New Automotive Ideas

[EvolutionQY7]

Im making a survey and a study on existing or new ideas for the automotive industry.

Any one have used an automotive service or product that could be imporoved or better so something new that could be added to the automotive industry?

Ideas would start something like Scrappage scheme whats wrong with it or what can be added? pre-NCT tests and other similiar services.

Have in mind that this is based in Ireland but any ideas are welcome

[akboss]

Originally Posted by EvolutionQY7

Im making a survey and a study on existing or new ideas for the automotive industry.

Any one have used an automotive service or product that could be imporoved or better so something new that could be added to the automotive industry?

Ideas would start something like Scrappage scheme whats wrong with it or what can be added? pre-NCT tests and other similiar services.

Have in mind that this is based in Ireland but any ideas are welcome

I think the three biggest issues on the road and in the near future will be 1) Cleaning up the roads from old, polluting cars, 2) Creating an infrastructure for the next generation of cars that don't use gasoline or diesel (i.e. electricity, hydrogen, etc.) and 3) Dealing with road congestion.

On the first topic, I'm from Canada, and our emissions testing for old vehicles is a joke. A coworker was telling me the other day that he went to have his old Honda e-tested, and it failed. He went out and bought a bottle of fuel treatment, drove for 100 km's, went back to another shop, and the car passed. To some degree it has cleaned up a few of the worst offenders, cars where you could see a trail of smoke following them down the highway. But as much as there are critics of the C4C program in the U.S, it got a lot of old, polluting cars off the road and replaced them with newer, more efficient ones. It was an aggressive program, I believe $4,500 - In Canada, the 'drive clean' program offers $300, so it is useless. The major problem with the C4C program in the U.S. is that they didn't have the infrastructure to deal with the onslaught of scrap cars - there was little recycling or reusing of parts, and a lot of it just became garbage. IMO, an aggressive government program to recycle old cars with a cash reward for trading in on a new, more efficient car is a great idea, also coupled with stricter emissions regulations for older cars. I think classic cars are wonderful and our culture should have the opportunity to keep them going, but perhaps there are exhaust filters or emissions control steps that could be taken to make them less damaging to the environment.

Replacing the petrol fuel station is going to be a massive task, and one that will need a clear direction of future energy to pursue. At this point, some cars are going hydrogen (Honda Clarity, BMW Hydrogen cars) and some are going electric (Tesla, Fisker) and some are caught in between (plug-in Prius, Volt). So until one technology becomes the preeminent solution for powering the next generation of automobiles, nobody will want to retrofit their gas station. But once this technology does become more refined, there will need to be a massive rebuilding of the network we use to fuel our vehicles - whether it is simply converting gas stations to high-pressure, high-security holding tanks for hydrogen, or massive battery stations and solar grids for collecting electricity. It needs to happen, oil is finite, and the next decade will reveal a lot in this process.

The last major problem of congestion attacks the whole idea of the car itself. As the world becomes more and more wealthy, and more countries become first-world countries, the demand for roads, oil and cars has exploded. Soon enough, demand for space on the roads will outweigh the road's capacity, and traffic will be so congested that it will become completely uneconomical to travel on major roadways. The cost of building, and even more for maintaining roadways is astronomical, and a better system of transportation is needed. How we get from one place to another needs to be re-evaluated, as many manufacturers are doing right now. Honda has the little fold-up unicycle thing, and Toyota has the motorized 20-mph wheelchair that can chat with your friends. If you think about the requirements for one person to travel quickly from one place to another, cars are so vastly oversized that it makes you wonder how we have created a network to support them. I imagine that vehicles will become much smaller, much cleaner, and major roads will be traveled in a sort of automated fashion. Rural areas will always have a different beat than the city, so I'm sure you'll have your gas powered sedans and pickups still kicking around in the country.

These topics are probably larger than the scope of your survey, except maybe the first one...it was just interesting for me to think about so I wrote it down. One further element that could use attention is how to recycle all the cars that are currently considered 'scrap'. I lightly touched on the issue before, but the process of breaking apart metals from plastics and treating those to create pure materials to use in another application is complex but worthwhile.

[EvolutionQY7]

not sure about canada or US but in Ireland its the automotive dealerships duty to recycle the car...means u can just drop a scrap car of their make ofc and say thanks and walk away...its their duty to do that...otherwise here we have the scrappage scheme where you can trade in an old car about 10 years old or more and get around 4.500 Euro max on top of what its worth...the garage will scrap it...and if the car costs around 15'000 u get urself a car for around 6'000 less maybe

[akboss]

Originally Posted by EvolutionQY7

not sure about canada or US but in Ireland its the automotive dealerships duty to recycle the car...means u can just drop a scrap car of their make ofc and say thanks and walk away...its their duty to do that...otherwise here we have the scrappage scheme where you can trade in an old car about 10 years old or more and get around 4.500 Euro max on top of what its worth...the garage will scrap it...and if the car costs around 15'000 u get urself a car for around 6'000 less maybe

But once the dealer takes it, what is the actual process of recycling? This is the concern. In worst case scenarios the car is just crushed and dumped in a car-landfill. It would be interesting to study the actual process of recycling old cars and if that could be improved.

[EvolutionQY7]

http://www.recycle-steel.org/PDFs/brochures/auto.pdf just found this that should answer your question

[akboss]

Originally Posted by EvolutionQY7

http://www.recycle-steel.org/PDFs/brochures/auto.pdf just found this that should answer your question

Very cool! Thanks for the post. Volvo is actually making certain parts of their concept cars 'biodegradable', hmmm there's an interesting idea.

[khalel]

You know I think they should make a water proof car, a car which won't be afraid of flood I really think it is possible.

[akboss]

Originally Posted by khalel

You know I think they should make a water proof car, a car which won't be afraid of flood I really think it is possible.

How often do cars get in floods? I can see there being an aftermarket company that outfits cars to be water sealed, possibly even amphibious, but I doubt a manufacturer could make any money offering this.

Cool idea though! If I lived below sea level, I might consider this a good investment...