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

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6. Equine Tourism as a portal to farm glamping


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As most people know, tourism companies have rapidly multiplied over the last few decades, with the fastest growing and most successful being those that serve niche markets, for instance, African safari tourism, charter-boat tourism, diving tourism, bird-watching tourism, garden tourism, opera tourism..... the list is endless. There also exists a niche known as "equine tourism", and equine tourism companies could serve the TerraLiner as veritable world guides to farms that have horses across the planet. Many equine tourism companies offer horseback riding tours that run from point A to point B, staying at various farms or eco-lodges along the way. Like hiking tourism, only with horses -- see http://www.equestrian-escapes.com/about-us/ , http://www.unicorntrails.com/latinamerica/ecuador/avenueofvolcanoestrail/ , http://www.unicorntrails.com/latinamerica/ecuador/wildandes/ , https://www.inthesaddle.com/rides/view/41_cotopaxiadventure_andes_ecuador , and http://www.equitours.com/horseback-riding/hacienda-to-hacienda-ride/ .

Now here is the thing: farms that have large stables and ample riding facilities, will also host competitions, and at competitions horse-lovers will bring their own horses in specialized campers called "horse-boxes". We have already seen horse-boxes earlier in the thread. For instance, Ketterer horse-boxes were already mentioned on pages 3 and 11 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1566706#post1566706 and http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1562631#post1562631 , and also see page 76 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...ybrid-Drivetrain/page76?p=1674213#post1674213 . Horseboxes other than Ketterer were then discussed at length in a posting series from #1182 to #1186, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1742940#post1742940 and following. Horse-boxes are part mobile horse-stable, and part luxury camper. So any riding center or equestrian farm that allows people to visit with their own personal horse-boxes, and camp in them, is in effect an RV campground that accepts very large motorhomes, because horse-boxes are almost never small.

Recall that horse-boxes often have configurations that look very much like 3-axle freight trucks towing drawbar trailers, except that horse-boxes typically look more posh, like Class-A motorhomes with slide-outs:








So I figure that one major source of information that TerraLiner owners will want to consult, is equine tourist companies and their websites. Where large horse-boxes can camp, the TerraLiner should also be able to camp. Indeed, I strongly suspect that Hacienda Zuleta has already seen its fair share of big horse-boxes staying for a few nights to participate in equine competitions, or perhaps longer for diverse reasons. It's just a hypothesis, and I have not researched this very far yet. But large horse-boxes and horse-trailers are a substantial sub-niche in the RV market, and these motorhomes and trailers must be staying at a network of riding centers and equestrian farms.

And not only in Europe or the United States. If there is one thing that farmers worldwide share, it's a passion for horses, even if they themselves do not own very many. So I would wager that Equine Tourism might serve as the perfect "portal" by means of which the TerraLiner could gain access to a worldwide network of excellent farms and ranches where it could glamp; farms that, not incidentally would also have horses. And farms that have already seen their fair share of a certain type of motorhome, namely, the horse-box.



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7. Empirically testing the TerraLiner's environmental credentials at an equatorial Eco-Lodge


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Furthermore, like most "eco-lodges" and "organic farms", Hacienda Zuleta is enthusiastic about taking on volunteers, as well as interns who are studying agriculture or tourism at university -- see http://zuleta.com/hacienda-zuleta/volunteer/ . It is also engaged in various environmental initiatives, like the rehabilitation of the Andean Condor -- see http://zuleta.com/andean-condor-huasi-project/ :






Details like these suggest that if the TerraLiner were to approach Zuleta with a request to rent land to dry-camp for 4 or 5 months, a hacienda like Zuleta might be very open to the idea. The TerraLiner in itself is a bit of an "environmental project", given that it will have such massive solar. The TerraLiner's energy usage when running A/C in most equatorial climates will be high But in a more temperate highland climate like Zuleta's, the TerraLiner will probably be able to run all camper systems on solar alone, because A/C won't be needed. Furthermore, although lowland Ecuador towards the Pacific has abysmal DNI, highland Ecuador around Quito has excellent DNI, comparable to southern Europe's -- see http://solargis.info/doc/free-solar-radiation-maps-DNI , http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/dni/SolarGIS-Solar-map-DNI-Ecuador-en.png , and http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/dni/SolarGIS-Solar-map-DNI-Europe-en.png :







Just a word of caution here. The makers of these maps did not color-code all maps the same. So red on one map means something different than red on another. On Ecuador the scale tops out at 1800, where on the map of Europe, the scale tops out at 2400. Ergo, although Quito looks like it might have DNI similar to central Spain, actually its DNI is more comparable to the DNI in southern Italy or Greece. Which certainly isn't bad, and remains very promising. At Hacienda Zuleta the TerraLiner's roughly 19 KW of solar arrays should then operate at nearly maximal efficiency. The owner of the first TerraLiner could then justifiably claim that he/she would like to glamp at Zuleta for 4 or 5 months in order to empirically test the effectiveness of the TerraLiner's autonomous camping abilities, in a highland-temperate, equatorial climate. Which would be true.



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8. Tapping into the farm network


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Now it may turn out that, despite its status as a major riding center, Hacienda Zuleta is a bit too "upscale" to host a motorhome on its property. Zuleta's very beautiful but simple rooms are not exactly cheap, although accommodation does include all meals and non-alchoholic beverages -- see http://zuleta.com/rates-and-reservations-for-vacations-in-ecuador-eco-lodge-and-hacienda/ :








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But merely contacting Hacienda Zuleta with this sort of request would open up other doors. All big farmers in a given area know each other and socialize with each other. All the more so the owners of major riding centers and horse-farms. So it's very likely that Hacienda Zuleta would know of another nearby hacienda or major riding center that is not equipped for hotel or "ecolodge" tourism, as per Zuleta, but would be very happy to accommodate an independent couple who just want to rent a bit of land for their completely autonomous motorhome. And again, if riding centers in Ecuador and other Second-World and Third-World countries are anything at all like riding centers in Europe and the United States, then they will be well-habituated to hosting large horse-boxes and horse trailers.

Here I should add that I know quite a bit about farms, famers, horses, and riding centers, because I spent weekends as a kid target shooting with a Walther 2000 sniper rifle on a large farm in northern Ontario. The "firing range" that my brother and I used was a series of open fields that stretched over 1 km, and that were backed by rolling hills that were also part of the property. If any shots went astray, the only things we risked killing were animals. When not shooting we would visit neighboring farms that also had kids who were teenagers, and that had horses. So I've done a bit of riding, although I would not describe myself as a committed equestrian enthusiast.

Personally I am strongly disposed in favor of farms, farmers, and the animals one finds on farms, such as horses, cows, and usually quite a few dogs. I like the smell of farms, including manure. And this is probably why the idea of "glamping farmland" occurred to me in the first place. :sombrero:


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9. The importance of getting the broad brushstrokes right, and some more thoughts on forms of mimetic camouflage


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Remember, as a designer I am concerned with the "end-user" experience, and how the TerraLiner will actually be used, and not so much with the finer points of engineering, at least not yet.

So too, at this stage I am still "broad-brushstrokes" sketching. I am thinking about everything as holistically as I can, realizing that decisions made in one area have a "domino effect" in others, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. For instance, it's a pleasant surprise to realize that because the TerraLiner will be a serial hybrid, and will have a large generator and battery pack in any case, suddenly something very new will become possible: energy-intensive but still "mostly silent" camping.

