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

[Haf-E]

Hello Biotech,

I've always seen the coaxial pipes with the cooler air intake on the outside with the hot exhaust gas on the inside - but perhaps it is done differently with some manufacturers. The advantage is less insulation / lower surface temperatures, of course.

I don't see any issue with local disposal of the ash from the incinerating toilet - the amount of hazardous materials in it would be extremely low - less than cigarettes I am sure! The idea of storing it was more something to consider in very sensitive locations - such as deserts - but that would also need to apply to other wastes as well such as food scraps and garbage. Recycling items in the developing world isn't usually an option. I've seen expo campers set up with lots of buckets etc on the back to keep items (compost, trash, toilet, etc.) for disposal once they get to a better location.

That WhiperPower generator is very nice - its sounds like it uses a Steyr Monoblock diesel engine which is, in my opinion, one of the best engineered and manufactured engines available. They do not have a head gasket - the block and head are one piece - all of the machining is done from the bottom of the block. They also use an electrically controlled mechanical fuel injection system which allows operation even with the electronics disconnected. Very popular engine in the marine world. Perhaps the design should consider using a pair of these? Only one would operate at a time during "camping" and two would be used only on hills etc when underway. This might improve efficiency and would allow redundancy and less frequent servicing as well. I didn't see anything on the weight or size though. Since they are popular in the marine world, Steyr does have a servicing network for them worldwide.

The electric radiant heater I use a vintage one - it has exposed "filaments" with a large parabolic trough type reflector and fits great between the front seats of my van pointing back - feels cozy even though the air temp is still low - a lot like being in front of a camp fire. With a table in place it can still heat up our legs, torso and feet at the same time - but really only works when there are two people in the van - with more then the front seats are swiveled and the heater doesn't help out in the front. Also takes a lot of care to not have anything too close. I have seen the low temperature radiant panel type heaters and have considered trying one - I did put one under a graphic artist's desk one time at my office without telling her to see if she noticed any difference and she thought she was having "hot flashes" as she suddenly went from always being cold and complaining to wanting to turn down the heater...

Back on the idea of two generators - one idea is to put the second generator in the trailer since that would distribute the weight better and it could allow operation of that generator with it slightly remotely parked from the Terraliner's location via a big cord. That would reduce noise further and I've found that although a marine generator may be quiet, they can produce vibrations that are noticeable and slightly irritating. This would also reduce the weight of main vehicle when it is running solo without the trailer.

 

[back woods]

Change the poo-poo talk for a minute. What is the planned drivetrain? I know there was some talk about hybrid but what is the meat and potatoes of the whole deal? Motor/transmission/tcase etc.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

Seems like you may have missed one of the crazier moments in the thread, when I took up safas' interest in turbines, and found an all-electric APU that was purpose-designed for the Boeing Dreamliner....:sombrero: It pumps out 450 KW, and weighs just 245 kg. Of course the turbine is rated for 1100 HP, and although it advertises itself as the most fuel efficient on the market, no doubt it's a gas-guzzler. But because it's so incredibly light, and because it would only serve a secondary generator that kicks in on long inclines, for better or worse I really am imagining this as the second generator. From a service point of view it will be in much the same position as a Steyr engine: because the Dreamliner is a truly global vehicle, there should be service available at every airport that handles big jets.

Yes, I know it's a bit nuts.

On the other hand, is it, really? Any secondary generator will not see that much use. It will be on board to serve just two purposes: (1) To function as a fail-safe backup, a second generator that can power the TerraLiner for the next 1000 or 1500 km until it reaches an appropriate service location, and (2) To provide extra power when climbing very long, steep inclines. But otherwise, it will be just dead weight. So it seems best if that dead weight were as minimal as possible, and that's what a turbine can provide. A very high weight-to-HP ratio. And if the second generator will serve primarily as a "power booster", then why not make it really a power booster? When climbing steep 4-lane highways like the I-70 from Denver up to the Eisenhower pass, the TerraLiner will be in a "very low mpg" scenario in any case. So why not throw out caution, and give the TerraLiner some real potential horsepower? Especially because this APU weighs just 245 kg?

