure. In a critical situation, an LED lights instantly, whereas it takes a regular bulb around 0.2 seconds to warm up and glow brightly. That seems insignificant on the surface. However, at 100 kilometres an hour, a car is travelling at 27.78 metres per second. That 0.2-second lag time translates into 5.56 metres of driving distance. Now, that is a considerable margin and the difference between an almighty bang and a distant miss.

  The true potential of the LED, however, is only just being scratched. Down the road, adding intelligence to the manner in which the headlamp works will make it adaptive and pay big dividends. In this regard, Audi is leading the way. The all-LED headlight system, for example, uses a small video camera in the base of the rear-view mirror and the navigation system to tailor the light pattern according to the driving conditions.
  For example, when the GPS tells the headlamp an intersection is nearing, it shifts from the focused light beam that has been illuminating the road ahead to a wider light pattern that lights up the side streets. This significantly enhances visibility and, ultimately, safety.

  Future-generation LEDs will be capable of reacting to weather conditions, vehicle speed, the distance between vehicles and potentially dangerous situations. The use of a matrix of LED provides optimal illumination and the ability to switch off segments of the light beam according to the need. A forward-looking camera monitors the road. Its input, along with the information from the GPS, will determine how the lights function. From a practical perspective, killing key sections of the beam prevents the light from blinding oncoming motorists as well as a driver ahead — no more glare from the rear-view mirror!

  Using a night vision camera to detect a pedestrian’s heat profile allows the matrix to flash a beam of light toward the person at the side of the road. This not only draws the driver’s eye to a potential hazard, it also warns the pedestrian of the approaching car. It’s heady stuff.

  A little further out is the use of laser lighting. BMW is showcasing its take on laser lights in its i8 hybrid, which is set to debut in 2014. It uses a green laser beam that is fired into a box containing phosphorous. What emerges is a brilliant white light that consumes less power than an LED. Conversely, red laser light is very effective in foggy conditions.

  Unlike a regular light source, which is blocked or reflected by fog, the laser serves to illuminate the fog itself, which warns the car behind. Better yet, the red light being emitted is only visible in fog, which means it is not a distraction on a clear day.

  At this point, cost is the biggest hurdle to the universal adoption of LEDs. However, with mass consumption comes affordability. Today, entry-level cars such as the Kia Rio5 use LEDs as daytime running lights. The future is, indeed, bright.

  
  

  

  
  9:00 am on December 31, 2011
   

• Munich • Active safety is playing an increasingly more important role in the modern automobile. Electronic stability control (ESC) systems became standard fitment on all 2012 light-duty vehicles. The reason is not difficult to grasp when you look at the numbers.

  According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a vehicle equipped with ESC is 35% less likely to be involved in a crash. The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) goes further, suggesting that it cuts fatal crashes by 43% and the likelihood of a fatality due to a rollover by a whopping 77% to 80%! The next phase of active safety has to do with predicting an incident and then taking corrective action before it occurs.

  Audi has a number of systems, each of which is designed to reduce the risk of injury caused by a crash. The umbrella under which many of these systems reside is called Audi pre sense. It does exactly what its name implies — it looks for a potential incident and begins to take corrective action before the big bang occurs. The basic system uses the electronic stability control system. When the car begins to deviate from the driver’s intended line, the system turns on the hazard warning lights, closes the windows and sunroof (if open) and snugs up the seat belts, which pulls the riders back into their seats and readies them for the potential impact.

  Farther up the chain is pre sense front. This system uses the active cruise control and its ability to control the speed of the vehicle. Before taking charge, the system first attempts to draw the driver’s attention to the potential incident by giving visual and audible warnings. If the driver does nothing, it attempts to spur them to action by dabbing the brakes momentarily. If the driver still does nothing to avoid what is now a looming problem, the system applies up to 30% brake pressure to slow the vehicle, which reduces the severity of the impact.

  The top version, pre sense plus, goes one further by applying full brake pressure 0.5 seconds before the impact. In the real world, this action can take as much as 40 kilometres an hour off the impact speed, which dramatically reduces the severity of injury. Future pre sense generations will also look at the potential severity of the impact and tailor the seat belt pretensioners and air bag deployment to the type of impact.

  Beyond that, Audi is expanding its active safety portfolio by adding adaptive cruise control with stop and go. It uses a pair of radars that monitors the road ahead for 250 metres. It then controls the speed of the vehicle and the distance by which it tails the car ahead. The system works over the entire speed range (zero to 250 km/h) and it can bring the vehicle to a halt if that’s what the car ahead does. It is a truly freaky feeling letting a system prevent you from running into the back of a car.

  The next evolution will add a laser scanner (it can be likened to a very sophisticated bar code scanner). This debut is pre sense city. It allows the vehicle to track the car ahead and mimic what it does by not only controlling the gas and brakes but also by using the active steering system (part of Audi’s self-park system) to track the car ahead. Mercifully, it is smart enough not to follow the car if it does a hard right out of the lane.

  Audi’s lane departure warning system is also a little different. As well as vibrating the steering wheel when the driver begins to drift out of the lane, it, too, uses the active steering and a camera that monitors the lines to put the car back in the centre of the lane. It really does encourage the use of the turn signal — this cancels the action.