Or just recently I realized, in response to Luke's post about the South African "blaster", that my central design objective for the TerraLiner exterior should be "mimetic camouflage": designing the TerraLiner to look as much as possible like a 3-axle freight truck pulling a drawbar trailer -- see post #2311 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2006429#post2006429 . This is a wonderful realization, because such trucks can be very beautiful and aerodynamically curvilinear. But it has taken me roughly 2 years of constant thought to finally realize that this is the best possible way to ensure TerraLiner security. Visual mimicry of a truck towing a trailer. Stealth via mimetic camouflage.

The idea is so obvious in hindsight, that I feel kind of stupid for not having come up with it sooner. On the other hand, post #2311 did feel like quite a breakthrough, and summarized so much of what I think is wrong with the alternatives, namely, deliberately designing for ugliness, or deliberately designing for "threat display". I guess I simply needed to hear others on the thread trying to make the case for ugliness or aggressive threat-display enough times, until the intense irritation that I was feeling as a designer, one who is committed to beauty and pacifism, finally "pushed" my thinking hard enough to find a genuine, viable, and truly intelligent alternative. The idea of "mimetic camouflage" as per Texas Armoring solves any number of design issues. It provides an overall visual "logic" for the TerraLiner exterior that will be non-arbitrary, and very easy to work through. I will post more about this further along. But a 3-axle truck pulling a drawbar trailer is a very standard vehicle type that can be easily mimicked, and that will "visually register" as standard:










It's kind of weird as a designer having to think like an organism that uses mimicry as an anti-predator adaptation -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimicry . However, reading about mimicry in nature, nothing in nature seems quite parallel to the kind of mimetic camouflage that Texas Armoring uses, or that I want to use for the exterior of the TerraLiner.

In nature, mimetic camouflage is often used by predators, to look like something -- for instance a twig or some other animal -- that prey would consider harmless. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage#Mimesis . Mimetic camouflage is not typically used by prey to disguise themselves so that they are not singled out for attack by predators. The big exception would be Vavilovian mimicry, a form of "unnatural" mimicry in which a weed comes to share the characteristics of a domesticated plant that humans consider desirable or beneficial. That way, the weed becomes progressively more difficult for humans to "weed out", because it comes to look (or behave in response to chemicals) just like the desirable crop -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry .

Instead, in much "defensive" mimicry in nature, also called "Batesian" mimicry, prey tries to protect itself by posing as potentially harmful to the predator, even though it is actually harmless -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimicry#Defensive and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry . In effect this is what some argue FPB boats are doing: that they are harmless yachts posing as a much more potentially harmful PT boats. So my skeptical riposte is that FPB's attempted exercise in Batesian mimicry simply fails. FPB boats just do not look all that threatening or militaresque. But they do look beautiful; indeed, exceptionally beautiful.....:ylsmoke:

Furthermore, Texas Armoring would argue that a more threatening appearance is a counterproductive mistake, and invites carjacker aggression, instead of dissuading it. After all, criminals know that visibly armored trucks which transfer money between banks are armored for a reason: because they contain lots of cash. This makes them more attractive targets, not less:

Discreet Protection

[Texas Armoring] doesn't manufacture armored cars, but rather provides armor for a variety of luxury automobiles from sedans to SUVs. The idea is to help those VIPs riding inside to blend in rather than stand out. While other companies may produce over-armored SUVs that would look right home in the latest Mad Max movie, the TAC approach is to hide in plain sight.

“The appearance of a military/SWAT vehicle is definitely meant to intimidate,” Kosub said. “A flat-black paint finish, red and blue strobes, high-intensity light bars and big all-terrain tires would scare most people. For passenger vehicles, you want the illusion of an everyday vehicle driving down the street. Most of our clients don't want to draw attention, and this gives them protection in a low-profile solution. If people know you're in an armored vehicle, you can become a target.”

The other part of the equation is that when “it” hits the fan, it is best not to stick around. Movies and TV shows may suggest that armed bodyguards can shoot it out with would-be assassins or kidnappers, but the best strategy is to get out of harm's way. Thus TAC provides protection, but at the same time the goal isn't to transform a Mercedes into a tank that is ready for action against ISIS. “The purpose of armoring civilian passenger vehicles is to buy you those extra precious seconds to escape from a dangerous situation,” Kosub added.

See http://www.tactical-life.com/military-and-police/texas-armoring-vehicles/#swso15-texarm-1 .

So it's conceptually interesting to realize that "Batesian mimicry" as a strategy to dissuade potential human aggression does not really work. Humans are simply too intelligent to be fooled by the mimicry of more dangerous vehicle types. Or humans are so perverse, bloody-minded, and aggressive, that extensive visible self-protection (visible armor on a vehicle, a castle, a walled town) makes aggressors more interested, not less. A walled city in effect loudly advertises, "Please siege me. I am a walled city because wealthy merchants live inside me, and if you successfully breach my walls, you will find riches to plunder." The same is true for a visibly armored vehicle, or simply a vehicle that looks butch, masculine, and somewhat "threatening". The psychology here is fascinating. It is both puzzling and wonderful (at least for me) to realize that there is some kind of cognitive discontinuity between the human and the natural worlds, making Batesian mimicry counterproductive as a defensive strategy for human prey against human predators. And that the correct strategy is to design with Vavilovian mimicry in mind instead: a form of mimicry that is not found in nature, but only emerges amongst weeds in response to human crop domestication.

Kind of mind-blowing stuff, if you think about it. As a Philosopher, I would say that what is going on here is something called "Intentionality": that humans are creatures who can read and interpret in sophisticated ways the intentions of other agents. In humans, intelligence and culture have trumped biological instinct, so we cannot "evolve" a Batesian form of mimicry that will reliably fool other human beings. Animals can do this, because if an animal successfully evolves a form of Batesian mimicry, it can trust that equally hard-wired, merely instinctual predators will leave it alone most of the time. Indeed, the instiinct-driven, automatic behavior of the predator is precisely what allows prey to evolve genetically pre-coded forms of Batesian mimicry in the first place. But as human prey we simply cannot trust that human predators will be reliably instinctual in their responses to our defensive strategies. Human predators are intelligent agents who can read our intentions and defensive strategies just as quickly as we try to devise them. So instead we are in the realm of game theory, which incorporates into its models the idea that human agents will change or callibrate their behavior informed by their understanding, foresight, and expectations regarding the likely behavior of others. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intentionality , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance , and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18254/ .

I would then guess that Vavilovian mimicry is bound to be the more successful strategy in the human world, because instead of trying to send a threatening signal, Vavilovian mimicry is an attempt to send absolutely no signal at all. If you think about it, this is the proper and correct response to the threat posed by intelligent predators such as humans. Simply send no information that can be interpreted intentionally. Simply blend into the background as non-information, so that the powerful brains of humans can't do any processing whatsoever. Just become part of a background pattern, so that the exterior of one's vehicle registers as the visual equivalent of "ambient noise" or "background noise" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_noise .

This may not seem obvious, but this is the very heart and soul of design-thinking. Texas Armoring is a profoundly "design intelligent" company, although perhaps they do not explicitly realize that they are pursuing a strategy of Vavilovian mimetic camouflage.:sombrero:


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In any case, to finish off.....

When it comes to battery engineering, all that I really need to know at this stage is whether the following rough-ball-park guestimate is reasonably accurate, and will be feasible circa 2020:


"100 liters of diesel fuel used by a 280 KW generator, to recharge a 316 KW battery pack in 1 hour, 20 minutes; power that will then be consumed as 300 KW over the following 3 - 10 days."