Also remember, the TerrraLiner will probably have more HP in the electric motors than it will be able to deliver in KW, even from the generators + battery pack all combined. Because the electric motors will also serve as brakes. As near as I can tell, on serial-hybrid transit buses the power rating of their electric motors is usually about double in KW what their generators + battery packs can deliver. And that seems to be because the electric motors also serve as brakes. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.... .. So I figure that given that at least 1300 HP will be available in the electric motors, and perhaps 1500 HP if Tesla comes out with a 500 HP motor before 2020; and possibly more like 2500 HP in total if the TOAD trailer also has electric motors; then why not throw in a little 245 kg turbine generator? One that could deliver a 450 KW wallop?

Note that safas thought that just 1300 HP in braking power for the electric motors was not that much for a 32 ton rig (TerraLiner + trailer) -- see post #2353 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2010459#post2010459 . I am inclined to agree with him; what's your view? What kind of braking power do you think the TerraLiner would need when descending long inclines? Imagine a 3 % grade for 150 km, which basically describes the descent from Tibet down to Nepal.

I've written to Pratt & Whitney for the fuel consumption (the unit is called the APS 5000), but am still waiting to hear back. But again it has to be emphasized that this isn't just a turbine. This is a complete generator. It's all-eletctric (it has no bleed air), so all the power of the turbine goes into the generator. Sure, it would be expensive. But the TerraLiner is a bit of a "dream machine", and if a gas-guzzling turbine makes sense as a secondary generator from every other point of view (weight especially), then why not?

However, I also do like your idea of two Whisperpower 200 KW units, as a "more reasonable backup plan". You may have to search on-line a bit to find the PDF with the weight figure. I posted JPGs of the PDF in #2128, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1974111#post1974111, section 48. But I took these from an old PDF of a Whisperpower catalog stored on my computer. It may no longer be available on-line.

Recall that the Jenoptik weighs 350 kg and produces 120 KW, for an energy density of 2.92 kg per KW. Whereas the Whisper Power MGV-200 weighs 480 kg and produces 200 KW, for an energy density of just 2.4 kg per KW. This represents an energy-density improvement of roughly 20 % over the Jenoptik.

So in the "insanely great" scenario where the TerraLiner has power in spades, what I am looking for is a similar marine generator, but 300 KW. Based on my power calculations so far, that should suffice for most "normal" driving, including driving through reasonably hilly country, where the battery pack would provide peak power. It would also enable the TerraLiner to do 120 kph on a flat road even with a 20 or 30 kph headwind, without drawing down the battery pack. Recall that in many American states and foreign countries, trucks are allowed to do 120 kph on rural super-highways. Whereas a 200 KW generator does not quite deliver the necessary power. I really like the idea of a Steyr ICE of the kind that you describe, serving as the core of such a generator, for exactly the reason you gave: worldwide service, thanks to the yachting crowd. I don't know if you saw my earlier posts on the topic, "There are no truly global vehicles", posts #2221 to #2224, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...A-Crossover-w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1990958 and following. But once one begins looking at maps, it becomes abundantly clear that even Mercedes does not have much presence in China and India. So it seems eminently possible that an engine that's popular for use in marine-generators, will actually prove more global, more serviceable worldwide, than any of the engines one might find in an Actros, MAN TGS, or even a Unimog. But I need the generator to be 300 KW, not 200 KW. So if you come across anything in that range, also with a Steyr engine, please post.

Whisperpower has come out with a new 150 KW model, but there's not much information available yet on-line. If two such super-recent generators weighed no more than a 300 KW generator that has the same energy-density as the 200 KW would have, then that would be the way to go. In other words, I am looking for either one 300 KW generator that weighs 720 kg, or two 150 KW generators that weigh 360 kg each. Notice how 720 kg + 245 kg = 965 kg, the weight of this hypothetical primary 300 KW generator + the turbine APU. And two 200 KW Whisperpower generators would also weigh 960 kg. But in the first scenario the TerraLiner would have 750 KW of electrical power potentially on-tap from the generators, whereas in the second, 400 KW.

