TerraLiner:12 m Globally Mobile Beach House/Class-A Crossover w 6x6 Hybrid Drivetrain

[safas]

As to LeTourneau (you write it incorrectly, to-u-...) my memory tells me that it was a quote from unusuallocomotion.com. That's where I found the truck. But now I don't see it there...
In the browser history I have http://s4.e-monsite.com/2011/08/30/62869162letourneau-transporter-series-t-pdf.pdf which is

Regenerative electric braking for operational purposes and magnetically controlled, multiple-disc brakes for emergency stops and parking

The latter sounds like friction brakes.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E, safas,

Here's a news flash that I just received. I am a Cambridge alumnus, and in the most recent edition of the CAM alumni magazine there's an article about a breakthrough lithium-air battery developed by Cambridge researchers -- see http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/...ry?utm_medium=email&utm_source=alumnewsletter , https://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/magazine , and https://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/files/documents/cam75_online-150dpi_03.pdf (you might have to wait a few weeks until the November issue is readily available on-line to the wider public). The article emphasizes that lithium-air batteries are still at least a decade away from practical implementation, but lithium-air promise to be the ultimate in "Next Generation" battery technology, with efficiency above 90 %, and an energy density comparable to gasoline. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium–air_battery .

All best wishes.



Biotect

 

[safas]

I have news, bad and good.
Bad one is that there's no breakthrough in electricity generation.
By reading wikipedia you may learn that gas turbines are lightweight, efficient, reliable, multi-fuel and low-vibration.
This is half-true. See, they can have any of these features. But can't have all at once. They can't be lightweight and efficient at the same time.
Efficiency of turbine alone is low. However, they release most of waste heat in very hot exhaust gasses. This heat can be recovered for a good efficiency boost, but recovery weights a lot, so aircraft turbines tend not to have it.
Overall, if you want a light turbine, your fuel consumption will be up by 25-100%. What's worse, turbines with good efficiency start at 850 HP, which means that if you insist on redundancy (I think it's overkill with aero-certified engine) you won't save anything. Even with a single engine you'll need a powerful (and heavy) generator and more fuel for the same energy. Overall, whether they are a good pick depends on a number of parameters, weight-wise they are in the same ballpark as the best diesels. I compiled a spreadsheet with a number of engines that I found (not large when it comes to engines other than turbines) and with configurable parameters.

So far I found no APUs with fuel consumption details. I'm near giving up, I probably do something wrong, this data can't be unavailable. And I have few non-aero diesels, but I can improve here.

The good news is that the Steyr engines used by Jenoptik are hardly lightweight. Switching to another diesel should be near drop-in and save 100 kg/engine easily (my calculations show 120, but from an aero engine that might need a modification to oil sump to account for side-loads that happen in cars but I guess they don't in planes. And I prefer to be conservative)

The forum doesn't support .ods attachments . Any suggestion how to upload the spreadsheet?

 

[Haf-E]

Happened to come across an article about Admiral's Byrd's Antarctic expedition vehicle the "Snow Cruiser" from 1937 to 1939. Thought this was interesting:

"The Diesel-Electric drive train allowed for smaller engines and more space for the crew, due to the elimination of large mechanical drive components throughout the vehicle. This is possibly the first application of a diesel-electric powertrain in a 4-wheeled vehicle of this size; this design is now common in large modern mining trucks.

Powertrain Configuration: Diesel-Electric Hybrid (2 diesel engines, 2 generators, 4 electric motors)

"Fresh from the Pullman shop in its high-visibility orange-paint scheme, the Snow Cruiser was driven over 1000 miles to catch its ride south on the ship North Star. This pre-run, the only test of the equipment before reaching Antar*c*tica, resulted in mechanical failures, accidents, and massive traffic snarls, but the Cruiser arrived in Boston under its own power 19 days later. From there, it took three months to get to Antarctica."

"While the underside was capable of sledding down embankments, the smooth tires couldn't provide enough grip to climb one. The Snow Cruiser was abandoned less than five miles into its exploration when it failed to overcome its first barrier. Documentary evidence indicates the 75,000-lb Cruiser's tires dug into the snow rather than skirting over it. After the drive motors failed, the Snow Cruiser became a stationary outpost, and the onset of World War II forced its abandonment. It remained an outpost and was visited until the '60s when the ice shelf on which it was trapped gave way."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Snow_Cruiser

 

[biotect]

...

I have news, bad and good.
Bad one is that there's no breakthrough in electricity generation.
By reading wikipedia you may learn that gas turbines are lightweight, efficient, reliable, multi-fuel and low-vibration.
This is half-true. See, they can have any of these features. But can't have all at once. They can't be lightweight and efficient at the same time.
Efficiency of turbine alone is low. However, they release most of waste heat in very hot exhaust gasses. This heat can be recovered for a good efficiency boost, but recovery weights a lot, so aircraft turbines tend not to have it.
Overall, if you want a light turbine, your fuel consumption will be up by 25-100%. What's worse, turbines with good efficiency start at 850 HP, which means that if you insist on redundancy (I think it's overkill with aero-certified engine) you won't save anything. Even with a single engine you'll need a powerful (and heavy) generator and more fuel for the same energy. Overall, whether they are a good pick depends on a number of parameters, weight-wise they are in the same ballpark as the best diesels. I compiled a spreadsheet with a number of engines that I found (not large when it comes to engines other than turbines) and with configurable parameters.

So far I found no APUs with fuel consumption details. I'm near giving up, I probably do something wrong, this data can't be unavailable. And I have few non-aero diesels, but I can improve here.

The good news is that the Steyr engines used by Jenoptik are hardly lightweight. Switching to another diesel should be near drop-in and save 100 kg/engine easily (my calculations show 120, but from an aero engine that might need a modification to oil sump to account for side-loads that happen in cars but I guess they don't in planes. And I prefer to be conservative)

The forum doesn't support .ods attachments . Any suggestion how to upload the spreadsheet?

Hi safas,


1. "Image Grab"


One possibility is using an "Image Grab" program. All Macs come pre-equipped with an app called, simply, "Grab". This app allows one to take screen shots, window-shots, selection shots, and timed screen shots.

When I find myself wanting to repost an image, but a website is obtuse, and a message insists that I must use their link to their website, and the website won't let me download the image as a JPEG (usually by right-clicking with my mouse), I just snap the image with "Grab" instead. Grab produces TIFF files, so I'll then transfer the TIFF to PhotoShop, where often I will try to improve it a bit, using tools like "Auto Levels", "Smart Sharpen", and "Unsharp Mask." I don't mess with images too much; just try to pump up the color + contrast, and/or sharpen the text, and will usually increase either the width or height (whichever is largest) to 70 cm, and the pixel resolution to 50 - 70 pixels/cm. And then I save the image from PhotoShop as a JPEG file, instead of a TIFF, and it is ready to post. As you know, ExPo does not accept TIFF files; it only accepts JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs.

I also use Preview to do additional transformations, for instance, printing individual pages from PDFs, pages that I then export as JPEGs, and manipulate further in PhotoShop...... But that's getting too complicated.

What I've found is that if an image is pixel-rich and up to 4 MB in size, ExPo will upload it. Yes, there is a 500 KB official limit, but that only seems to apply to images that were low-resolution to begin with. For instance, if a small JPEG image begins as 43 K, and one increases its size and resolution so that it ends up as 2 or 3 MB, then ExPo software will reject it. ExPo software only allows one to increase the size of such a low-res image up to roughly 520 K maximum.

However, if one's original image was highly detailed, and the original JPEG file was roughly 200 K or above, and one then expands that to 3.5 MB, ExPo will generally upload it. Even better, if the original image was a real beauty -- for instance, a 5 MB - 15 MB landscape photograph of the kind that are now posted regularly on Google's "Panoramio" -- then all one needs to do is reduce the 10 MB image down to a 4 MB JPEG, and the ExPo software will also upload it.