Sorry that it took so long to finish this posting series, but a really fruitful rapid-fire exchange with Haf-E intervened....:sombrero:

Also, I wanted to visually establish a context for the numbers that we are discussing. It will be farms like Hacienda Zuleta where the TerraLiner would want to test whether it can camp comfortably for many months using solar alone. And if not, where it would see how effectively the large generator works charging the large battery pack. I know quite a bit about farms, eco-tourism, eco-lodges, agriturismi, riding centers, and horse-farms; so it occurred to me that perhaps I can "picture" possibilities that others cannot. Perhaps "glamping farmland" does not seem like a real possibility to some thread participants because they don't know any farmers, or have never been to a horse competition, horse show, or rodeo -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrianism , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dressage , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_dressage , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_jumping , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_riding , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_show , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_(horse) , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodeo . So visually illustrating what I have in mind via a farm as beautiful as Hacienda Zuleta seemed important. It also helps that Hacienda Zuleta is located in an equatorial country that's border-line Third-World, so it demonstrates that what I have in mind will definitely be possible well outside the First World.

All of my questions are in the first post, #2323, so you could ignore the rest of the posting series if it doesn't interest you. Again, thanks so much for your help!!



Biotect

 

[back woods]

Has any building taken place on this "rig" or is it all planning?

 

[biotect]

Hi back woods,

Model-building, yes. But it's still a design exercise, at least for now. See Libransser's excellent summary of what's going on in post #2259 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1995429#post1995429 . Even if the TerraLiner were a real vehicle, the projected implementation would still be four years away, in 2020.

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[Pinstripe]

4 years from now? And this thread is already 2 years old. What is the point of this vehicle/exercise? If it's to travel the world, for the amount of money it's going to take to build the TerraLiner you could have bought a top of the line Unicat/Action Mobil (maybe even two of them when you consider the R&D and testing needing to be done) and travelling the world these last 6 years.

 

[biotect]

Hi Pinstripe,

Personally, I already travel a great deal in any case, and I've lived many more years "abroad" -- in the sense of living outside the country where I was born, Germany; and the country where I grew up for 10 years, Canada -- than I've lived in either one.



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1. New vehicle types are always expensive and crazy, at first


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If you are looking for "down to earth practicality", then this thread is not the right place to look. Almost all initial experiments in transportation design at first seemed slightly nuts, expensive, and pointless. We already had horses and carriages, so why did we need railroads? We had sailing ships that were primarily responsible for the creation of European Empires, and sailing ships are a good deal more elegant, fun to operate, and romantic than "stinkpots" (the dedicated sailor's term for power boats). So why did we need steam-powered ships? We had railroads, horses, and carriages, so why did we need noisy, noxious "horseless carriages", i.e. cars? And for the first 10 years or so what was the point to airplanes? Until WW I they were just expensive toys for the crazy rich, but after 1914 serious advances were made, because planes were good for spying behind enemy lines. In 1950 we already had propeller-driven flying boats that could get us around the world, so why did we need the de Havilland Comet passenger jet, first put into service in 1952?

And so it goes. You either enjoy thinking about the leading edge of transportation (or in monetary terms, the bleeding edge), or you don't. Personal computers first seemed pointless luxuries, especially if one already knew how to type. But personal computers are now incredibly useful tools that make forums such as ExPo possible. Personal computers also make completely new forms of communication possible. The mixture of text, still images, and video that appears in a forum like ExPo, is simply breathtaking. When I surf other web-forums that have primitive text editors, and no provision for embedding video, I am always doubly glad that I chose ExPo as the place to develop my thoughts about the TerraLiner.

The "practical" argument for the TerraLiner is that innovations at the bleeding edge eventually trickle down. An innovation that first cost millions, might be repackaged 10 years later in a form that costs 1/10 as much.



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2. This is a thread by and for those who enjoy design as an end in itself


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Furthermore, I am a designer, a producer, and so I do not have the perspective of just the consumer who is looking to buy something "right now". For me, creation and design are their own rewards. I simply like thinking about, researching, and drawing this stuff.

When I was a kid just one or two years old, and only had an infant's manual dexterity to build with sand, my father constructed a sandbox in the backyard. Much later he told me that it totally astonished him that I was perfectly happy sitting and playing in the sandbox for hours on end. My family has always had German Shepherds, and back then our dog was named "Cora". My parents would put me in the sandbox, Cora would sit beside me, and they could forget about me for hours, because Cora would watch over and protect me:







My Dad was also importing Lego and Fischer-Technik, so I had huge chests filled with both. From age 2 to about 6 all I wanted to do was draw, paint, and build vehicles in Lego. And from 7 onwards, in Fischer-Technik.

So if you are looking for advice in this thread from the point of view of a consumer, once again, you are looking in the wrong place. This thread has become the record of the thought processes of a producer, one who very much values the "input" as well as the design criticism of those who have an interest in expedition vehicles in general; and who are interested in the possibility of a very large, Class-A sized expedition vehicle in particular. Even more valuable is the "input" of like-minded producers, who know what it means to produce.

You should also probably know that I have been thinking about and sketching something like the TerraLiner for much longer than 2 years. I still have sketches of "ideal globe-traveliing vehicles" that I did in grades 1 through 4, at which point I became much more interested in computers and robots. My direct inspiration was the GI Joe Action Team Mobile Support Vehicle:










But even back then I thought that the map of the United States provided in this toy was awfully provincial, and I replaced it with a World Map. I also hated being required to sing "Oh Canada" in primary school at the beginning of each day, and deliberately substituted "Oh Germany", which freaked out of my teachers. But I did not sing "Oh Germany" too loudly, so they tolerated it, also probably because a kid who expresses his contempt for nationalism in song already at age 7 is a bit weird, novel, and perhaps should be tolerated.....?.. :ylsmoke: .. Luckily it was Canada, not the United States, because in Canada nationalism has never been that strong. It wasn't that I felt patriotic about Germany instead. Rather, I just disliked participating in the secular religion of nationalism, being forced to ritually sing a national song.

When I was in primary school I loved drawing imaginary vehicles so much, and so strongly preferred drawing to doing the work required by my teachers, that I tried to get through the in-class assignments as quickly as I could. Teachers realized that if they would just let me draw, I would be happy, quiet, and non-disruptive. So it became a game for me: I would try to finish the assignments faster and faster, so as to maximize drawing time. I was soon finishing assignments in about 1/10 the time as the other students, leaving the remaining 9/10 available for drawing. So they decided to have me skip a grade, from 2 to 4. This upset me very much, so I set out to prove that the adults could not win. By the end of the fifth grade I was back in my comfort zone, spending at least 90 % of my time drawing. So a really nice teacher named Mr. Honsburger (my favorite teacher of all time), advised my parents that the only remaining solution was to send me to a private school, one that might prove more challenging. My parents had lots of money, so they sent me to an academically excellent private school that was definitely harder. Again I knuckled down, and by the end of grade 6 won the "Form Prize" for the best marks overall. By the end of grade 7 I was back in my comfort zone, drawing about 80 % of the time, so the bastards skipped me another grade.....:sombrero: ... I am born in late November, so I graduated high-school at age 15, and then took a "gap year" to slow things down. No university that I wanted to attend was willing to accept a 15 year old.

That's how much I love drawing and design.

Oh, and by the way, when my parents first moved to Canada from Germany I was about 4 1/2 years old, and went through language shock in Kindergarten. For about six months I did not talk to anyone but my mother, father, and siblings, in German. So I almost failed Kindergarten -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_period#In_second_language_acquisition_research .

