AUTO MANIA: by Dr. Iain Corness [email protected]

Print your own car and drive away

3D printed car.

3D printing has only become a possibility in the last few years, though the adoption of this technology is spreading. The list now includes 3D printable human tissue, to a 3D printed life-size castle, and now a 3D printed car.
At the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, Arizona-based automobile manufacturer Local Motors stole the show. Over the six days of the IMTS, the company managed to 3D print, and assemble an entire car, called the ‘Strati’, live in front of spectators.
Even though the Strati is not the first car to be 3D printed, the advancements made by Local Motor with help from Cincinnati Inc, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, produced a vehicle in days rather than months.
In 2013, engineer Jim Kor designed the Urbee 2 3D printed car. The vehicle which weighed about half of what a typical automobile would weigh, was as strong as steel. What set Local Motor’s ‘Strati’ 3D printed car apart from the Urbee 2, was the fact that they managed to print and construct the entire vehicle in just six days, whereas the Urbee 2 took 2500 print hours to complete.
The breakthrough was made possible by a machine produced by Cincinnati Inc., in cooperation with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine is capable of printing at much faster speeds than traditional 3D printers. It can lay down up to 20 kg of carbon infused ABS plastic per hour, with precise accuracy. After an exciting six days of printing, in front of a live audience, the vehicle was finally complete.
To show that this was not just an automotive work of art, the car, which features just 40 parts, drove out of McCormick Place in Chicago. Local Motors’ next plan to do after the Strati 3D printed car, is to seek to launch production-level 3D printed vehicles for sale to the public in the coming months.
Having seen video clips of this machine (I call it that rather than “car”) it is fairly basic, but is definitely a portent of what is to come. Many parts of F1 cars are made using 3D printing. The family run-about will be next, and finally an eco-car with the 3D printing process producing parts around half the weight of conventional items.
 

Can Asian Motor sport be cohesive?

Camaro

Motor sport in Asia has a reasonably long and stable background, but nothing like the history of the sport in Europe or America, even though China did host the Peking to Paris event in 1907. Asian motor sports have developed in the individual countries independently, and these separate countries have introduced their own local rules, which have more or less worked, but only allows competition at the national level.
However, in today’s global village, it is necessary to branch out beyond national borders. One such company which assisted Asian motor sport to grow upwards and outwards was Motorsport Asia Limited, the brain child of David Sonenscher, who could be considered to be the Bernie Ecclestone of Asia (but a lot younger)!
Sonenscher’s Motorsport Asia developed the concept of a traveling circus called the Asian Festival of Speed (AFOS) and made the personal transition from driver and then team manager to finally a series organizer. That he had managed to do that is a great testament to his persistence, as anyone who has tried to work across the Asian borders will testify, despite ASEAN.
Unfortunately, some countries have made it very difficult to run a series through non-recognition of carnets and other red tape requirements.
The latest to try and get an international series going is the Thailand Super Series, calling itself the new era of Thailand motor sport. This series has been running in Malaysia and Thailand, with the top category attracting the international racing supercars from Porsche, Audi, Chevrolet Camaro, Lamborghini, Nissan, Lotus, Toyota and Ferrari, and drivers in Thailand bringing in international drivers such as Thomas Enge and international crews to look after the cars, such as Reiter Engineering.
So far, this has been an incredibly successful series.
Another international series is the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia featuring 28 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Type 991) which has also been on the F1 program of events, including the F1 round in Singapore last weekend.
This series is led by New Zealander Earl Bamber of LKM Racing, reigning Porsche Carrera Cup Asia champion, Porsche Mobil1 Supercup leader and winner of the 2013 Porsche Motorsport International Cup Scholarship.
He is being closely followed by arch rival Martin Ragginger (Austria) of Team Porsche Holding has fought hard all season to keep the main prize within reach, taking his second win of the season in Malaysia last.
Also still in the frame for this year’s championship is former F1 test and reserve driver, Tung Ho-Pin of China competing with Budweiser Team Absolute Racing. Contesting his third Porsche Carrera Cup Asia season, Tung is currently third on the leaderboard, two points ahead of 2012 champion Alexandre Imperatori of PICC Team StarChase and Team Jebsen’s Rodolfo Avila, who are tied in fourth.