In the course of uploading a 4 MB image ExPo's software will compress it further. So a 4 MB JPEG finally becomes circa 500 - 600 K. But ExPo's image-compression software is terrific, and it's amazing the amount of detail that is preserved, as a Panoramio landscape that was originally 10 MB shrinks to 4 MB and then down to 550 K on ExPo. The image will still look stunning, even when expanded to fill the whole screen. One of the reasons I blog here is precisely because whatever ExPo is doing to handle uploaded images, it is doing right. I don't know of many other web-forums that allow one to create posts so saturated with top-quality images and video.

The trick when it comes to "Grabs" is this. When I take a snap-shot of a window on the screen of my computer with "Grab", the TIFF image created is almost always quite large and high-resolution, as good as any high-res JPG download. So the final JPEGs of "Grabs" that I post on ExPo are almost always much larger than a mere 550 K. Instead, they usually size as roughly 2 - 3 MB when I post them. And yet literally every Grab that I have ever taken, processed via Photoshop, and then posted as a 2 - 3 MB JPEG, has uploaded just fine. I figure that's because the original TIFF was very high-quality and high-resolution to begin with. ExPo's software somehow "reads" the image as rich with genuine pixel variation. Yes, uploading a 2 - 3 MG JPEG might take a bit of time, depending on the bandwidth of one's Internet connection. But I have high-speed broadband Internet.....:sombrero:

Furthermore, even if a 2 - 3 MB Grab contains lots of small text, the text will remain very legible even when ExPo's software compresses the Grab down to 550 K. So a GRAB of a spreadsheet window that's filled with small text should upload just fine, preserving legibility, just as long as one uploads it as a pixel-rich 2 -3 MB JPEG, obtained from a GRAB in TIFF format that was also very high resolution.


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That may have been a great deal to take in. Doing these kinds of image-manipulations and getting the most out of ExPo's software probably comes natural to me because I am a designer, and I literally live in front of my Mac workstation, my Macbook Pro portable, my iPad, and my iPhone (yes, I have all four). So I hope the above made sense; but if it didn't, my apologies. I sort of worked all of this out intuitively over the last 18 months, in the course of posting different kinds and sizes of images on ExPo.

If you don't have an "Image Grab" program", or if you have a Grab program, but you don't have a program like Photoshop that can convert TIFFs to JPEGs, then honestly I'm not sure what to say.

Also, granted, it might also be nice to post your spreadsheet as an actual Excell document, so that others can download it in that format, and play with the numbers on their own computers. Whereas if you take a window-shot or a screen-shot, then others will have to re-enter all your data in order to further manipulate your results.


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2. Iain

Iain, if you are reading this, and if you ever have the time and feel so inclined, it would be great if you could post some of your spreadsheet calculations for the TerraLiner power requirement as "window grabs". But again, only if you are inclined......:ylsmoke:


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3. Post your spreadsheets elsewhere, and link to that site

safas, you might also try posting your Excell spreadsheets elsewhere, and then link to that other site.

Personally, however, I don't like embedding anything important via links to other websites, because other websites are simply not as reliable as ExPo. For instance, I always try to upload all photos onto the thread directly, and I never link to images posted elsewhere, because webpages and images posted elsewhere come and go. Perhaps they will be available for a few years, and then they will disappear. When they disappear elsewhere all that will remain here in this thread are those awful "?question mark?" icons, where the images should have been. So that's why virtually all the images that I have posted in this thread were uploaded directly onto the ExPo website itself. As of this writing I may have uploaded as many as 3,000 images........:victory:

If I could download videos to ExPo, I would do the same, because quite a few of the videos that were posted earlier in the thread have now become dead -- in less than two years!! -- because they disappeared from YouTube.

You see, ExPo seems like it will have serious "sticking power". The owner, Scott Brady, along his wife Stephanie Brady, both seem fairly young, perhaps still in their 20's, and at the very most in their 30's -- see http://www.overlandjournal.com/journal/staff_biographies/ :






Their staff seem even younger. So ExPo should still be alive and well 20 years from now, which suits my purposes perfectly.

ExPo also has the singular virtue that's it's connected to an absolutely stunning, glossy magazine, The Overland Journal -- see http://www.overlandjournal.com/journal/ . It would be interesting to know how the finances work out: whether advertising on ExPo supports The Overland Journal, or vice-versa. Many print magazines are not doing well these days, with the big exception of the glossy ones filled with high-resolution "Art" photography, i.e. high-quality imagery that makes them worth buying. The Overland Journal falls into this category.

If the Bradys ever read this, just wanted to state for the record: you and your staff produce one of the most stunning magazines I have ever seen!!.. ..:safari-rig: ..:sunny:

So safas, given that the ExPo forum does not allow one to upload spreadsheets, you may have no choice but to first post them elsewhere in a web-forum that does, and then provide the link to that other location here.

Hope that helps!


By the way: the image above is a good example of an "image grab". I zoomed in on the descriptions of Scott and his wife on the website, so that their photos + text were large as possible on my 24-inch screen. Then took a snapshot-grab using the "selection tool", which produced a TIFF file that was roughly 2 MB. Put that TIFF file into Photoshop, where I increased the height a bit to 70 cm, and the resolution to 50 pixels per cm. This created a TIFF that was about 34 MB. Then used "Smart Sharpen" and "Unsharp Mask" to punch up the text, so that when the text gets image-compressed, it is guaranteed to remain super-legible.

Now the trick here is knowing that JPEG is an image-compression format, whereas TIFF is more "raw". So a 34 MB TIFF will usually compress down to a JPEG that's less than 4 MB. In the case of this grab, it compressed to 3.4 MB. I then uploaded the 3.4 MB JPEG image directly onto ExPo without a problem, and as you can see, the text is super-legible, clean, and crisp.


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4. safas, many thanks for all your work on this, and for your incisive summary of the tradeoffs when it comes to turbines.

I was a bit surprised that the Steyr diesel motor should be considered "heavy", because if memory serves the Steyr motor was specifically chosen by Jenoptik because it is unusually heavy-duty, long-lasting, and high-powered for its weight. Which is exactly what one wants in a diesel motor that is supposed to run constantly, driving a generator for a hybrid bus. Furthermore, when the Jenoptik is compared to virtually all 20 KW gen-sets currently available on the market and built specifically for motorhomes (e.g. Cummins, Kohler, Martin Diesel, etc.), the Jenoptik's weight compares very favorably. They all weigh circa 350 to 500 kg, and yet produce only 20 KW of power, whereas the Jenoptik produces 120 KW.

Again, many thanks,



Biotect

 

[Iain_U1250]

I could do a screen shot of the spreadsheet, but it would just be a bunch of number, no title, no formulae etc. It's more like a scratch pad than a proper spreadsheet. I know what's going on, but no one else will.


I'm in the workshop for the next few days, doing the last of the little finishing touches to get me truck registered. Hopefully get some more time once I have it on the road, but then I'll probably be driving it


Back to Terraliner, the main problem with a turbine engine for the generators is noise, whilst the are pretty light, you need a lot of enclosure and exhaust baffling to get the noise down to legal limits, and any backpressure in the exhaust severely limits their efficiency. The video for various turbine powers vehicles all have the same high pitch sound, and pretty difficult to cut down. Then there is the heat, they produce a tremendous around of heat, and that has to go somewhere. There is no cooling system, so the exhaust gas temperatures are around 540 Deg C. We use big turbines for gas compression or for electricity generation, and use the secondary heat through a heat exchanger to power a steam turbine generator in combined cycle power stations. They are very reliable, but if something goes wrong, you would be better off just getting a new one rather than trying to fix it - especially if a blade breaks, then there is not much left inside the turbine. The also produce a lot of emissions, particularly NOx, and getting it down requires a pretty finely tuned fuel system and it does not like variations in fuel quality at all.

