A question about gear usage.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Car's haven't really been monocoque for a long time. They're partial monocoque, partial spaceframe hybrids. So if you look at a so called "Body in White" you can see that some bits are like stressed bodywork and some bits are struts etc.

[Horse]

Letterbox front grille, and slide it in and out like a drawer, with a mini forklift-type gadget.

Hmm. Possibly. Although as the underfloor battery has to be sculpted round the footwells, I suspect side loading would be easier.

I was trying to find some diagrams to show where the batteries are situated - I know one technology that was being talked about a couple of years back was for 'formed' batteries that can be shaped and used as stressed parts of the vehicle. They clearly wouldn't be swappable, if they happen.

https://www.insideevs.com/news/450534/t ... packs/amp/

https://insideevs.com/news/445282/tesla ... structure/

[Horse]

Car's haven't really been monocoque for a long time. They're partial monocoque, partial spaceframe hybrids. So if you look at a so called "Body in White" you can see that some bits are like stressed bodywork and some bits are struts etc.

Isn't it that the 'body under' is the biggest pressing, that's then common across ranges (eg Octavia Golf Leon) with different panels?

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's probably worth mentioning that even if battery packs aren't swappable there's still benefit to be had from everyone using the same one. If you just buy in your pre-existing semi-structural battery and build a car/bike around you can rely on someone elses big old factory and design work to save a lot of money.

[Screwdriver]

I rather suspect the "one giant battery" approach is an optimum solution to a non-swappable battery unit. If you were to design a vehicle to have hot-swap capability from the off, then clearly a series of modular units would be the optimum strategy.

I seem to recall reading the Tesla battery is made up from 7 thousand odd regular 18650 cells. That could become tedious to swap out except for one other little factlet I recall from the Tesla gigafactory article: those 18650 cells come off the production line at a rate equivalent to a machine gun!

You Earthlings appear to be quite good at designing weapons so maybe it is possible to design a hot-swap system that "reloads" a car the same way you reload a weapon system. There is nothing new under the Sun and I'm sure this is such an obvious idea, someone has tried it.

[The Spin Doctor]

How did we get here from a discussion on gears?

[Screwdriver]

Serendipity.

[Mr. Dazzle]

How did we get here from a discussion on gears?

Electric vehicles won't need gears!

Gear selection is going the same way as the ability to drive a chariot or foresee a squall in time to get t'gallants in.

[The Spin Doctor]

I'd have a reef in the fore and main topsails too

[cheb]

Car's haven't really been monocoque for a long time. They're partial monocoque, partial spaceframe hybrids. So if you look at a so called "Body in White" you can see that some bits are like stressed bodywork and some bits are struts etc.

Isn't it that the 'body under' is the biggest pressing, that's then common across ranges (eg Octavia Golf Leon) with different panels?

Thanks, I was using monocoque in a vague sense.

[slowsider]

I'd have a reefer in the fore and main topsails too

on the Jamaica run

[slowsider]

You Earthlings appear to be quite good at designing weapons so maybe it is possible to design a hot-swap system that "reloads" a car the same way you reload a weapon system. There is nothing new under the Sun and I'm sure this is such an obvious idea, someone has tried it.

We're going at it the wrong way.
With the advent of electric autonomous vehicles, keep the accommodation pod and swap the transport system - Thunderbird 2 style

[Mr. Dazzle]

They never showed how they got Thunderbird 4 back in, which suggests to me there are at least some flaws in the plan.

[slowsider]

They never showed how they got Thunderbird 4 back in, which suggests to me there are at least some flaws in the plan.

It would .. ahh .. need Brains, Mr Tracy.

[Horse]

They never showed how they got Thunderbird 4 back in, which suggests to me there are at least some flaws in the plan.

Same way as they get lifeboats back up the big slope into the shed?


Not like the one I saw coming in at Selsey - they go full throttle towards the shore and beach, then a caterpiller tractor / trailer (with turntable!) collects it:

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's so much the getting Thunderbird 4 back in the pod which is problematic, it's getting the pod back into Thunderbird 2. They used to just drop the pod into the water - so how do they get it back? If Thunderbird 2 can land on the water why do they just drop everything from the sky in the first place? Seems unnecessarily dangerous.

These are the questions which keep me up at night.

[Horse]

Perhaps T4 works like a little tug boat (not a euphemism) and takes the pod back to Tracy Island?

[slowsider]

Pfft. Beach it.
They never dropped the Mole in the water.

[Horse]

Pfft. Beach it.
They never dropped the Mole in the water.

The amount of underground services nowadays, they'd probably get some geezer with a hard hat and clipboard arrive, "You can't drill there!"