Less Is More - Weight Is The Enemy


by Tonami Playman - Date: 2007-03-30 - Word Count: 404 Share This!

As awareness and large scale acceptance of fuel efficient automobiles, car makers are scrambling to get their hands on the most high tech sounding technology to get an advantage. Not many of them are taking the very obvious route of cutting weight. No matter how much the car makers talk about using aluminum and plastics to save weight, they still manage to make every successive car much heavier than the preceding model, hence resulting to bigger engines to provide the same motive force and even if they use a more efficient engine they end up negating any gains made in fuel economy. In most cases the cars have worse fuel economy.

Drastic changes can be achieved if engineers take more effort in cutting weight in cars. One company I would like to comment on this front is Mazda. They seem to understand the weight saving business more than any other car maker. For example the RX8 weighs the same as the previous generation RX7, yet it is twice as rigid. although the benefits did not translate well in fuel economy because of the inherent flaws of the rotary engine. A better example is the MX-5 which weighs the same as the previous model yet more rigid. For comparison its biggest rival the Pontiac Solstice weighs in at 1300kg(2600lbs) while the MX-5 weighs just 1125kg(2475lbs). This allows the MX-5 to use a smaller engine yet it accelerates faster than the solstice and most importantly the MX-5s is EPA rated at 24mpg while the Solstice is at 21mpg. Mazda has also done something outstanding achievement by making the new generation Mazda 2 100kg(220lbs) lighter than the previous model, the reverse is the norm in the industry. And they do this not by using the most exotic materials, but by cleverly paying attention in the design process, adding no additional costs.

One reason for this constant increase in weight is in addition to the so called heightened consumer demands for luxury and safety is the over reliance on platform sharing. Platform sharing saves costs, but it does have a limit. Its a lot harder to try to chop weight of an existing platform than to design a lighter one from scratch. Computer Aided development has brought down development costs drastically and lessened the cost advantage of platform sharing. By cutting weight engines would drop in size and the fuel economy gains would be visible without too much additional cost.


Related Tags: global warming, downsizing, lightweight, fuel economy

Tonami Playman is a computer science student at Knoxville college. He is an avid information consumer and contributer in computer and automotive circles.

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