There is a lot of development going on at the moment. This is an old youtube video (2013),


but I have not seen an further developments. The turbine runs at 300,000 rpm, not sure how it would like being bounced around though, and it will need a bullet proof case around it to catch any broken bit


I think the technology is still quite a few years away from being in proper production, especially for an remote / off road use. You also need to think about what customers want, do you think your ERCWLOM ("Experienced" Retired Couple with Lots of Money) will be looking for something that technologically advanced, which all the associated problems that come from "bleeding edge" technology.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

Great example. I love such examples of diesel-electrics designed to cope with harsh environments, because they very directly undercut nay-saying arguments that run something to the effect, "But won't a hybrid be finicky and fragile, with lots of stuff that can go wrong? Won't it break down in the demanding conditions typical of overland travel?"

There is a really wonderful German word for a "naysayer" type, the type who is always ready with criticism, but has little capacity to create or innovate himself: a "Neinsager". Literally, a "No-Sayer". Someone who only understands and uses the word "No" -- see http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/translate/german-english/neinsager .

"Neinsagers" will soon find themselves eating crow regarding electric hybrid, too. If only because it's not new at all. The more that one researches electric vehicles, the more one realizes that they've been around for a very long time. Diesel-electric trains are the most obvious examples. Even in the automotive industry, many types of electric vehicle have positively ancient pedigrees in specialized niche-applications like trolley buses, heavy duty wheel-loaders, heavy duty log-stackers, and "Snow Cruisers" for antarctic exploration......:ylsmoke:

All best wishes,



Biotect

[PS to Iain: I wrote and posted this message at almost exactly the same time as you posted yours directly above. So don't worry, this message was NOT a thinly veiled response to yours directly above, and please don't read it as such. I don't think of you as a "Neinsager" at all, and you've got a terrific self-build to prove otherwise. Yours have been some of the most truly informative and evidence-backed constructive criticisms that I've had the pleasure of responding to here on ExPo.

Rather, to the extent that this message was a thinly veiled swipe, I had in mind a few others who only very rarely pop up now and again, to express their displeasure with the thread.....:sombrero:]
...

 

[biotect]

Hi Iain,

I hear you loud and clear.

Just read my posts from page 50 onwards about turbines. Jay Leno installed a helicopter turbine in a sports-car, and the end result is probably the loudest sports-car ever built. Which is saying something, because many sports-cars are awfully loud. On the other hand, the DesignLine buses that were tested in New York were fairly quiet, and they had Capstone microturbines. I posted lots of videos on page 50 demonstrating just how quiet these DesignLine buses were -- see http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1652222#post1652222 .

But agreed, living on the "bleeding edge" of technological innovation can be risky. That's why I find myself repeatedly returning to the idea that either MAN or IVECO should build the hybrid-electric drivetrain. Then it won't be on the very edge of the "bleeding edge".....:sombrero: ... The drivetrain may still prove somewhat innovative, because it will involve transferring MAN or IVECO's deep knowledge of hybrid-electric to a bad-road and occasionally off-road context, implemented in a 6x6 non-twisting base chassis. It's also possible that the best solution might be similar to Oshkosh's configuration after all. Recall that in post #2019, I suggested that if the TerraLiner's electric motors will have a combined maximum power rating of 420 KW, and if the diesel generators could be kept lightweight, then it makes much more sense to go with higher HP diesel generators, instead of a bigger battery bank to serve as a buffer to cover peak power -- see http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1967200#post1967200 . Sure, diesel generators with higher HP motors will be heavier, but they might still prove lighter then the additional batteries that would be needed in the battery bank, to cover the peak power requirement. In that post I suggested that the TerraLiner's diesel generators together might produce almost as many KW as the usable output of a direct-drive 800 HP diesel engine, i.e. 800 HP minus 30 % efficiency loss due to the transmission. Once one begins thinking like this, one finds oneself thinking like Oshkosh.

Now it is entirely conceivable that MAN, IVECO, or OSHKOSH might ask, "Have you considered a turbine engine, instead of a diesel?" Or they might ask, "Have you considered an aircraft APU?"

It's also perhaps a bit alarmist to simply assume a-priori that a diesel-electric drivetrain cannot be robust. The posts about Le Tourneau should have laid that worry rest. Next week I will also post about John Deere, which has recently come out with a new line of medium-sized diesel electric wheel-loaders that are very close to the TerraLiner's projected weight -- see https://www.deere.com/en_US/products/equipment/wheel_loaders/644k_hybrid/644k_hybrid.page and https://www.deere.com/en_US/products/equipment/wheel_loaders/944k_hybrid/944k_hybrid.page .

Remember, this thread will always be a slightly speculative, and on occasion, very speculative. Personally, I very much enjoy reading up about the latest automotive technologies, simply because this is the kind of thing that I am supposed to be doing for a living. There is only so much mechanical engineering knowledge that one can pick up in a transportation design program at an Art School, where understandably the emphasis has to be on aesthetics and the end-user experience. So this thread has been terrific, because it has added significantly to my existing fund of engineering knowledge.

Don't worry, I am also a realist, and if the TerraLiner ever gets beyond the design and vaporware stage, let's just say that you are preaching to the converted. But in the meantime, I think it wold be great if we might spend at least another 50 pages or so exploring in some degree of detail various hybrid-electric technologies as implemented in large vehicles. It can't hurt, and we might all learn something.

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[campo]

The Terraliner thread is moving in another direction…

The Terraliner thread is moving in another direction…
.
For the overall aspects as Biotect wants them now I have difficulties with the compatibility between the proposed glamper size with trailer and driving on the beach or in light off road situations.
The weight, size and number of axles do not permit excursions in nature anymore.
You risk 2 extra recovery vehicles to accompany on your excursions. And special permits to drive through normal cities. In fact the best propulsion or traction for the Terraliner is not so important anymore as it was with the basic 6x6/8x8 Tatra or MAN idea. Only driving ON road does not need independent wheel suspension and traction on all wheels.
Monocoque construction though becomes easier and you can focus on efficiency instead of off road and traction capacities.
.
For the width the maximum is 2,50m if you want world. Only in a few countries 2,55 are permitted.
For the height its 4,00m but consider the typical 5+ cm reserve on the roof that’s needed for solar, vents, and other hatches so 395+5cm.
The roof pop out is not compatible with the roof air-conditioning, the roof lithium cooler pack, the roof cooler for the generator and the roof cooler for the brake energy. In practical you first design the needed 10 m³ technical accessory spaces and with the rest you can design the glamper around the techniques …
.
The Terraliner will be so special construction that it is irrelevant to name it a MAN, Tatra, Iveco or whatever brand based vehicle. The components used will come from all kind of different suppliers and not one principal. It will need its own homologation and approvals.
.
Al the best Campo

 

[biotect]

Hi campo,

Yes, the TerraLiner will not be a mid-sized expedition motorhome. The TerraLiner will not be the "ideal motorhome" that resides in the brains of many (perhaps most?) ExPo participants. The TerraLiner will not split the difference between sojourning and exploring. It will not be a compromise between the two. I have been repeating this over and over again for roughly the last 50 pages. If a mid-size motorhome is your ideal, campo, then the TerraLine is not your ideal.

I am sorry if this disappoints, but there it is.

Furthermore, I honestly and truly have no interest whatsoever in debating the comparative merits of a 9 or 10 m motorhome, versus a 12 m "mobile house". In the world of more mainstream American Class-A motorhomes, there is an endless debate as to whether a 45 foot (13.72 m) maxi-size Class-A motorhome like a Newell is better or worse than a 40 foot Class A, or 35 foot Class A. And yet despite that debate, 45 foot Class A motorhomes continue to be sold, and Newell has a good business, with orders at a record high. Most participants on ExPo would never want a 45 foot Newell, and they also would not want the global-traveling equivalent. But just because they don't want a Newell or its global equivalent, does not mean that nobody else does. Or that other people should not want a Newell, or its globally-capable equivalent.