From a fuel-consumption point of view, it would also probably make more sense to have just one 300 KW generator, instead of two 150 KW generators. As near as I can tell, two 150 KW generators will inevitably use significantly more fuel to produce 300 KW, than a single generator will. But here too, please correct me if I am wrong.

Finally, many thanks for the feedback regarding ash. And interesting that you confirmed what I had suspected: that when traveling in the Second and Third-World contexts, it may often prove very difficult to dispose of sewage or compost in a responsible way. Ergo, the argument for incineration.

All best wishes,



Biotect


PS -- backwoods:


The above message should give you some idea of the drivetrain. A serial hybrid; three Tesla electric motors that combined would deliver 1300 HP; additional electric motors on the trailer, still to be discussed; two generators of some combination, the second generator functioning primarily as a fail-safe backup and power-boost; a battery pack that's at least 100 KW, and possibly as large as 300 KW, but 300 KW primarily to make "mostly silent" camping possible, and to keep the farmer happy. In 2020, a 400 KW battery pack might weigh as little as 1300 kg or less -- see post #2376 where safas raises this as a possibility, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2011632#post2011632 . By 2018, batteries with a density of 295 Wh/kg may be on the market.

In response, in post #2379 I then wrote:

Perhaps from a design point of view this means we should plan for a 400 KW battery pack, circa 2020. The charge rate is a concern, because as you know, we have to keep the farmer happy. But 300 Wh/kg means that a 400 KW battery pack would weigh just 1,333 kg. It would weigh 170 kg less than the 300 KW Tesla battery pack that we discussed earlier, and yet would provide 25 % more electricity. Just as long as C could be brought as close as possible to 1 when charging. Even if such a battery pack were available only in 2022, and not 2020, it might be a good idea to design with it in mind, "in anticipation". A 300 KW Tesla battery pack that discharges and charges at 1 C, and that gets 200 Wh/kg seems a virtual inevitability by 2020. So maybe the best way forward would be to design with that as guaranteed, but with enough space to accommodate 400 KW Sion batteries by 2022.

Of course, even if C when charging were 1, it will take longer for a 300 KW generator to recharge 400 KW. But if recharging C were 1, the recharge time could still be kept to under two hours, even after we factor in all the inefficiencies. The number of days of absolute silence between 2-hour recharging periods will be important. If the time between generator runs could be 4 days when solar is poor, instead of 3 days, all the better. It's all about keeping the farmer -- and any other potential neighbors -- very happy, even though the TerraLiner will be a high-energy-usage vehicle when camping in hot climates, because of A/C.

See http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2012293#post2012293 .

For more detailed discussion, in which Haf-E and I worked out a number of the drive-train issues in considerable detail, please see all of page 235, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...s-A-Crossover-w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain/page234 . Towards the end of that exchange Haf-E also suggests a possible commercially available suspension that would prove appropriate.


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By the way: any chance you'd be able to recommend two or three really good books about training dogs, German Shepherds in particular? Very "advanced" sort of training, of the sort that produces a police dog similar to the one my family had, named Sergeant?







See post #2398 for further clarification, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2013836#post2013836 .

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[Haf-E]

Change the poo-poo talk for a minute. What is the planned drivetrain? I know there was some talk about hybrid but what is the meat and potatoes of the whole deal? Motor/transmission/tcase etc.

Current design is three electric motors - one motor per axle - with a independent suspension axle unit providing both the gear reduction and differential in one unit.

Basically imagine a telsa type electric motor mounted in line up in the frame with a very short driveshaft to one of these axles (x3):

These are available with a overall gear ratio as high as 28:1 by the use of planetary hub gearing at the wheels. Brakes can be inboard or outboard. Wheels will be 49 inch tall michelin military type tires.