As regards born in late November: yes, Sagittarius, the traveller. Also born in the year of the Dragon, so Dragon-Centaur.....:ylsmoke:


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3. This thread is the conceptual or "verbal" part of my design process, helping me to avoid the black hole of premature, overly detailed CAD


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Now for better or worse, I've learned over the years that design is fundamentally a conceptual activity, and thinking using words instead of just pencils, markers, brushes, or CAD, is often just as valuable or even more valuable. Many non-designers don't really understand this, but it's a truism that anyone deeply involved with design knows only too well. So for me, that's the purpose of this thread: thinking out loud, verbally. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my visual work, because I know just how silly a concept sketch will seem a year later, because it fails to take into account some basic problem that can be stated verbally. For instance, the problem of TerraLiner security. So I know in advance that if I post concept sketches or CAD too early, I will find myself deeply, profoundly embarrassed by them one or two years later.

It's also just too darn easy to get caught up in all the little details when designing in CAD, the details of 10 cm here, 5 cm there, working laboriously on a design that is conceptually flawed at a fundamental level. A design that should never have been brought to that level of detail in the first place. I have lots of abandoned TerraLiner CAD of this kind now sitting on my computer.

So I decided to "use" ExPo and this thread as an instrument by means of which I could avoid this common design black hole. Bran Ferren talks eloquently about this design black hole on AOL, at http://on.aol.com/video/designing-a-family-friendly-extreme-expedition-vehicle-517751459 . Ferren freely admits that his team wasted thousands of hours and many months producing drawings and CAD that ultimately proved worthless, because they had not done enough truly basic "conceptual" thinking. It's a great video to watch, and it's very instructive, if one is able to understand the point that Ferren is making about wasted design effort, and getting caught up in the black hole of CAD. Here are two additional recently posted Kiravan videos. The second one is a hoot: in a "test drive" on the paved streets of Los Angeles, the Kirivan breaks down after a few miles, the engine leaking diesel:






On the other hand, I do admire Ferren's boldness and passion; I very much agree with him that products designed by committee consensus are almost always mediocre; and that it's better to fail spectacularly, than succeed only just a little bit.

Now the irony is that, even though at one point Ferren and his team allowed themselves to "think" the Kiravan through at a more conceptual level, on my own view they still did not think the Kiravan through far enough. For instance, as I've already stated earlier in the thread, Ferren and his team wrongly assumed that the whole vehicle needs to be able to rock-crawl. They wrongly assumed that the whole vehicle should be able to both sojourn and explore as a single unit. This is a fundamental mistake, and Ferren might have learned something if he had simply taken the time to investigate the standard Class A + TOAD format that has emerged in the world of American motorhomes owned by wealthy retirees. Ferren's tractor when separated from the Kiravan is also much too big and tall to do grocery shopping in a covered Third-World market, or exploring down a narrow trail. And because the main living space is not integrated with the tractor cab, the amount of available living space in the trailer seems very limited, and the kitchen seems dysfunctionally small. Ergo, the Kiravan does not seem like it would be much good for either sojourning or exploring. It seems like the Kiravan would be bad at both. Last but not least, Ferren's team clearly did not think through the sociology of the Kirivan, the way that I have been trying to think through the sociology of the TerraLiner in this thread. So Ferren ended up with a Kiravan that looks so unique, unusual, and expensive, that it would become a very natural target for attack in Second and Third-world countries. Ferren's team never seems to have understood the security implications of how the Kirivan's exterior looks. But then, as near as I can tell, Ferren was never truly serious about taking the Kiravan around the world in the first place. Rather, the Kiravan is more of a "technology testbed", just a local R & D platform that is not intended to be used by anyone in the real world at all. So security when driving through Second or Third-world countries was never a genuine design consideration.



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4. The generation of non-obvious design insight is one of the purposes of this thread


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For my best thinking so far on the topic of TerraLiner security, see post #2311 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2006429#post2006429 , a post that I am particularly proud of, and also see the follow-up in post #2330 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2008591#post2008591 . Once again, I want to thank Luke for having posted about the South African "blaster":






The blaster is so horrible; it is so aggressive, mean-spirited, and violent; and the blaster is such a conceptually ugly "solution" to the problem of carjacking, that when I saw it in action, my brain flipped into overdrive, and I was suddenly able to "see" how Texas Armoring uses Vavilovian mimetic camouflage as a fundamental protective strategy instead:

Discreet Protection

[Texas Armoring] doesn't manufacture armored cars, but rather provides armor for a variety of luxury automobiles from sedans to SUVs. The idea is to help those VIPs riding inside to blend in rather than stand out. While other companies may produce over-armored SUVs that would look right home in the latest Mad Max movie, the TAC approach is to hide in plain sight.

“The appearance of a military/SWAT vehicle is definitely meant to intimidate,” Kosub said. “A flat-black paint finish, red and blue strobes, high-intensity light bars and big all-terrain tires would scare most people. For passenger vehicles, you want the illusion of an everyday vehicle driving down the street. Most of our clients don't want to draw attention, and this gives them protection in a low-profile solution. If people know you're in an armored vehicle, you can become a target.”

The other part of the equation is that when “it” hits the fan, it is best not to stick around. Movies and TV shows may suggest that armed bodyguards can shoot it out with would-be assassins or kidnappers, but the best strategy is to get out of harm's way. Thus TAC provides protection, but at the same time the goal isn't to transform a Mercedes into a tank that is ready for action against ISIS. “The purpose of armoring civilian passenger vehicles is to buy you those extra precious seconds to escape from a dangerous situation,” Kosub added.

See http://www.tactical-life.com/military-and-police/texas-armoring-vehicles/#swso15-texarm-1 .

This insight may not seem like a big deal to the average person, but for a designer, an insight like this is pure design gold. I was suddenly able to "see" exactly what is wrong with the Kiravan from a security point of view. And I was able to finally see how to solve the visual aspect of TerraLiner security without having to design for deliberate ugliness, as some have recommended in the thread; nor design for deliberate Batesian "threat display", as others have suggested.

In fact, researching mimicry in animals a bit, I was able to come to a fairly deep understanding as to why "harmful vehicle imitation" (which is the same thing as Batesian mimicry in animals), does not work in the human world -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry . If anything, an aggressive and/or actively defensive exterior appearance in a vehicle invites aggression, because it provides too much information. When it comes to predatory humans, it's difficult to reliably predict how they will interpret visual information. Humans are massively de-instincted creatures, whereas animals who employ defensive Batesian mimicry can count on an "evolutionarily stable strategy" relative to their potential predators. The harmful animals that they are mimicking, i.e. potential prey that are truly poisonous, have co-evolved with predators, such that the predators just instinctively avoid them. The potential predators don't do any interpreting with their brains; their genes just tell them what to do. So when another animal that is not poisonous "hitches a free ride" by mimicking the appearance, sound, or smell of a truly poisonous animal, it can count on genetically pre-programmed avoidance behavior on the part of the predator:






In the world of humans, however, a vehicle that looks like a tank or armored car is not automatically guaranteed to "trigger" instinctive avoidance or a flight response. A carjacker may massively misinterpret, thinking it's a police vehicle about to disgorge a squad. He may then spontaneously open fire with his AK-47, in pre-emptive self-defense. There is just no reliable path from visually offensive or defensive information provided by a vehicle's exterior appearance, to predictable behavioral results in carjackers. So the best protective strategy is the one arrived at by Texas Armoring: provide no information whatsoever. Provide a "zero" or "null" signal. In effect Texas Armoring is using Vavilovian mimetic camouflage, which is just a fancy way of saying that after they are fully armored, Texas Armoring's SUVs still look like very ordinary SUVs -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry :






Here it's worth repeating that Vavilovian mimicry is never spontaneously produced in "nature" without humans. Vavilovian mimicry is a direct product of plant domestication, and it did not exist as a form of mimicry prior to the invention of agriculture -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimicry . But it's clearly the very best possible form of mimetic camouflage when dealing with very intelligent predators like humans, predators who are constantly trying to interpret whatever unusual information their environment presents. So the best information is to provide no information at all.