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1. Engineering details can be an evasive distraction from the main Design issues


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As for your engineering objections, they are well-taken, and worth considering. But the roof is not the only place to put air-conditioning or cooling. If it were, then UniCat would not have been able to create campers with pop-ups that still have air-conditioning. Or Will Smith's huge trailer with a massive pop-up would not have air-conditioning.

I don't want to get into an engineering debate about such details right now, because in a way all such details are utterly beside the point. It seems to me, campo, that you are only bringing up engineering details because you don't like the overall general concept. The engineering details are a mere side-issue, they are a distraction, and in that sense they are trivial. All of them could be resolved one way or another. For instance, if it turns out that a hybrid drivetrain would still be too costly and complicated to implement at this stage in history, then the TerraLiner would go with something simpler and more conventional, as Iain keeps suggesting. But before making that decision, I would want to explore hybrid as far as possible. It's a comparatively trivial matter to just posit a lengthened MAN 6x6 chassis with a conventional diesel engine, and stiffened, rigid frame. No need for much research or thought, and MAN could certainly build it. End of story, and no need for more research or discussion. Whereas imagining the TerraLine as a diesel-elctric hybrid is far more interesting. Lots to research, lots to think about, and lots to post about.

In short, if the TerraLiner ever moves to the stage of practical implementation, one way or another the engineering quibbles could be easily resolved, if only by going "conservative" and non-innovative in potentially problematic areas.

What fascinates me instead is how engineers will often use their knowledge of engineering details almost as "weapons" to try to derail a design that they fundamentally dislike for other reasons, reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with engineering. Engineers are typically habituated to thinking merely in terms of engineering details, and so they don't know how to articulate the other reasons that they may feel only intuitively. They don't know how to debate at a different level of discourse, where the discussion will focus on needs, preferences, the end-user experience, market demand, demographic target-cohorts, logistics, transportation sociology, and above all, the visual appeal or "aesthetics" of a product or vehicle. All of this is better covered by the term "design". Because engineers don't have a good grip on this more "meta" level of design discourse, they tend to fall back instead on the kind of argumentation that they are familiar with, namely, the discussion of mere engineering details.

But just because one particular engineering detail may prove problematic, does not mean that an idea is not a good one, from a design point of view; i.e. from the point of view of a possible market, customers, sales, customer satisfaction, operational logistics, visual appeal, and so on. In your comment you seem to have completely misunderstand the current TerraLiner concept as a design proposal, not merely an engineering proposal. As a design proposal it insists upon a number of things that you just don't seem to "get", for instance, that the TerraLiner will function primarily as a base-camp for sojourning, so it doesn't need to do the things that mid-size expedition motorhomes typically do.

Why is thinking in terms of design instead of engineering so important, at least in the beginning stages? Here are some quotes from various articles that have appeared in The Economist, which explain the secret behind Apple's success. In a word, the secret to Apple's success has been design, not engineering:

As a technologist, Mr Jobs was different because he was not an engineer—and that was his great strength. Instead he was obsessed with product design and aesthetics, and with making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms scrambled to follow where he led. In the process he triggered upheavals in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for incumbent firms but welcomed by millions of consumers….

His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deeply ingrained in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “What would Steve Jobs do?”

See http://www.economist.com/node/21531529 .

Mr Jobs was one of a handful of pioneers who….. had an unusual knack for looking at computers from the outside, as a user, not just from the inside, as an engineer….. his emphasis on design and ease of use gave him the edge….

Elegance, simplicity and an understanding of other fields came to matter in a world in which computers are fashion items, carried by everyone, that can do almost anything. “Technology alone is not enough,” said Mr Jobs at the end of his speech introducing the iPad 2, in March 2011. “It's technology married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.” It was an unusual statement for the head of a technology firm, but it was vintage Steve Jobs.

His interdisciplinary approach was backed up by an obsessive attention to detail….. “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” He insisted that the first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent—putting user needs above engineering convenience……

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/10/obituary .

Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology.

Too many technology firms think that clever innards are enough to sell their products, resulting in gizmos designed by engineers for engineers. Apple has consistently combined clever technology with simplicity and ease of use. The iPod was not the first digital-music player, but it was the first to make transferring and organising music, and buying it online, easy enough for almost anyone to have a go. Similarly, the iPhone is not the first mobile phone to incorporate a music-player, web browser or e-mail software. But most existing “smartphones” require you to be pretty smart to use them….. too few technology firms see “ease of use” as an end in itself.

……it is hard to think of a large company that better epitomises the art of innovation than Apple.

See http://www.economist.com/node/9302662 .

Beauty justifies wealth…..Class-war fact: ruthlessly competitive, patent-monopolist, multi-billionaire executives are worth fawning over, if they’ve got design sense.

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/steve-jobs .

At most [technology] companies engineering drives design; Apple does it the other way around. Together with Jonathan Ive, the firm's chief designer, Mr Jobs would decide on how a product should look and feel, and the engineers had to make it happen.

See http://www.economist.com/node/215347...0100b7fa502595 .


A number of times in this thread the question has come up, even if only implicitly:


"What should be the proper relationship between engineering and design?"


As a designer, the answer for me has always been obvious: design should alway comes first, and engineering second.

Engineering should serve design, and not the other way around. But no doubt I am biased, because of my profession. So that's why I just quoted The Economist at considerable length. The Economist is a current-affairs and business magazine, it is not a design magazine, so it has no vested interest in declaring that design should come first. Rather, The Economist merely wants to know why Apple has proven such an incredibly successful technology company.

Apple is is now the planet's most successful corporation by far, when measured lots of different ways, including market capitalization and the ability to innovate. The Economist has then come to the conclusion that Apple is so successful precisely because it puts design first, and engineering second. Apple has been a very successful company because the engineers have not been in charge. I know that engineers don't like hearing this, because like all professionals, engineers have a tendency to think that their own profession is somehow the most "basic", fundamental, and important, and should be treated as such. Especially in areas of human endeavor that demand the input of lots of engineering expertise, like transportation design. But facts are facts, and Apple is not a successful company because engineers rule at Apple. Rather, Apple is successful because designers run the show.

Steve Jobs, for instance, had no formal engineering training whatsoever. When Jobs ran the company he and Sir Jonathan Ive, the head of industrial design, would first make decisions about potential end-user needs, preferences, market demand, demographic target-cohorts, product-use logistics (e.g. synergy with existing Apple products in the "Apple ecosystem"), user psychology and sociology, and the ideal "end-user experience", i.e. how a product should look and feel. And only after all of that had been decided, would engineers enter the discussion, and only then would they be charged with doing whatever was necessary to create the product.:







Now some might try to counter-argue that "good engineering" (whatever that might mean), is really design. And that good design is merely engineering. But this is total nonsense. Design and engineering are not the same thing. Those who think that good design is really just engineering, know nothing about design. What I have been developing in this thread are design arguments, not engineering arguments.


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2. What it means to design a product or a vehicle that is truly new


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Generally speaking engineering is really just problem-solving. A pre-existing problem is clearly defined, and engineering means finding the most efficient, cost-effective, and/or safest solution.

Design, by way of contrast, is not necessarily problem-solving at all. Sure, sometimes design can be just problem-solving, too. But often design is much more open-ended than that. In the case of truly path-breaking design, a new product actually creates a market. Again, quoting from The Economist, on the topic of why Apple has been proven so successful:

Apple has so far proved that it is possible to earn high margins with brilliant design and by offering consumers ways to access the internet effortlessly wherever they go…..

Apple's rise shows that, even in a period of austerity, consumers are willing to pay for the must-have gadget….. A global elite is now willing to pay for the most desirable products, from luxury luggage to premium Scotch. And America's soft power is still so strong that it can create aspirational brands for that elite.