Two of the axles would be geared for lower speed operation - one would be geared for higher speed operation (since, when on the highway, only one motor would be needed to power the vehicle - even at 75 mph / 120 km/h). When off road, the other two motors would be able to delivery more torque to the wheels, along with the third motor which would not be able to deliver as much torque due to its gear ratio.

Power for the motors would come from a high voltage battery bank and a Generator unit - so hybrid operation is possible.

 

[back woods]

Thanks for clearing it up. Do those types of electric motors hold up to a lot of service 6,000hr+ without overhauls? Also is there a disconnect between the low RPM axles while in "highway" mode, something like a lockout hub or clutch? How will the motors be cooled when working hard, water cooled? Seems like a lot of heat could be generated. One more question. What are their service points like, sealed bearings, non-serviceable, serviceable? Interesting and plausible setup.

 

[Haf-E]

The lower speed drive motors would free-wheel when not being used - it does increase the drag but I don't think its worth disconnecting them. They have a upper speed limit in the 10,000 to 12,000 rpm range. The current Tesla's electric motor uses a 9:1 ratio gearing (all in the diff) and has a top speed of 130mph - their motor is able to put out 400 HP for extended periods of time. The motors are water cooled - or in some cases - oil cooled with a oil to water heat exchanger just outside of the motor.

Remy (as in Delco-Remy) has a very nice motor that is being used a lot in electric vehicle racing: https://www.remyinc.com/HVH.aspx

There usually is only a pair of bearings involved - and they are reasonably easy to service - similar to any electric motor. Life expectancy should be good - no brushes - but there would be redundancy as well in the design. There are also companies offering them in dual motor sets with a common shaft:

http://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=300

Motor Diameter: 10.5 Inches
Motor Case Length: 11.25 Inches
Motor Shaft Length End to End: 18.5 Inches
Motor Type: Brushless Permanent Magnet
Brushes: No
Weight: 180 lbs.
Max Voltage Input: 360 Volts
Integrated Sensors: Encoder, temperature
Rated Torque: 560 Lb Ft Peak (w/150kW controller)
Rated Power: 420 HP Peak (w/150kW controller)
Max RPM: 10,000
Drive End Shaft: 32 spline 35.5 mm
Thermal Cooling: Internal oil pump with water heat exchange
Warranty Period:1 Year

 

[back woods]

Making more sense now. These motors will be mounted in a completely isolated and waterproof location? Reason I ask is water crossing and snow drifts/ice out in the bush. Would the amount of motors warrent a "house" to hold the radiators/coolers/fans separate from everything? Say in the rear portion of the rig. Aiming for something that will beat out the ole mechanical diesel?

 

[Haf-E]

Making more sense now. These motors will be mounted in a completely isolated and waterproof location? Reason I ask is water crossing and snow drifts/ice out in the bush. Would the amount of motors warrent a "house" to hold the radiators/coolers/fans separate from everything? Say in the rear portion of the rig. Aiming for something that will beat out the ole mechanical diesel?

Yes - that is the challenge on a expo type vehicle... hard to improve on a one wire mechanical diesel for environmental tolerance...

The motors could be tucked in nicely up into the chassis - along with the differentials and even inboard brakes - but making all of that water tight is another matter. Since many of these motors are actually oil filled it isn't too much of a concern for them getting wet - just need appropriate seals on the bearings as with any transmission of engine.

The controllers for these motors are also water cooled - they use the same coolant flow as the motors - and the radiator could be mounted anywhere - even on the roof as was discussed previously. The real issue is the electrical connections - but they have come a long way on making those very water resistant as well. It is still scary thinking about driving a vehicle with a several hundred volts of battery banks and wiring through deep water - yikes! I would sure prefer 48 vdc or less - but its just not an option for these power levels.

I would say a separate water proof housing for each motor would be a good idea - perhaps with a submersible bilge type pump in it - along with a similar enclosure for the batteries (or multiple enclosures) - all mounted up inside of the frame rails. Since the tires are going to be around 50 inches tall the top of the boxes would be about 30 inches high (allowing for the suspension to compress) so that would be the limits for stream crossings. Not quite up to the expectations of Australians...