As such, part of the solution to TerraLiner security (the visual part), is having the exterior look like a very ordinary and standard vehicle type. In the case of the TerraLiner, this will mean trying to mimic as much as possible the visual appearance of a 3-axle freight truck pulling a drawbar trailer:










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[biotect]

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These images are primarily intended to demonstrate just how common a vehicle type this is. For many more images of 3-axle trucks towing drawbar trailers, one could do no better than browse the Flicker River aptly titled, "The World's most recently posted photos of drawbar and lorry", at http://flickrhivemind.net/flickr_hv...ate Posted, new first&textinput=drawbar,lorry .

The question is then how far the TerraLiner will go in mimicking the typology seen above.

First off, it's clear that the TerraLiner cab and camper body will be one and the same, and that one wouldn't want the camper body in back to be a very rectilinear box that stands in dramatic contrast to a more curvilinear cab up front. But on the other hand, through paint and fine sculpting, one could somehow mark out the cab area as separate from the camper, to give the illusion that the TerraLiner is a 3-axle truck where cab and freight box are separate. Whereas in fact on the inside the interior will be a fully integrated motorhome, just like an American Class A.

Next, there is the question whether one would want to follow the "highbrow" full-height Scania cab designs seen above, where there is a huge cowl above the windshield, one that provides generous internal height and volume for the cab, and that functions as a wind-deflector to smooth airflow as it hits the freight box; and where cab + camper are fairly "box-like" in appearance overall. Or whether one would want the styling of the cab to contribute substantially to a "teardrop" shape for the vehicle ensemble as a whole, including the trailer. As suggested earlier, teardrop trailers are now entering commercial use. One might think that the idea was originally inspired by MAN's "Concept S" truck/trailer system:






But the desirability of a teardrop shape to reduce turbulence and improve the drag coefficient is obvious enough to anyone looking at the wind-tunnel schematic of a typical semi-truck/trailer combination. The idea has been around for a while, and one could not say that MAN has any kind of "patent" on the general concept. See for instance the very large British manufacturer Don-Bur, at http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/about/history.php , http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/products/draw-bar-combinations.php , http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/products/aerodynamic-teardrop-trailer.php , http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/3d/groups/aerodynamic-bodywork.php , http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/info/aerodynamics.php , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbI4YE14B20BR05vo3uEM6g , and http://www.donbur.co.uk/gb-en/docs/150320-Don-Bur-Teardrop-Brochure.pdf :









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Right now I want to leave all of this open, because here a balance needs to be struck between at least four considerations:


1. The desirability of trying to mimic the existing typology of 3-axle truck + drawbar trailer combinations, which are rather "boxy", as seen above. There is no question that TerraLiner design will want to maximize Vavilovian mimicry, for security reasons.

2. The desirability of a more teardrop shape, to improve aerodynamic efficiency and reduce fuel consumption, but not so much that Vavilovian mimicry is seriously compromised.

3. The desirability of designing a cab area that, while vaguely resembling the truck cabs shown above, also seems like "next year's model". Sleeker, more advanced, more "fashion forward". But again, not so much that Vavilovian mimicry is seriously compromised.

4. The desirability of a more box-like overall shape, so as to maximize interior volume, and simplify the provision of drop-down decks, the slide-outs, the pop-up, etc.


No doubt there are additional considerations, pulling in different directions, and everything needs to be weighed up against everything else. But now that the concept of Vavilovian mimicry is so transparently in play, at least from a stylistic point of view the direction in which the design will want to tend has become much clearer.

Needless to say, the TerraLiner's exterior appearance should in no way suggest that it has Kevlar armoring underneath its aluminum skin, or thick all-plastic bullet-proof windshield segments. Let alone a motorhome inside. Because once more, the carjacker response to such information is unpredictable. Criminals do actively attack heavily and visibly armored vehicles that carry money from one bank to another. The defensive armor does not deter them one bit, but positively attracts them. So instead, the goal is to design the TerraLiner to resemble a rather beautiful freight-hauling truck; but still a very clearly utilitarian truck, and not a motorhome or armored vehicle.


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Returning to Batesian mimicry, we should also realize that it is probably very hard for a vehicle to merely "mimic" the threatening appearance of another vehicle, without actually being a potentially lethal vehicle itself. The extraordinary elegance and beauty of FPB boats, and their total failure as Batesian mimics of PT boats, is a case in point -- see http://www.setsail.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat :










Instead, at least for me, FPB boats much more nearly resemble large sport-fishing vessels that have outriggers for trolling, flying bridges, and conning towers reached by ladders:






For further discussion, again see post #2311 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2006429#post2006429 .

There is also an ethical dimension to self-protection that Luke's posting raised. At the end of the day, people are more valuable than property. If one is lucky and rich enough to be driving a BMW, one should count one's blessings, and be willing to hand over one's unarmored car when a carjacker points a gun. If one gives up one's vehicle without a fuss, there is a very high probability that he won't shoot, and one's insurance will probably replace the car. Flame-torching the carjacker instead, permanently blinding him, and covering his body with first-degree burns, is simply unjustifiable. In the karmic balance of things, wanting to keep and protect one's BMW is simply no excuse for inflicting so much pain and suffering on another human being, no matter how misguided or aggressive they might be. But then I am a Buddhist, so that's how I see things.

Insights like all of the above are the whole point to this thread. They have been one of the main purposes of the thread, at least for me, as a design producer. This probably means that the thread will not prove that interesting for a consumer, for someone who does not much like "sharing" in a design process, just for the fun of it. For me such insights are design gold. Whereas for someone not terribly interested in the design process, but only in the final result, none of this will be all that interesting.

Think of it this way: why has safas been researching so much, posting, and answering my questions? Well, because safas is an engineer who clearly loves being an engineer, and who loves sharing his engineering knowledge and ideas. There really do exist people like safas and myself who love what we do for a living. It's our hobby as well as our profession, so it never feels like "work". The shear joy of creating and producing is an end in itself.



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5. Unexpected and truly helpful design ideas are another purpose of this thread


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Now one unexpected but wonderful spin-off of having begun this thread, is that participants like egn, dwh, and Joe Maninga have posted design-ideas that completely changed my direction. The TerraLiner that I am now sketching is a completely different vehicle from the one that I was imagining before I first began posting here on ExPo. That, too, is another purpose of this thread, at least for me.

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[Libransser]

Hi Biotect,

It's refreshing to find other people that resist the push of nationalism. It really is like another religion.

What I don't understand is how your Near Death Experience led you to no guns, no meat, and later becoming a Buddhist. It surprises me a lot given that you have stated how much you value reason, facts and evidence, and to me, attributing religious or spiritual significance to NDEs goes against that.

Reading about your challenges at school made me smile. I myself had trouble in school. As far as I can remember I always complained about having to go to school. I just didn't like it and the thing I hated the most was the homework. I was the weird kid who preferred to be evaluated through exams rather than projects & reports. Just a reading of the material and that was enough to pass, instead of having to do all that work to make another disposable project/report. As if having to be locked up all morning wasn't bad enough, I still had to burn hours in the afternoon doing silly homework? I was not going to have any of that. I remember one evening, around the time I was in 4th grade, with my Mom being so frustrated with me that she slammed her fist violently on the glass dinner table and broke it. But honestly, who thought having a (breakable!) glass table was a good idea? That struggle continued through all of mandatory school... sorry, Mom!

To be clear, I love to learn, but I hate school. To me, the traditional school model was more of a hindrance than a help.

Anyway, knowing that you started that early makes me more curious to see your work. I have noticed that individuals with an early start are very very talented. Someday, maybe.