See http://www.economist.com/node/21551058 .

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them," [Steven Jobs] once said. With his products, the medium often made the message….. The iPhone, the iPad and the MacBook are the medium; the message is that technology should be easy, intuitive, and fun…..

Insofar as Apple was the first company to make [computer] technology attractive to a general audience, it encouraged people to use computers for pleasure. Apple's stylish, user-friendly products fostered a greater willingness to spend time online, to blog, to tweet, to have constant access to a handheld computer. Mr Jobs did more than create the demand for Apple products; he drove entire markets.

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/10/steve-jobss-legacy .

A truly innovative product creates a market that did not exist before the product existed. So it would be wrong to think of the product as a "solution" to a pre-existing need. The first personal computers were like this: nobody really knew what they were for. Eventually businesses figured out that PCs were good for running spreadsheets, and at universities and Art schools students and their teachers figured out that Macs were good for word-processing and graphic design. But it took a while for all of this to develop. In the initial stages, personal computers were hammers looking for nails, looking for something to do.

So again, really great industrial design is not merely engineering a better product to meet a pre-existing and well-defined need. Rather, really great industrial design is creating a hitherto unimaginable product to meet a need that people did not even know that they had. Nobody can engineer such a product into being. Rather, it has to be “imagineered” into being. Imagining such a product into being is in part an exercise in fantasy, a matter of imaginatively projecting “what if” scenarios in which consumers will use a new product to do things they would not have done otherwise done.

That’s how I now view TerraLiner design: as a matter of "imagineering" a new kind of nomadic lifestyle for retired couples that the TerraLiner will make possible. A globally nomadic lifestyle that will suddenly seem much more attractive, precisely because a vehicle like the TerraLiner will exist to make it possible.

So in order to understand where I am headed with the TerraLiner, one needs to abandon one's prior preconceptions of what a globally capable motorhome should look like, or the kind of nomadic lifestyle that younger and middle-aged people want to lead. I am not designing the TerraLiner for a hard-charging, fast-travel, country-accumulation sort of lifestyle. Hard-charging fast travel is something that younger and middle-aged people want to do. It's not something that interests most retired people. Many successful and wealthy people have already traveled the planet a great deal by jet, on business trips. They've seen lots of countries at high speed, and they've seen the insides of lots of airport hotels. When they retire they yearn instead for the chance to slow down and truly experience foreign places and peoples in-depth, in a way that is somehow more "authentic". So they don't want or need a zippy mid-size motorhome that can travel fast and accumulate countries. They'd much rather have more space in their motorhome for sojourning.

That's probably the central sticking point that you still don't understand, campo: that I am not designing for fast travel. Because I am not designing for fast travel, there is no need for the TerraLine to be the kind of vehicle that you think it should be. Because the TerraLiner is being designed for slow-travel and sojourning, it can be a very different sort of vehicle than the one that you have been imagining.

For instance, the TerraLiner can be much longer than you think would be wise, and it will suffer no serious loss of "operational capability" as a consequence, because it is not being designed to explore in the first place. Exploring is the job of the TOAD.

So the only question remains is whether a 12 m length will allow the TerraLiner to get from "Base Camp A" in one farmer's field, to "Base Camp B" in the next farmer's field. That's all that matters, operationally speaking. The TerraLiner doesn't need to rock-crawl, and it doesn't have to do lots of off-road driving. It only needs to be able to drive along a farmer's gravel access road, and then across some earth, in order to glamp in a farmer's field. If the access road leading up to the farmer's field is big enough, and usually they are, because they are designed to accommodate tractors pulling wide farm machinery; and if the gravel access road is connected to a grid of paved roads and super-highways, then the TerraLiner will be just fine, given its stated operational needs.

Put another way, the operational question for a 12 m TerraLiner really boils down to the following:


"Is the road grid serving large trucks and buses sufficiently well-developed in most Second World and some Third World countries, such that the TerraLiner would be able to move easily from one farm-based glampsite to another?


That's the only operational question that needs to be asked about the TerraLiner, a vehicle intended above all to function as a mobile house for sojourning, and not as a mid-size expedition motorhome for exploring. If one fails to understand how this is the most relevant question, and if instead one still advances objections based on premise that the TerraLiner should be able to "explore" just like a mid-size motorhome, then one has simply not understood the TerraLiner. And one has failed to understand it as a design proposal, not merely an engineering proposal.


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3. The Roads that the TerraLiner will Travel


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So when I think about the TerraLiner traveling roads in the Second and Third World, I will ask myself a very simple question. I ask, "Are there big trucks and buses driving around, without too much hassle?" In equatorial Africa, big trucks and buses do try to drive around, but it's very challenging for them, because the roads are so awful, and in many places the roads are little more than mud tracks. That's why at the very beginning of the thread I clearly stated that the TerraLiner would not be designed for travel in 4th-world, desperately poor central African nations that have virtually no transport infrastructure. But ask the same question about Second-World countries in South America or Asia, and a very different picture emerges.

For instance, ask yourself the question: are there big trucks and buses carrying freight and passengers between Peru and Brazil? Last time I checked, there were. Indeed, there is a new international highway called the "Ruta Interocéanica" running across the Andes, completed in 2010 and inaugurated in 2011, a highway regularly travelled by very large trucks and buses -- see https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruta_interoceánica_Brasil-Perú , https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ki/Ruta_interoceánica_Brasil-Perú&prev=search , http://www.portafolio.co/internacional/la-interoceanica-una-ruta-que-unira-el-atlantico-y-el-pacif , https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ca-una-ruta-que-unira-el-atlantico-y-el-pacif , http://www.mtc.gob.pe/portal/home/concesiones/conces_tramo 1 y 5.htm , http://www.mtc.gob.pe/portal/home/concesiones/conces_perubrasil.htm , http://matadornetwork.com/es/las-mejores-9-rutas-para-conocer-sudamerica-en-auto/ , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoceanic_Highway :











The first picture in the second row is the Interocéanica under construction; it is now completely paved. In Brazil the highway is called the "Estrada do Pacífico".

For a superb, recent (2014) travelogue of a bus trip along the Interocéanica, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, see the multi-media article in the NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/magazine/south-america-road-trip.html?_r=0 , http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/18/magazine/guttenfelder-south-america-road-trip.html , http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/02/21/voyages/assets/video/bus-944.mp4 , http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/02/21/voyages/assets/video/semi-944.mp4 , http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/02/21/voyages/assets/video/car-944.mp4 , and http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/02/21/voyages/assets/video/alpaca-944.mp4 . Here are some videos:



[video=youtube;WWWr3FF0_tY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWr3FF0_tY [/video]
[video=youtube;e8hXiDH4mlM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8hXiDH4mlM [/video]


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CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
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[biotect]

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CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

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[video=youtube;FA5YiJXGfnY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA5YiJXGfnY [/video]



It seems the "Ruta Interocéanica" was created primarily to facilitate trade between Brazil and China. Although the sea-distance from Sao Paolo to Shanghai in nautical miles across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans is roughly the same as the distance from Peru to China across the Pacific (about 10,000 nm), there are still logistical advantages for central Brazil in having access to the Pacific across the Andes, as some of the videos posted above make clear -- see http://www.sea-distances.org. But of course the "Ruta Interocéanica" was also built to facilitate inter-regional trade, between amazonian Peru and central Brazil.

Since 2010 a more southernly "Ruta Interocéanica" crossing Bolivia has also been completed -- see https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruta_interoceánica_Brasil-Bolivia-Chile-Perú , https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FRuta_interoceánica_Brasil-Bolivia-Chile-Perú , http://www.biobiochile.cl/2013/03/2...ca-que-unira-el-atlantico-y-el-pacifico.shtml , and https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ca-que-unira-el-atlantico-y-el-pacifico.shtml . And another cross-Andes route is planned further south, connecting Brazil more directly to Chile -- see https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruta_interoceánica_central , and https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruta_interoceánica_central&prev=search.