 

[safas]

An inspiration link:
http://www.designrulz.com/product-d...-with-2-detachable-parts-car-and-mobile-home/
Also, efficiency of cells in a particular 2012 solar race car is 29%.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/q-what-car-solarworld-gt-cd-0-14-a-20385-2.html#post289145

 

[Haf-E]

Quick note: Solar cell efficiency and solar panel efficiency are not the same thing - the efficiency of a solar panel is always lower due to spacing between cells, cell interconnect shading and losses, mismatch losses, glass/encapsulate losses and the solar modules frame's space requirement. Cell efficiency also is often done in a lab under ideal conditions, while panel efficiency is usually at real world conditions.

That said, 29% cell efficiency is very impressive and would probably translate into a 22 to 24% panel efficiency (IIRC). I think the highest efficiency commercially available panels are still made by SunPower with a real world rating of 21.5%.

 

[biotect]

..

Yes - that is the challenge on a expo type vehicle... hard to improve on a one wire mechanical diesel for environmental tolerance...

The motors could be tucked in nicely up into the chassis - along with the differentials and even inboard brakes - but making all of that water tight is another matter. Since many of these motors are actually oil filled it isn't too much of a concern for them getting wet - just need appropriate seals on the bearings as with any transmission of engine.

The controllers for these motors are also water cooled - they use the same coolant flow as the motors - and the radiator could be mounted anywhere - even on the roof as was discussed previously. The real issue is the electrical connections - but they have come a long way on making those very water resistant as well. It is still scary thinking about driving a vehicle with a several hundred volts of battery banks and wiring through deep water - yikes! I would sure prefer 48 vdc or less - but its just not an option for these power levels.

I would say a separate water proof housing for each motor would be a good idea - perhaps with a submersible bilge type pump in it - along with a similar enclosure for the batteries (or multiple enclosures) - all mounted up inside of the frame rails. Since the tires are going to be around 50 inches tall the top of the boxes would be about 30 inches high (allowing for the suspension to compress) so that would be the limits for stream crossings. Not quite up to the expectations of Australians...

Hi Haf-E,

When it comes to "environmental hardiness", I wonder how Le Tourneau does it? For years they've produced diesel-electric vehicles like heavy mining loaders and log-stackers -- see posts #2019 to #2022, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1967200#post1967200 to http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1967218#post1967218 . And so too Le Tourneau created huge off-road road-trains that could survive arctic conditions. John Deere has also recently come out with a new line of medium-sized, hybrid 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.

Much earlier in the thread some suggested that submerging in-wheel electric hub motors in muck and water was simply not a problem. Were they basically wrong about this?

Just recently I had another look at Stephen Stewart's long-standing comprehensive summary of all the design trade-offs in expedition-type motorhomes -- see http://www.silkroute.org.uk/equipment/choosevan.htm . Seems that over the years Stewart has been modifying and adding to that webpage, as his experience as an overlander deepens. So the page is now much longer that it was even two years ago. Here's what he says about the old-versus-new debate:

Old or New?

Overland campervans are often considerably older than you would expect. In South America many of the campervans you see are over 20 years old. The decision to drive an "old" vehicle is not just determined by economics. Some people specifically select a base vehicle that is over 15 years old, even if they then build a new body on it.

The reason for this is electronics. Old vehicles (my 1980 Unimog for example) have no "mission critical" electronics. The result of this is that the engine is not very efficient, it produces considerably more pollution than an equivalent new one would and at high altitude it smokes a lot. But it also means it is repairable by most garages and its performance will probably degrade slowly and "gracefully".

In contrast a more modern engines may simply refuse to work if the ECU (the heart of the electronics) believes that some parameter is out of range. The parameter may really be out of specification (the engine may never have been designed to work above 5000 metres) or it may be that a sensor has gone wrong (or even fallen off). In an ideal world the ECU would tell the driver what was wrong in plain language and offer the driver a choice of what to do (for example, stop, work at only 80% capacity, or ignore the problem.) Of course the ECU itself might fail. Again, in an ideal world, the engine would still work, perhaps in some reduced power mode. We do not live in an ideal world.