  Another future technology is a self-parking feature, and it goes well beyond anything offered today. Using a variety of sensors, the car actually parks itself without the driver being in the vehicle. Pull up outside the garage, open the door, get out and push a button on the key fob. The system then selects Drive and inches into the garage all by itself. When it senses the wall at the end of the garage, it stops, selects Park, shuts the engine down and applies the parking brake. It also closes any open window and locks the doors. The next morning, the driver simply pushes the same button and it backs out to a predetermined spot on the driveway. If at any time it detects an obstacle, it will stop and wait for the problem to clear. So, if little Johnny leaves his toy dump truck in the middle of the garage, it will not get bulldozed!

  The other demonstration of note was a system designed to ease the chore of backing an Audi up with a trailer in tow. The secret to the ability lies in a special tow hitch ball that measures the angle of the trailer relative to the car. It is very simple to use. When backing up, the driver uses the Multi-Media Interface’s central controller to guide the car, not the steering wheel. The system uses the active steering to dial in the inputs needed to put the trailer where the driver wants with uncanny precision. It turned a complete trailer-towing neophyte (me) into a trailer tow pro in less time than it took to read this description. All I did was control the speed of the car. What will they think of next!

  
  

  

  
  8:00 am on December 2, 2011
   

• As is rapidly becoming the norm, the L.A. Auto Show was being promoted as a green fest. Nestled among the mega-horsepower monsters were the usual hybrid/electric rides that are growing in number. As such, there were plenty of green rides and the opportunity to test many of them in a short drive. However, not all was hunky-dory — there was an underlying theme that spoke to the la-la land syndrome.

  The first was Coda Automotive’s electric car. The Coda EV’s hardware consists of a 36-kWh lithium ion phosphate battery, the required power electronics and an electric motor that produces 136 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque. The company claims the EV will drive up to 240 kilometres on a single charge. It also says it has the fastest charge rate on the market — two hours for an 80-km charge, four hours for a 160-km charge and, by extension, six hours for a full charge using a 220-volt/30-amp outlet. So far, so good. Where it all came unravelled was in the car’s styling outside and in. The EV looked, and was finished, like a car from a decade or more ago. The materials were marginal, as was the build quality — and the style was bland to the point where it made a meal of dry toast seem appealing.

  Finally, the representative suggested that the battery has a life expectancy of 20 years, which, she proclaimed with a straight face, is why the company warrants it for 10 years or 160,000 kilometres. Why peg the warranty at half the expected life? The answer was not forthcoming. The other hitch is cost — the Coda EV is priced at $39,900, which is all but the same as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt.

  The second anomaly was the Green Car of the Year award, which is presented annually by the Green Car Journal. Along with the Journal’s editors, the jury includes Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club,?Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of Ocean Futures Society, Matt Petersen, president of Global Green USA, Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show and Post Driving columnist, and automotive legend Carroll Shelby. This year, this esteemed group picked the natural gas-powered Honda Civic over the Ford Focus Electric, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Toyota Prius V hybrid and the Volkswagen Passat TDI clean diesel.

  Usually, I’m on side with the Journal’s choice. This year, I am not. Certainly, the natural gas-powered Civic is clean and more than green, and it is typically Honda in that the car’s execution is first rate. As such, it might be a worthy winner but for one key factor — this derivative of the Civic is offered in limited numbers and only in select areas of the United States. In all, it is retailed in 36 states through a network of 200 dealers. It is not offered in Canada, which also means that its availability is far from being North America-wide.

  To my mind, the Toyota Prius V or Volkswagen Passat TDI would have made far more worthy winners. Although neither is cleaner than the Civic, the cumulative effect of the emissions removed by recognizing something other than a niche vehicle would have had a significantly larger effect on the environment — one-third of all VWs sold in Canada are diesel-powered. That, given the TDI’s cleanliness and operational efficiency, is a significant number, one that puts a big dent in pollution while lightening the load on one’s wallet.

  On a brighter note, the Doking XD provided the answer to environmental and congestion concerns. Here’s a three-seat electric vehicle that is about the size of a Smart fortwo. It is a funky-looking piece with a pair of scissor-hinged doors and tail lights that form an X — the inner portion of the X then forms an arrow indicating the direction of a turn.

  Inside, the driver sits in the middle of the vehicle with the other two passengers flanking the central seat on the outboard sides of the cabin. Yes, it is tight, especially for the rear riders, but it proved to be more comfortable than the description implies.

  There are two Doking models available ­— the XD2 and XD4. The difference is found in the number of electric motors. The XD2 features a pair of motors that produces a combined output of 120 hp and 265 lb-ft of torque. The XD4 doubles the number of motors and the respective output — with 220 hp and 530 lb-ft of torque on tap. Doking claims the XD4 will accelerate to 100 kilometres an hour in 4.2 seconds. The motors get their power from a 33-kWh lithium ion phosphate battery that delivers a claimed range of 170 km when the average speed of the drive is 80 km/h. Given that real-world commutes are usually conducted at an average driving speed of about half that suggests that the actual driving distance will be more than 200 km. The Doking XD2 starts at $50,000 and is only built on an as- ordered basis.

  
  

  

  
  2:00 pm on November 24, 2011