The general organizing agency here is IIRSA, the "Iniciativa Para La Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana" -- see http://www.iirsa.org , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iniciativa_para_la_Integración_de_la_Infraestructura_Regional_Suramericana , https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&sl=es&tl=it&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FIniciativa_para_la_Integración_de_la_Infraestructura_Regional_Suramericana , and http://www10.iadb.org/intal/intalcdi/PE/2012/10050a03.pdf. IIRSA's general objective is to create multiple "trans-Andean" corridors that will promote interregional trade, and hence, economic development:







But needless to say, like all development initiatives IIRSA is controversial, because where highways and economic development go, deforestation (for instance) necessarily follows, development will not benefit all social classes equally, previously isolated uncontacted Amazonian tribes might be wiped out by disease, etc. etc. See the excellent articles, both in English, at http://www.argentinaindependent.com...argentina/interoceanic-highway-road-to-ruin// and http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/14/pacific-atlantic-route-brazil-peru for comprehensive discussion of the negative aspects of the "Ruta Interocéanica".

Here are a few more images of the "Ruta Interocéanica", to round things out:









Now this is not the place to spend another 20 posts once more dispelling out-dated misconceptions of what road conditions are like in Second World countries, as I did (for instance) vis-a-vis road conditions in Tibet and China, much earlier in the thread. It's also a pointless exercise, because some participants on ExPo positively want road conditions worldwide to be much tougher than they really are. A certain kind of ExPo participant positively wants transportation infrastructure outside the First World to be nothing more than mud tracks that always require rock-crawling with a Unimog. That way they can imagine the world as a more "romantic" place to overland and explore. This kind of ExPo participant hates seeing videos like the following two below, videos of pristine-new super-highways in Brasil that look like American Interstates once did, back in the 1960's....:ylsmoke: :






Also see the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP-Cg9CAZynGPjozApE0kVQ, for an incredible video record of one truck driver's travels through Brasil, driving excellent roads the whole way.

For better or worse, Google and YouTube are now available to everyone. So all that anyone needs to do is spend some time looking at videos and checking out road conditions on the ground with Google maps, and it soon becomes apparent that the world's highways are much better than some expedition types want to allow. They can claim all the "personal experience" they like. But I would much rather believe my own eyes, and Google maps. And unlike them, I have no special vested interest in "exploring", and I harbor no residual neocolonial fantasies about driving an "expedition" vehicle down a mud track. Rather, what interests me -- and, I think, what interests most elderly people -- is sojourning. So if the road between the TerraLiner's base camp A and base camp B is a newly built Brasilian superhighway in mint condition, then I say "Great!"

Furthermore, many conceptions of road conditions outside the First World are based on trips that people took 10, 15, or 20 years ago. Such ever-so-terribly-important "personal experiences" then get stuck in amber inside unimaginative skulls. The natural tendency after visiting a country is to mistakenly imagine that it will remain unchanged, fixed in suspended animation, until one returns. After all, the memory inside one's own skull hasn't changed, so why should the country change? But countries have independent lives of their own that have nothing to do with us. Typically this means that when one visits the same country again 10 years later, road infrastructure in particular will have vastly improved. Now granted, some countries change for the worse, especially if they've suffered a civil war since one last visited. But over the last 20 years most Second and Third World countries have changed for the better, with improving Human Development Indices, growing economies, and improving infrastructures. On this topic see Hans Rosling's inspiring TED talks at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdJgEwMinM , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg , and https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hans+rosling. Either way, even after just 10 years one's "personal experiences" of other countries become next to worthless, because other countries will have changed so much.

This story of improving road infrastructures is being repeated over and over again around the world. It then seems to me that most Second-World countries and many Third-World countries will have plenty of roads that are perfectly adequate to handle a vehicle as large as the TerraLiner. After all, the TerraLiner will be no bigger than the buses that drive the "Ruta Interocéanica" shown in the videos above. At 12 m long the TerraLiner will probably be shorter, because most long-distance buses in the Americas tend to be the maximum length, around 13 - 13.72 m. The only difference is that the TerraLiner will be towing a trailer, and the main vehicle of the TerraLiner will have either all-wheel steering or rear-wheel steering. So wherever a big truck or a big bus can go, the TerraLiner will be able to go as well.

For more information about international bus routes in South America, see http://goperu.about.com/od/gettingaroundperu/p/Ormeno-Peru-Bus-Company-Profile.htm , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe/nosotros.html , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe/pano2/pano2.html?bus=2 , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe/pano1/pano1.html , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe/destinos.html , http://www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe/contacto.html , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iBKdBldybg ; http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/empresa/quienesomos , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/destinos/pasajes-argentina-bus , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/destinos/pasajes-chile-bus , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/destinos/pasajes-ecuador-bus , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/destinos/pasajes-colombia-bus , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/servicios/internacional , http://www.cruzdelsur.com.pe/servicios/cruzero , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVkjkPcMXk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6Kci5snmE , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVkjkPcMXk .

Now the TerraLiner does not need to be able to do more than this, because once again, it will be designed for sojourning. The SUV contained in the the towed trailer "garage" will do the exploring. The TerraLiner itself does not have do any exploring. The TerraLiner only needs to be able to drive into a farmer's field, and then back out again. The TerraLiner will merely function as a base camp.

If you don't like the kind of logistical pattern this implies, campo, that's perfectly understandable. This implies a pattern of "slow travel" in which a retired couple with lots of money and leisure time will drive the TerraLiner from point A to point B, and will then stay put for 3 months, only using the SUV to explore the surrounding countryside. Also, because they will merely travel from one farmer's field to the next, the TerraLiner will not need to enter cities. It's not designed to. Rather, once again, that's the job of the SUV.

The pattern of travel that is precisely being excluded here, is the sort of "fast travel" that middle-aged people tend to do in mid-sized motorhomes: a week here, a week there, one day here, one day there, one new country every 10 days.... ... I am not designing the TerraLiner for the mid-sized market, and I am not designing the TerraLiner for that kind of fast travel.


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4. I will be changing the title of the thread, when ExPo forum administrators finally respond to my query....


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I have been saying all of this as clearly as I can since post #1524 on page 153 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1923940#post1923940 . I would like to change the title of the thread, so that it is no longer ambiguous, and so that I no longer have to deal the problem of participants thinking that I have in mind one thing, when in fact I've always had in mind something rather different. Many participants simply assume that I must have in mind their ideal of the perfect mid-size expedition motorhome. But I am not them, and I am also not designing for them. Rather, I am designing for a specific market demographic. I am designing for AARCWPOMs: Active & Adventurous Retired Couples with Plenty of Money.

Unfortunately, my attempts to change the title of the thread have so far failed. I've written to the forum administrators, but so far none of them have responded. I may have to figure out a way to contact Scott Brady directly, the owner of the website. Usually it's no problem changing the title of a thread. One simply changes the tittle of the first post in the thread, and the thread title automatically changes as well. But for some reason this is not working. The new title of the thread will be:


TerraLiner: 12 m Globally Mobile Beach House/Class-A Crossover with 6x6 Hybrid Drivetrain


If you don't like the new title, I can accept that. The TerraLiner will simply not be the motorhome of your dreams. But there is no such thing as the "ideal" or "perfect" motorhome for everyone, and it is foolish to think otherwise.


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5. The TerraLiner still needs 6x6 AWD to glamp in farmer's fields


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Now you did make one quasi-design argument, about the need for the TerraLiner to be accompanied by other big vehicles to aid with recovery. But here again you simply assume that the TerraLiner will want to go to the same places that mid-size motorhomes go. Or that the TerraLiner will do lots of off-road traveling. Alternatively, you suggest that such a large vehicle won't be able to undertake "excursions in nature". Here your point basically comes down to, "The TerraLiner won't be able to do the same things that a mid-sized motorhome can do".