If your newish (but not too new) popular German vehicle goes wrong in Germany there is a good chance that in the next big town there will be an agent with an expensive set of hardware, software and wetware (operator training) who will be able to plug a cable into your vehicle and tell you what is wrong.

If on the other hand you are in Ushuaia and your relatively uncommon Italian Scam stops with a strange warning light you did not know you had, things may be more difficult! I have heard of people unable to get their vehicles fixed in South America, not because they can not get the parts shipped over, but because they can not get their ECU to tell them what is wrong! Some people have had to ship their vehicles back to Europe for adiagnosis.

The counter argument I have heard is that modern engines and their ECUs are now so reliable that it is no longer desirable to use a pre-electronics vehicle. (However I have recently seen a relatively modern vehicle from a good manufacturer that had the battery mounted directly above the ECU. When the vibration from corrugated roads caused the plastic overflow pipe on the battery to fall off, the battery dripped acid into the ECU!).

I am not sure what you can do to reduce the risks of having mission-critical electronics. Presumably some manufactures are better and/or more widespread than others (Bosch?). Perhaps you can carry your own diagnostic system running on your own laptop? It may be possible to get a copy of the software relevant to your vehicle even if you can not run it. It may be possible to find out if there are any unacceptable limits built into the firmware of your vehicle (e.g. it will stop above 5000 metres and below -15°C). It may be possible to have your vehicle re-programmed to remove these restrictions. It might be worth carrying some replacement sensors.

Many of the concerns that apply to engine management electronics also apply to immobilises.

Gunter Holtof argues that much the same problem applies to smaller vehicles. He thinks his global journeys in a a G-wagen built in 1988 would simply be impossible today -- see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8703/index.html :

He carried about 400 spare parts in aluminium boxes on the roof of the car, including some in multiple examples. But thanks to a policy of preventive maintenance, which he had followed in the aviation business and applied to Otto, breakdowns were rare – and there was never one that Holtorf was unable to fix himself.

In a modern car, he insists, this would not have been the case, for one reason – computers. Otto was built in 1988, a couple of years before cars started going electronic.

“Otto is nothing but nuts and bolts that means I can unscrew the nuts and pull out bolts to repair anything that comes up myself,” he said in 2013. “In any modern car you cannot touch the brakes because it’s all electronically controlled.”

It would be simply impossible, he insists, to repeat Otto’s journey in a new car.

It was this basic practical concern which, if you recall, motivated egn very early on in the thread to suggest that a hybrid drive-train with serious redundancy was probably the only way forward for a new expedition vehicle.

However, although I thought egn's observation was a great practical excuse to be innovative, my agenda has always been much broader, and design-world motivated. I have never been designing for most ExPo participants, and I have only partially been designing for my target market, retired wealthy couples who are adventurous, and who want to travel the world in a Class A motorhome + TOAD. I have also been designing, in part, with my transportation design colleagues in mind; with a view to what might prove inspiring for them, and for the transportation design profession as a whole.



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1. Designing for transportation designers in 2020, not ExPo participants yearning for 1980


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Think of it this way. As a designer living in 2020, and not 1980, what is one supposed to make of passages like the ones quoted above from Stephen Stewart and Gunter Holtorf? Should one conclude that it's better to not try to design a contemporary, innovative expedition motorhome at all? Simply avoid the world of expedition motorhomes altogether, reasoning that it's a bizarre niche-market that has unique requirements, such that design for those requirements is not much fun? Or simply assume that the only part of the vehicle that can be new, is the camper box? That everything mechanical and structural should be completely non-innovative, and at least two or three generations old? That the "base vehicle" should be a 40-year-old MAN KAT or TGS?