China promotes EV’s and Plug-in Hybrids (PHEV’s)

BYD EV

There are still those people around who believe the average Chinese adult rides a bicycle. Sorry, the average Chinese adult now drives a motor car, pays purchase tax to buy the car and is paying a 10 percent levy on the prevalue-added-tax price of a car. A car that sells for 100,000 yuan including the value-added tax, would cost the buyer an extra 8,547 yuan (almost 45,000 baht).
However, the Chinese government is aware of its air pollution problem, and as part of the awareness campaign, starting this month, buyers of government-approved electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will not have to pay this extra tax, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration of Taxation.
To show just how far down the line the Chinese automakers really are, there are 113 models that qualify for the tax exemption. The list includes the e6 from Guangdong Province’s BYD Auto (Build Your Dream partly owned by Warren Buffet) and the Roewe E50 (pronounced “Rover”) of Shanghai-based SAIC Motor. In all, 17 passenger electric vehicles from 11 automakers are covered by the program. As for plug-in hybrids, the tax exemption applies to six models from four carmakers. The program also covers electric and plug-in hybrid buses and trucks.
Four years ago, Beijing began subsiding purchases of electric vehicles. With the tax exemption combined with a local government subsidy, car buyers can save up to 100,000 yuan off the price of these cars. Now a BYD e6, which would otherwise go for about 310,000 yuan, can be had for about the same amount as a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, midsize sedans that are made in China by joint ventures.
Sales of these so-called “green” vehicles have been rising recently. In the January-June period, they increased 120 percent on the year, to the range of 20,000 units, according to industry data. In a bid to further boost these numbers, Chinese President Xi Jinping in May visited a research and development lab of SAIC Motor in Shanghai and stated that the development of next-generation eco-friendly vehicles “is essential for making China an auto giant.”
In July, the State Council recommended that eco-friendly cars make up at least 30 percent of vehicles purchased by local governments and public transportation authorities.
With the July recommendation, which says local government bureaucrats will be assessed by how many eco-friendly vehicles they put into use and by how many charging stations they manage to install. The Shanghai municipal government appears to have taken notice. It has decided to introduce 13,000 eco-friendly cars by 2015.
It is estimated that if these and other local governments do their part, they could end up buying 80,000 eco-friendly cars in 2014 and 250,000 in 2015. In doing so, they could provide a much-needed boost to China’s sluggish eco-friendly car market.

What did we learn from the Singapore Grand prix?

To be perfectly frank, it was a processional and artificially stage-managed race. Yes, it was processional as the much vaunted two DRS zones are too short to allow the following car to pass, Singapore being another Bernie inspired round the houses (hotels) race. If you saw a DRS pass, please let me know, as I didn’t see one.
Stage-managed? Tell me why it took six laps behind the safety car to remove some shards of a front wing from the track. My maid could have done it in three laps with her whisk broom and dust pan. However, it did bunch the cars up again to make it look exciting. Did Bernie have a word in someone’s ear again?
We also learned that despite the advances in electronics, they certainly are not bullet proof. With all the millions in the Mercedes piggy bank, they sent championship leader Nico Rosberg out with a car that wasn’t even running properly in the pit garage! Rosberg stating that, “The problems with my steering wheel began in the garage even before the race and it was a difficult moment when I couldn’t pull away from the grid - the car didn’t get out of neutral. When I left the pit-lane, I was only able to change gear - there was no radio, no DRS and reduced Hybrid power. We were hoping that the systems might come back to life, like the radio did, and that we could change the situation. But after we changed the wheel another time, we had to retire the car.” Note that Mercedes was “hoping that the systems might come back to life.” Sorry, only Bernie (or God) can do that. On second thoughts, perhaps Bernie is God?
So to the race, or rather the procession. An interesting start where Alonso (almost) pulled the rabbit from the hat on the first corner, steaming through to second place by having all four wheels off the racing surface. Four wheels? You could have driven an 18 wheeler through there on Fernando’s line. He did give one place back (Vettel), and should have also surrendered to Ricciardo, but no five second stop-go penalty, although others did get penalized - but then again they weren’t battling at the sharp end. Did Bernie have a word with the stewards about this?
Hamilton deserved his win. He was never challenged and towards the final stages could pull away from second placed Vettel (Red Bull) and third placed Ricciardo (Sick Bull) and fourth placed Alonso (Ferrari) at two to three seconds a lap!
Unreliability was the name of the game in Singapore with Rosberg, then Ricciardo where Christian Horner later disclosed that the power surges were caused by a battery that wouldn’t discharge. A new rabbit needed? Jenson Button (McLaren) stopped through failure of the car’s electrical power box. Electrics also sidelined Gutierrez’ Sauber, and poor old Kamui Kobayashi (Caterham) caught fire on the way to the grid.
The next meeting is next week in Japan. Let us hope that the top echelon of motor sport can find reliability and provide good racing.

Autotrivia Quiz

Last week I mentioned that two men met in 1899 and they made plans to form a company and build their own “Moto-cycle”. Who were they and what was the product called? It was the Indian motorcycle and the two man were George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom.
So to this week. Disappearing headlights were known before WWII but were not seen again till 1966. On what car?
For the Automania free beer this week, be the first correct answer to email [email protected].