To compensate for going off-topic, here's a good video explanation of the SMESH gearbox. Bonus points for the references to Back To The Future

 

[biotect]

Hi Libransser,

It's interesting that you are a non-nationalist, too.....

It's a hard thing to be in this day and age, because nationalists have become aware of our existence, and they don't like us one bit. They call us "tranzis", short for "transnational progressive" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_progressivism and http://sinclairsmusings.blogspot.it/2007/02/tranzis-eu-and-more-history.html . Actually, I am much more of a liberal (in the 19th century, Economist magazine sense of the term), than I am a socialist, and I do not want to dismantle the nation state. Although all nation states have blood on their hands, what political institution does not? Nation-states have created much wider communities of cooperation, trust, and solidarity, without which industrial society would not even be possible. So because I am a both/and kind of guy, I see transnational institutions and eventually World Federalism as building upon the foundations first put in place by the nation state. Cities did not disappear because of the rise of nations, although completely autonomous city-states have largely disappeared (Singapore would be an exception).

As for school, I very much disliked high-school, but I loved primary school, and I also loved/love attending university and Art School. I love learning, and I don't mind the formal context of a classroom. But I did mind attending high-school in North America, where the "one size fits all" model is prevalent. I think the "universal" American high-school is a fundamental pedagogical and developmental mistake. As you know, in Europe students are streamed, and they attend different kinds of secondary-schools based on their abilities. So those who think with their fists instead of their brains are not even in the same building as the eggheads. Jock-types do not "rule" at the best European secondary-schools, which tend to be very intellectual and academically-focused. So intellectuals in Europe generally speaking don't have nightmares about having been bullied in secondary school by stupid football players with no necks. European scientists, professors, lawyers, doctors -- they all grew up without being subject to teenage male violence of the kind meted out by America's ever-so-proud-of-themselves jocks. Although I like to think of myself as mostly an egalitarian and a socialist about many matters, when it comes to education, I think violent jock types who have more muscles than brains should be quarantined. In Germany they would attend "Realschule", a kind of secondary school that prepares them for a trade in industry, and provides apprenticeship opportunities. They would not attend the "Gymnasium" where the smarter kids study advanced mathematics, science, history, etc., and prepare for university. Sounds harsh, i know, but the psychological crippling of America's intellectual elite by their hellish high-school experiences, strikes me as not good for anyone, including those who did the pounding.

The whole topic of the relationship of religion more broadly, and mystical experience specifically, to reason and empiricism, is an enormous can of worms. There is a trans-rational and trans-linguistic element in mystical experiences of complete ego-annihilation, to be sure; but often mystics have simultaneously been great believers in the value of reason and experience. For instance, the Buddha. In most forms of Buddhism, one's independent judgement is highly prized, and one is encouraged to use reason and experience to evaluate all claims -- including religious claims -- for oneself. Tibetan Buddhism in particular tends to be very "philosophical", and tends to have a dim view of forms of Buddhism (like Japanese Zen), which are almost anti-rational. One Tibetan Lama who I know thinks that Zen rots the mind.

Religious ecumenism, pacifism, a striving after vegetarianism, spiritual and moral renewal -- all of these are standard consequences of NDEs. There are also negative consequences, like foolish fearlessness, because one no longer fears death. My two favorite movies about NDEs are both ambivalent about the consequences, warning about the wrenching nature of the changes that NDEs precipitate -- see Fearless (1993), at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_(1993_film); and Flatliners (1990), at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatliners.

Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, who famously created the 5-step model of grief in the face of dying, became very interested in NDEs towards the end of her life -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Kübler-Ross and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model . When giving talks on the subject, she found that there was pretty much nothing that NDE survivors could say or argue that would convince scientistic-materialistic skeptics regarding the ontological and moral reality of the experience. Those who were anti-religious secular materialists were interested only in reductionistic explanations that tried to explain the experience away, e.g. the reverse-birth-canal theory, the oxygen deprivation theory, the endorphin rush theory, etc. There are at least 10 such theories -- see http://listverse.com/2015/04/14/10-scientific-explanations-for-near-death-experiences/ , http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/peace-of-mind-near-death/ , and http://www.near-death.com/science/theories-of-ndes.html . Kübler-Ross found that audiences divided more or less evenly, between those who wanted to believe that there was a genuine metaphysical reality to the experience, versus those who wanted to deny that reality via scientific skepticism. There was not much value, she found, in the two sides arguing. They tended to just argue past each other.

All of this is sort of off-topic, but it is also not. There are ethical and political dimensions to travel, and to expedition motorhoming in particular, and it would be naive to engage in TerraLiner design without explicitly acknowledging those dimensions. See the thread, The Ethics of Third World Travel by Motorhome, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...rd-World-Travel-by-Motorhome?highlight=ethics . A debate inevitably arises, for instance, regarding what "authentic travel" means. Even two people who are otherwise well-disposed towards larger motorhomes, egn and myself, can find themselves disagreeing somewhat about the nature of truly "authentic travel". Those who begin to think about this topic tend to assume that the answers are obvious and self-evident, namely, that their own dispositions, preferences, intuitions, ethical judgements, and evaluations are automatically universal. It usually takes a while for them to realize that the ethical and political dimensions of travel are much more complex than they had initially supposed.

For instance, there are two wonderful articles which argue that it is not only more cost-effective, but also more environmentally friendly to live in an RV than a fixed house -- see https://wandrlymagazine.com/cheaper-on-the-road/ and https://wandrlymagazine.com/article/eco-friendly-rv/ . What I particularly like about the second article is how sophisticated it is in mapping at least three different RV lifestyles. It does not presume that there is only one kind of motorhoming that is "best", and it explicitly acknowledges that the kind of motorhoming done by retired people who own Class-A RVs, and who live in them full-time, is fundamentally different than the kind of motorhoming done by younger people, including younger world-traveling types. The article explicitly acknowledges that elderly people tend to "slow travel", spending months rooted in just one spot for a while, before moving on. Many participants on ExPo seem to be unaware of such basic differences in types of motorhoming.

It is then interesting to see that even those who retire full-time in lavish Class-A RVs, will spend less on all basic utilities, and will be living a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle, than those who live in fixed condominiums. So there is also an empirical or "factual" dimension to the ethical debate about types of motorhoming and RV lifestyles. Even though Class-A motorhoming might seem very energy-intensive and resource-intensive to those who prefer smaller, zippier vehicles, it can still be shown to be more ethical from an environmental point of view, than various fixed-home retirement alternatives.

Because I also have an academic background in Philosophy, I am not afraid to investigate such questions, and meet them head-on. They will necessarily come up, especially when discussing and designing a vehicle as large as the 12 m TerraLiner that I am now proposing. But again, I would submit that if people were to take a bit of time to think the issues through, and research the actual facts of the matter, they would find that the issues are usually more ethically and politically complex than they had initially supposed.

Returning even more strongly to one of the topics currently in play, TerraLiner security, I would submit that those who travel the world by motorhome have a moral duty to do so in a way that is highly sensitive and self-aware about the impact that their mere presence will have on the local cultures and people they encounter. For instance, what right does anyone have to travel through the Third World in any kind of expedition motorhome, even a rather "small" one that's only 5 - 7 m long, and use a weapon like the South African "blaster" to flame-roast potential carjackers? After all, if one had not been traveling through a given area with one's luxurious vehicle (even a 5 - 7 m long motorhome is incredibly luxurious by Third-World standards), then the ethical problem of how to deal with potential burglars or carjcackers would not arise. One's mere presence in part creates the ethical problem, and it would be morally naive to suggest otherwise. To travel the world by motorhome and just expect that poor people in other countries will automatically respect what Americans conceive as universally self-evident "property rights", and to think that one can justifiably flame-roast them alive if they do not, strikes me as callous, imperialistic, highly unethical, and just plain stupid.