The obvious reply here is, "You are right. But so what?"

I already know that, and I knew that over 2 years ago, even before I started the thread. This is no big revelation. To repeat, I don't want the TerraLiner to be able to do the same things that a mid-sized motorhome can do. The TerraLiner will be for sojourning, for staying put for 3 months, and not for exploring. The TerraLiner will only be on the road when it travels from base camp A (where it stayed for 3 months) to base camp B (where it will stay for another 3 months) to base camp C (another 3 months), and so on. The TerraLiner will function much like a 45-foot American Class A, serving primarily as "base camp" for its owners. The TerraLine will function more like a mobile house, if you will. And it goes without saying that an American Class-A motorhomes cannot do the same things as 30-foot Class-C motorhomes. To state as much is simply to state the obvious, nothing more.

However, to repeat (I am having to repeat myself a lot in this post....), the TerraLiner will need to glamp on farmer's fields. So the TerraLiner will still need big Michelin XZL tires, and 6x6 AWD. So too, the TerraLiner will need to be able to drive corrugated gravel highways like the Tanami road. The Tanami road is a very wide highway, one that is regularly driven by big Australian road-trains. But the Tanami is also a "bad road", with sections that are severely corrugated -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanami_Road . So the TerraLiner will need excellent suspension.


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6. The TerraLiner has always been moving in another direction.....


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I already made this point in my reply to thjakits, so here I am once again repeating myself. If you need to think that the TerraLiner was moving in one direction, and is now moving in another, then I don't have a problem with that. But I see things differently.

From the very beginning of the thread, I've made it clear that I wanted to design for a wealthy retired couple. From the very beginning I also wanted to keep things "loose" and "open", because I wanted the TerraLiner design process to be program-driven, driven by my gradually evolving sense of what such a couple would want in a globally capable motorhome. Thread participants like yourself kept wanting me to nail things down in terms of size, so I obliged, and guesstimated that perhaps a motorhome in the 9.5 to 10.5 m range would suffice. But this was never more than just a very rough guess, and the length of the TerraLiner has never been as important to me as its actual function, "use", or "program". So I see my thinking as having evolved in a very natural, very organic way. As such, I personally don't think that the thread's direction has changed at all.

I kept on asking myself, "What are the American precedents, in terms of the full-time, Class-A retired lifestyle?" As I found myself researching blogs that document that lifestyle, I gradually realized that retired couples in the United States don't want what you want, campo. Here I am assuming that you are middle-aged, not yet retired, and that you still work for a living. I could be wrong about this; I am just guessing. Rather, what retired couples in the United States who've adopted the Class-A motor-homing lifestyle want to do, is slow-travel. Yes, they want to travel, but at a much slower pace, living 3 months here, 5 months there, 2 months somewhere else. And because their motorhomes often become their primary residences, they want them to be as big as possible, so that sojourning will be as comfortable as possible.

As I thought things through, I could see no reason why the same "RV full-timing lifestyle" could not happen at a global level, too. But to travel the globe, retired couples with money will need a different kind of motorhome, one that can glamp in farmer's fields, instead of RV parks. They will still want a fully integrated interior, slide-outs, lots of space, and a high-specification "luxury" interior. What they would not want, and what they will not need, is the ability to "explore" at a fast pace, changing countries every 10 days. Instead, they will want to transfer to the global level the same pattern of travel that they have developed in the United States, one in which a 45-foot Class-A motorhome serves primarily as a "base camp", and a towed SUV allows them to run about, do a bit of "exploring", and fetch groceries.

So I see myself in this thread as merely growing more "attuned" to the needs of my target demographic.

Furthermore, I certainly never thought that it was my obligation or "job" in this thread to design for the needs, preferences, or hopes of middle-aged thread participants. Even if most thread participants personally want a mid-size "expedition" motorhome, one that strikes a balance between sojourning and exploring, it's not my obligation in this thread to design it for them. It's not my obligation to dedicate this thread and its contents to their wishes and needs. That was never the thread's intent from the beginning, and it's certainly not the thread's intent now. Some may have then misinterpreted the thread's intent. But that's a different matter from saying that the thread has "changed direction." On my own view, it has not changed direction at all.


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7. Please read pages 153 to 158


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Campo, please, if possible, please try reading everything that I wrote from page 153 onwards, especially pages 153 to 158, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1924020#post1924020 . I am now merely repeating myself, and this is getting tedious. I cannot tailor the arguments and write hand-crafted posts in response to every thread participant who still just doesn't "get" it. Almost everything you wrote in your post merely repeats arguments made by thjakits. And I already replied to all of those arguments, and then some; just read the last 30 pages. So it's a bit maddening having to repeat the same arguments again, perhaps because you didn't read the correspondence with thjakits with sufficient care?

I know that Haf-E, Joe, Safas, and Iain all do "get it". They at least understand the concept that I am trying to develop here, even if it is not their own, preferred, personal ideal of what a globally capable motorhome should look like. I am willing to write this current post to you, because you have been a wonderful contributor to the thread, and so perhaps you deserve a more "tailored" response. I also understand that you are dealing with a language barrier.

Furthermore, I figure that if I respond in depth three or four times to exactly the same set of merely repeated conventional objections, then eventually others reading this will "get it", too. And so I won't have as much work to do in future, and I won't need to bring others up to speed as well. But honestly, I won't have much time in future to write more posts like these, posts in which I simply repeat everything that I have been writing for the last 50 pages........ I now want to move on to other stuff, and I want to direct my time and energy elsewhere, to things that are still new and interesting for me. Answering the same tired old objections of those who still have a fixed conception of the ideal "mid-size" expedition motorhome knocking around inside their skulls..... well, it's just plain boring. It's just not that interesting, at least for me.


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8. What it means to design for others, and participate in this thread


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So think of it this way. I am not designing the TerraLiner for you. Rather, I am designing it for a very specific market niche, a market niche that I describe in detail in posts #1983 and #1984 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1964731#post1964731.

If you stop imaging the TerraLiner as potentially your ideal motorhome, and if instead you imagine it as something designed for people who are very different from yourself, that might give you the detachment and distance necessary to read all of my posts much more objectively. Eventually, you might realize that I have never been designing the TerraLiner for you, right from the start. Once that becomes clear, you might be able to approach the thread in the spirit in which it was originally intended, as more of a "design exercise."

Most designers hardly ever design for themselves. Rather, we design for other people. And we don't just design for other people "in general", but rather, more typically we design for very specific markets, nationalities, income-groupings, and age-cohorts.

So right from the beginning, the TerraLiner has never been intended for the age-cohort or income-bracket of most participants here on ExPo. That does not mean that they cannot continue to participate in the thread. Of course they can. Everyone – and I really do mean everyone – is most welcome to participate in this thread, regardless of demographic background.

However, it would help tremendously if some participants might become a bit more self-conscious of the difference between their desires, hopes, and aspirations, and those of the demographic target market that this thread very specifically addresses. They need to think more like designers: not designing for themselves, but rather, designing for other people, other people who may not be even remotely like them. For instance, I myself do not expect to enter retirement for at least another 30 – 40 years, and at present I certainly do not have the financial resources to build a TerraLiner. So at present, I am not designing the TerraLiner for myself, either. Although naturally enough I would like to hope than when I reach my 60's, that I too will be one of the “active elderly”, and that I too might be able to afford a TerraLiner......

Now granted, I am allowing some of my own intuitions and desires to enter the picture, intuitions about what an “ideal” motorhome for global sojourning for 30 years should look like. But I allow some of my own intuitions to enter the design process because I am now fairly convinced that I am able to empathetically and imaginatively channel what an elderly, financially well-off, adventurish, and sporty retired couple really would want. I think I can do this in part because I spent much of my youth growing up an island – Duck Key, in the Florida Keys – that is packed with sporty old people, who at age 70 are in better shape than many 30 year olds -- see post #1985 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1964734#post1964734 . I also think that I can do this because I am both a surfer and a some-time artist, a member of those subsets of younger people who appreciate the quality and value of slow-travel.

As such, I can strongly empathize with the desire that older people typically express, the desire to “slow travel” and “sojourn”. Like older people who have already seen much of the world by jet, my own days of mere "country accumulation" are long over, and I have no interest in merely accumulating more countries. My current "country count" is not even that high, just 25 countries or so. But even still, I feel no burning desire to raise my count 50 or 60. And I would much rather spend 3 - 6 months visiting a country that genuinely strikes my fancy (e.g. Namibia, Russia, China), than see 12 more countries spending only two weeks in each.

This makes me fundamentally different from many or perhaps even most people my age who like to travel. I still do like to travel. But not in the same way that they like to travel.


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9. The Size Debate is Closed


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And finally, once more, the size debate is now closed. The size debate will be even more closed once I succeed in changing the thread's title, and once "12 meters" becomes a permanent part of the title block. I don't want to debate the size issue here, not anymore, because I have made certain fundamental design decisions. Others may disagree with those decisions, and that's fine, but they've been made.

Hope you understand why I need to be a bit "dirigiste" regarding questions that are no longer worth debating. The debate about motorhome size, length, weight, number of axles, etc. could go on forever. It's a debate that has no end, and it has no end precisely because there is no such thing as the perfect size, or the "ultimate" motorhome. Rather, there are only motorhomes better suited to doing one kind of thing (e.g. exploring), versus another kind of thing (e.g. sojourning). I have decided that I want the TerraLiner to be a "maximal sojourner", a bit like a mobile beach house. So the TerraLiner will be designed for maximal power, water, and sewage autonomy, and for gracious glamping in the middle of a farmer's field. This means exactly that the TerraLiner will not be designed for exploring.

I hope that you can at least understand and accept this decision, even if you do not agree with it. And even if you find this decision a bit disappointing, because the TerraLiner is proving to be something rather distant from your own, personal dream of what the ideal globally capable motorhome should be like.


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10. Returning to a Discussion of the TerraLiner's Drivetrain


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In sum, I would like to leave the size debate dead and buried, and instead I would like for the thread to continue with discussion of the TerraLiner's drivetrain, and various possible drivetrain technologies, some of them more "speculative", like safas' proposal to use a helicopter turbine to drive the generator, or perhaps an aircraft APU. So too, I am waiting to hear back from Haf-E, regarding what the efficiency loss might be for just three cross-axle transmissions in a three-electric-motor configuration. And it would be great, campo, if someone might be willing to address the questions about fuel-cell hybrid technology that you raised earlier in the thread:

1. Does it make sense for the TerraLiner to carry fuel cells in addition to a lith-ion battery bank? See my post above for this question elaborated in detail.

2. What exactly is a "fuel cell hybrid bus"? How might it prove superior to an ordinary diesel bus? How might it prove superior to a "lith-ion battery bank hybrid bus", of the kind that MAN makes, i.e. its "Lion City hybrid" line of buses?

3. Could all of the TerraLiner's batteries be condensed into a single, unified loth-ion battery bank, as proposed by campo? Could a single lith-ion battery pack serve to start the two diesel generators, as well as power camper systems? Or would it still be better for the diesel generators to have their own, separate start-up batteries?

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[safas]

Spreadsheet is so much better than a screenshot because it allows one to modify parameters that I use to fit their needs better. Also some that I use are sketchy, f.e. how much does a cooling system of piston engines weight? And I did not account for sound insulation, I don't have the slightest idea how many kilograms to give to each engine.

Get it from: https://copy.com/OC7IwUYDfUVAnhr4

Note: I still have very few automotive engines. I believe there are some good ones, but so far I can't find a source that would list both weight and bsfc of multiple engines.
Even getting such data for individual engines is hard.

 

[biotect]

Hi safas,

Many thanks for putting this into a drop-box location. I downloaded it, and an icon marked "engine(1).ods" appeared in my download window. Clicked on that icon, and it got "unzipped", and became the engine(1) folder. But it's not clear to me which file inside that folder I am supposed to use, or what program can read the spreadsheet that you've created.

In other words: I still don't have your spreadsheet, and I am not sure how to find it in side the engine(1) folder. Did you use a standard spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excell?

Honestly I am a bit lost, and can't figure out what you downloaded, nor how to open it.

All best wishes,


Biotect

 

[safas]

Hi safas,

Many thanks for putting this into a drop-box location. I downloaded it, and an icon marked "engine(1).ods" appeared in my download window. Clicked on that icon, and it got "unzipped", and became the engine(1) folder. But it's not clear to me which file inside that folder I am supposed to use, or what program can read the spreadsheet that you've created.

In other words: I still don't have your spreadsheet, and I am not sure how to find it in side the engine(1) folder. Did you use a standard spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excell?

Honestly I am a bit lost, and can't figure out what you downloaded, nor how to open it.

All best wishes,


Biotect

.ods stands for "Open Document Spreadsheet". This is a standard format and should open with any decent spreadsheet software. It should open with Microsoft Excel too. This is the only document format with such property as even though Microsoft made their "Office Open XML" an open (though patent-encumbered) standard, MS products don't generate standard-compliant documents. In effect MS Office documents work well only with MS Office.

So don't unzip it but load to your spreadsheet directly.

 

[campo]

Terraliner technical fiche

Hi Biotect

Thank you so much for your detailed answer.
Do not misunderstand my words. I have no problems at all with the evolution that we get here.
It is normal that you orient the Terraliner in your direction. I have no dream idea for myself but like to follow and understand yours. Therefore I think being flexible enough and my age ... is not a problem . My problem all over this thread is trying to follow the red line. Yes I do not, like most of us, read every word, but most of it. From what I read, I do not understand every word or detail, maybe also because I am not native English. There is the red line and there is the research with its discussions. Two different things.
That’s why you can find since my participation at certain points like the last one, the question to summarise where you are with the red line. That is the format of the Terraliner, its components and implemented techniques. Not my dream car or whoever’s but the Terraliner. The question please Biotect summarise at certain stages, shortly where you are so that the other readers can follow. We know and understand that some of the ideas in the past of this very long thread have been abandoned on the way and new evolutions will follow. You don’t need to come back on detailed answers and statements that have already been made….
Maybe a today’s provisory Terraliner technical fiche ?
.
For me it’s clear this Terraliner is now 12m long and but is that now suddenly without trailer ?
Because I (mis)understood 12 m with 3 axles and a trailer behind it with 3 axles that makes the combination in total +18m long, 30 tons and with wheelbases difficult to drive on off roads or beaches… ? Off road driving, traction, suspension was a very long and important part of this thread. Maybe you closed these sub parts of the thread but did you really say what is the today version 2.0 Terraliner selected technique for all that?
Next step is to ask why a ON-road vehicle would need a so sophisticated hybrid 6x6 propulsion, but no problem if it is so, I love it.
Concerning the pop outs on the roof and sides it is not clear what you want. I’m more from the practical side. So if you say electrical drive, lots of techniques, solar area, I see space problems for the combination of the different cooler packs on the roof and the lifting roof. What is finaly selected or decided, Independent suspension or straight axles, monocoque or classical chassis,…I cannot find final decisions about these subjects ? Does that mean Biotect that they are still open or did I over read them ? Where can I find the finaly selected parts ? Again where is the today summarised Terraliner fiche.
.
You ask the moderators to change the title. I would start a new thread. The actual thread is becoming really heavy and slow for my computer and I understood that others have similar problems.
.
Regards Campo