So part of the challenge in TerraLiner design is figuring out design-solutions that will minimize the potential for such conflicts to arise in the first place. Again, for me personally, to realize that the best possible form of mimicry is "zero information" or "null signal" mimicry -- Vavilovian mimicry in which the TerraLiner disappears into the background noise of other large 3-axle freight-carrying trucks with drawbar trailers -- is quite a revelation, and a veritable "design breakthrough". So too, it is personally satisfying to realize exactly what is wrong with other proposed solutions; for instance, Batesian mimicry in which one instead designs the TerraLiner to look more threatening, a vehicle that sends a very strong, information-dense message that is packed with pre-emptive aggression. That kind of "design for threat" simply will not fly, because Batesian mimicry cannot reliably work in the human world, the way that it works in the natural world. So even if one is not a convinced pacifist or Buddhist like myself, one still has to acknowledge that the best strategy from a purely empirical and psychological point of view, is the strategy developed by Texas Armoring: Vavilovian mimicry which provides "zero information" or a "null signal". Again, see the excellent article at http://www.tactical-life.com/military-and-police/texas-armoring-vehicles/#swso15-texarm-1 .

Many thanks for the Smesh video. What would you say would be a good working figure for the efficiency loss of a hub gearbox? 10 %? 5 %?

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

Hi Biotect here's a good video explanation of the SMESH gearbox. Bonus points for the references to Back To The Future

While the video was well done - I don't really see what is so "new" about the idea of the SMESH gearbox - seems very similar what was used in a model T transmission - except the model t's was more advanced in that it provided reverse and a high speed as well - Ahhh, but it used bands instead of a disc brake mechanism...

 

[biotect]

..

Hi Biotect, here's a good video explanation of the SMESH gearbox. Bonus points for the references to Back To The Future

While the video was well done - I don't really see what is so "new" about the idea of the SMESH gearbox - seems very similar what was used in a model T transmission - except the model t's was more advanced in that it provided reverse and a high speed as well - Ahhh, but it used bands instead of a disc brake mechanism...

Hi Haf-E,

Good to hear from you!! Haven't heard from you in a long time.....:ylsmoke:

Perhaps you might be willing to help me with something??...

What would you estimate might be the "drivetrain efficiency loss" in a serial-hybrid TerraLiner? When I used Iain's equations, or the on-line power calculator, I just guessed 90 %, and inserted that number into the appropriate field in the calculator -- see http://buggies.builtforfun.co.uk/Calculator/index.html . But I have no idea whether this is even remotely correct. Your guess -- even if it were just a guess -- would be much better than mine. If we need to get concretely empirical, please just suppose the Wrightspeed drivetrain -- see https://www.wrightspeed.com/news/wr...-a-breakthrough-in-electric-drive-technology/ and http://www.wrightspeed.com/technology/ .

Honestly, I just need a single number: 85 %, 95 %, 90 %, or whatever.

I can perfectly appreciate that this is a hard question to answer in the abstract. Even for a given drivetrain, efficiency will vary depending upon speed. But let's not get caught up with the details too early, and let's just be satisfied with a more "abstract" or general model to begin with, i.e. just a single number for drivetrain efficiency. Here is what I wrote in Endless-sphere:

Power Lost to Electric Drive Train Inefficiency


Hi,

I am new to the forum. I have two questions about electric drivetrain efficiency loss:


(1) FIRST SCENARIO:

Imagine a Wrightspeed drivetrain. A 300 KW battery pack sends electricity through wires to an inverter, which powers six 250 HP hub electric motors; but the motors also have “Geared Traction Drives” -- see ‪http://www.wrightspeed.com/technology/. Could we say that the electric motors operate at only .98 % efficiency, the inverters deduct another 2 %, and the hub-gearboxes another 3 %?

In other words, what would the “Battery to Wheel” energy loss be? 5 %? 7 %? 10%?


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Now imagine a much more “theoretical” scenario.


(2) SECOND SCENARIO:

A 300 KW battery pack sends electricity through wires to inverters, which power six 250 HP hub electric motors, which also have hub reduction gearing. But the year is 2020, and everything has been perfected even further: electric motors, inverters, hub-motor gearing, etc. In such an ideal scenario, how much energy would be lost “Battery to Wheel”?


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Engine-to-wheel energy loss in the world of ICE is a common topic, where lots of energy gets absorbed by transmissions. But it's also a controversial topic. There is no “typical” figure for the percentage lost to a transmission and other components in a drivetrain, although some will cite 15 % for cars, and 30 % for trucks. Apparently in racing there is a "15 % inefficiency" rule, but a very detailed, well-written, well-informed, and insightful article suggests that the "15 % rule" is pure rubbish -- see ‪http://www.superstreetonline.com/how-to/engine/modp-1005-drivetrain-power-loss/. Another webpage that is probably not to be trusted pegs the drivetrain loss as just 5.6 % -- see http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/consumer_tips/vehicle_energy_losses.html \. A more empirical article that tested two cars, came up with figures for drivetrain inefficiency that varied from 17 % to almost 40 % -- see ‪http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/transmission-drivetrain/ccrp-0311-drivetrain-power-loss/ . There is a really terrific thread in which some seemingly well-informed posters claim that modern car transmissions can lose as little as 10 %, while others who sound just as informed will say that 30 % is more nearly right -- see ‪http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/36270/Overall-efficiency-of-gasoline-powered-cars . And that's just cars. I wonder where the guesstimate of 30 % lost to transmissions for trucks came from?

In any case, what I am trying to determine is the same for a diesel-electric drivetrain. Between the surge of current provided by the the battery pack, and the final power output via the electric motors "at the wheel", how much energy do you think will be lost, due to various kinds of “inefficiencies”? Or what would be a reasonable rough-ball-park figure to work with? So far, the only thing that a friend has been able to find on the web is a Master's thesis written in 2011 -- see ‪http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05162011-220140/unrestricted/Gantt_LR_T_2011.pdf. So the question is a rather "new" one, if only because electric drivetrains are still rather new.

My motivation is the following. At present I am using a reasonably good web-calculator to try to figure out the different power requirements for a serial-hybrid electric bus-type vehicle driven at different speeds, altitudes, and ascending different kinds of slopes. There is a space where one needs to insert a percentage figure for “mechanical transmission efficiency" -- see ‪http://buggies.builtforfun.co.uk/Calculator/index.html :

Mechanical Transmission Efficiency

Effy ???? %

The calculated power is the ideal mechanical power required at the wheels to drive the vehicle under the conditions you describe. The motor output power will need to be more than this - because some is lost in the mechanical transmission. If you specify a transmission efficiency (in %) a figure for motor output power will also be calculated.

So I would greatly appreciate it if those on this forum who are knowledgeable about “electric drive train efficiency loss”, might suggest a good percentage figure to insert into this part of the web-calculator. Even an informed guess would be better than my guess, which would be utterly arbitrary, because I am not an electrical engineer nor an automotive engineer.

One caveat: I realize that on this forum there exists a long thread whose subtitle might be "To gearbox or not to gearbox?" I got the impression reading that thread that if a hub-motor's gearbox is well-designed, it can be very efficient, and the power loss will be minimal. See ‪https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=47930&start=30 . But I did not understand the half of it. My overall impression is that using a direct drive motor without a gearbox at low speeds more or less abuses the electric motor, if the electric motor is not large enough. So the choice seems to be between a smaller electric motor + gearbox, or a larger electric motor that has enough power and torque at slow speeds such that it won't get abused when used to direct drive a vehicle. Tesla settled for the second alternative, the direct drive approach. I am guessing that Wrightspeed developed its two-speed "Geared Traction Drive" primarily because garbage trucks do so much starting and stopping, and are working primarily at such slow speeds. Apparently a gearbox is also important for some reason when there is a headwind, and when climbing hills. A direct-drive electric motor is not optimal when climbing hills, for reasons that I do not understand.

So for the present purposes let's assume that the six hub motors will have gearboxes, and that direct-dirve is not an option? In the two scenarios described above, what would be the efficiency loss? What percentage for drivetrain inefficiency should I plug into the web-calculator at ‪http://buggies.builtforfun.co.uk/Calculator/index.html, and why?


All best wishes,


Biotect

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Brief addition,

Again, I really know nothing about electric drivetrains, although I am a transportation designer. I am on the "aesthetic" ends of things, and professionally I focus on interiors. So all that I am really looking for, is for someone to make an "informed guess". It can be very rough-ballpark. If most electric motors seem to be somewhere between 95 - 98 % efficient, with the mean something like 96.5 % efficient, that's all I would need to know. And the same with the wiring, the inverter, hub gearing, etc. I just need a reasonably informed guess; a very rough ball-park sort of figure.

Or, actually, two of them: one for the first scenario above, and another for second 2020 scenario.

All best wishes,


Biotect

Predictably enough, I got virtually no answer. Or rather, from amberwolf I got a complicated non-answer, one that simply observed that such things are very hard to estimate in the abstract -- see https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=75596&p=1141300#p1141300 . Note that I edited the above self-quote a bit, to make the question even more clear, as well as to eliminate typos.....:sombrero:

So let me put things this way: I am begging you, Haf-E!!! ...:bowdown::bowdown:..

Please, just a guess. At the very least yours will be an educated guess. Whereas anything that I come up with will be pure nonsense. Please just imagine what might be the "best" possible diesel-electric drivetrain circa 2020, one with 6 hub motors. And then guess the efficiency. And then also imagine what might be a more "conservative" or "cautious" guess, or a guess for today, for right now.

There is also the issue of direct drive versus hub gears. In the Endless-sphere web forum some argue that it's best to just use really big electric motors without gears, electric motors that will have enough starting torque in any case -- see https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=47930&start=30 . Apparently, Tesla has direct-drive, and completely dispenses with any kind of gear-box. What do you think about this?

The TerraLiner will not be a Tesla sports car, and even with the provision of a Pratt & Whitney super-lightweight (just 245 kg), turbine-powered, gas-guzzling 1100 HP APS 5000 to function as the second generator, an APU that will blast the TerraLiner's drivetrain with an additional 450 KW of power (for a total potential electric power of 750 KW), the TerraLiner will still not be sports car -- see https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/apu-unsung-hero-of-the-engine-world-347997/ , and https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/apu-unsung-hero-of-the-engine-world-347997/ ,https://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=36237 :










But if the TerraLiner had such power available from two generators, plus a 300 KW battery pack, it will be able to ascend sustained inclines on 4-lane super-highways like the I-70 from Denver to the Eisenhower pass at phenomenal speeds -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Tunnel , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Colorado , and http://www.crashforensics.com/eisenhowerpass.cfm . The TerraLiner will be able to completely "own" such a sustained incline, driving at the legally permitted 120 kph (yes, even for trucks, i.e. 75 mph -- see http://www.speed-limits.com/colorado.htm ); and even with a 20 or 30 kph headwind:







Perhaps imagining the TerrraLiner as having such potential gas-guzzling power available on tap, when required, is a design mistake. But this APU does exist (it was specifically developed for the Boeing DreamLiner); it is "all electric", meaning that it produces no bleed air, just power; it is super light-weight, and would only add an additional 245 kg to the TerraLiner; it is not very big; and it packs a punch. Furthermore, a sustained speed of 120 kph driving up to the Eisenhower pass would be possible from the highway's point of view, because it is a 4-lane superhighway, therefore slow traffic on the right, and 120 kph on the left.

In short, if direct-drive without hub gearing is a good idea for the TerraLiner too, then please also estimate drivetrain efficiency circa 2020 where hub motors have no gears: "best case scenario", and "cautious scenario", or today's scenario. On the other hand, it would be great to hear your take on direct-drive if you think it's a bad idea for the TerraLiner, and why. If you think the TerraLiner really will need hub-gears, it would be great to hear your reasons.

All best wishes,




Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

Hello Biotech - Been busy with too many other projects lately... haven't been keeping up with your thread much lately. Kinda lost me when you changed the name and started taking about a trailer with a "toad" vehicle... not my interest - I like smaller and simpler, not a "KiraVan" type vehicle, but with sophisticated design that doesn't require a technician to travel with you everywhere.

I think an efficiency for a simple reduction gear box or even two speed system (like the SMESH) would be over 95%. This is assuming that there isn't an additional differential involved. They are very common on industrial motors with them integrated right into the face of the motor using the same bearings that support the armature.

I didn't look at the response on Endless Sphere - but the argument of single speed / big motor versus - smaller motor with gears is one that has been going on for a long time in the EV world. For a highway vehicle or moderate weight, a single speed motor with reduction will work - just look at the leaf/tesla/etc. as evidence of that. But for a vehicle which will operate off road, it is a different matter. I think for the Terraliner, you will either need a two speed gearbox (off-road - slow / on-road - fast) similar to what a transfer case in a regular 4WD vehicle allows - or - since you have multiple axles, one geared high for highway use and the other two geared low for off-road use. Even when driving on-road, the two low speed axles would be able to be used when starting off, then the high speed axle would take over at speed above 50 km/hr probably. On stepper grades, all three could be used again once the speed dropped off. The axle with the higher speed gearing will not help as much off road - but it will still help - especially in terrain like sand where lower gearing is not always that helpful.

The Tesla isn't actually direct drive - it uses a single speed reduction of 9.73:1 - people confuse the terms and refer to single speed reduction as a "direct drive" because it is clutch-less. It also has a normal "open" type differential - limited slip control is achieved by using the brakes on a spinning wheel when it wet/snowy conditions.

So I think you could use 90% efficiency as a value for a typical multispeed tranny. Usually, each gear mesh will have 1%-2% loss in efficiency, so even for just a differential, with three different meshes from the transmission shaft to each of the half shafts, its efficiency will be 94% to 97% alone. In the Tesla, for example, the reduction is done in the differential, so I would guess a 95% efficiency for the whole thing. If you had a two speed tranny and then a differential, I would use 90% as a value.

It is tempting to consider using six motors - one per wheel (with a single speed clutch-less reduction gearing) as it would eliminate the differential losses - a typical "planetary" gear system like a "SMESH" would only require two gear meshes (you don't count each gear as they are in parallel to reduce the torque on each one) and could provide two speeds. But, like I said, it is even possible to just use different gear ratios for one axle versus the others and not have to mess with the two speed system. Individual motors per wheel would work well with independent suspension also - I don't think wheel motors are a good idea for vehicles this size that will be subject to washboard road conditions - with individual motor drives you would have great traction control and lots of redundancy and less current flowing into one device so the wiring is easier and the losses are less.

I am still in favor of three motors / one per solid axle with mechanical diff locks on each differential and perhaps portal axles for clearance with smaller 34 to 36 inch tires... Kinda old school with some new technology. But I also am thinking of a smaller vehicle probably too.

For the vehicle you are discussing, I think portal axles aren't needed as you will use tires more in the 40 inch tall size and independent suspension without portal boxes - probably would get the same amount of clearance in the end.

I hope this helps...