For a contemporary designer living in 2020, and not 1980, such an exercise in merely cannibalizing the reliable mechanics of a vehicle older than oneself, very quickly becomes thoroughly uninteresting. It may be very interesting for many ExPo participants, who are happy to muck about with the innards of vehicles that are 30, 40 or even 50 years old. But for a contemporary designer, that mucking about is not automotive design, but rather, it's vintage vehicle restoration/repurposing. Contemporary automotive design is not the same thing as vintage vehicle restoration/repurposing. Many on ExPo write as if the two things are identical, or as if vintage vehicle repurposing should be considered a form of contemporary transportation design. But just frame the distinction very clearly as I have done in this paragraph, and it becomes immediately obvious that they cannot possibly be considered the same thing.

In other words, the driving animus of this thread is not merely the practical concerns of today's overlanders, many of whom are now in their 60's and 70's. The driving concern is also creating a globally capable motorhome that will "speak" to a new generation of transportation designers, who are still in their 20s.


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CONTINUED IN NEXT POST...
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[biotect]

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2. Some impolitic thoughts about Art and the Art World, thoughts never shared at Art School


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Here an extended analogy may prove illuminative. If you have an interest in Art History, it might be of value to you. If not, just skip ahead to page 151, post #1510, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2022415#post2022415 . I am not just a designer, but also a some-time painter, and I've taught both the practical and the more theoretical aspects of drawing and painting. Hence, I've spent considerable time reflecting on the tension between old and new in the Art World, and for a while now have wanted to post a bit about this topic in a forum that's "sort of public", but sort of not.

The central analogy is this: just repurposing a vintage vehicle, versus designing a TerraLiner that is innovative on almost all fronts, is a bit like the difference between (a) working as an artist today, in 2016, who produces classical figurative portraits and landscapes that look like they could have been painted in the 19th century, versus (b) working as an artist today who still tries to be original, even in this supposedly "postmodern" era when everything has already been tried or done by someone (or so the claim goes....) -- see https://www.artrenewal.org , https://www.artrenewal.org/pages/livingartists.php , http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rnism-avant-garde-lady-gaga-lou-reed-x-factor , http://www.amazon.com/Originality-Avant-Garde-Other-Modernist-Myths/dp/0262610469/ref=pd_sim_14_3 , http://www.amazon.com/The-End-American-Avant-Garde/dp/0814735398 , and http://www.amazon.com/After-End-Art-Contemporary-Princeton/dp/0691163898/ref=sr_1_3 .

What follows below is a synthesis of various things written over the years and exchanged via emails with friends. Some paragraphs are new, but most paragraphs are 2, 3, or even 4 years old, and were lifted directly from old emails. Some of the material also appeared in more academic essays written at Art School, but not most of it, and for good reason.

Fine Arts departments at Art Schools tend to be very fascistic places, filled with lots of Art-educators who have very strong views about politics, and who have very strong views about the kinds of Art that should be "allowed", versus the kinds of Art that should be banned. Yes, this sounds kinda nuts and ultra-authoritarian. Indeed, if such artists tried to get laws passed that reflect their aesthetic beliefs, they'd soon find that any such laws would be considered profoundly unconstitutional in liberal societies. As one Art instructor who originally came from Czechoslovakia once complained to me, teaching at an Art School in the West feels like living in an East Bloc country, where one is surrounded by people who are very keen to impose thought control. The wider public no doubt imagines the opposite, that a Fine Arts departments would be very liberal, "anything goes" sort of place. Nothing could be further from the truth: a fascistic, super-judgemental, holier-than-thou tone tends to be the dominant mood.

It's rather remarkable just how many Art teachers do think like this. Their behavior as teachers then naturally follows from their fascistic thought patterns. For instance, they are very strongly inclined to evaluate student work not just in terms of intrinsic merit, quality of execution, clarity of concept, etc., but so too in terms of its political correctness.

One needs to realize that most instructors at Art Schools are practicing artists, so most of their post-secondary education was focused on the acquisition of visual skills. Typically they do not have Liberal Arts degrees, and so they are not able to deal with political ideas and philosophical concepts in a freer, more open, tolerant, and sophisticated way. However, because they are artists, they also fancy themselves intellectuals, and hence arrogate to themselves a level of intellectual competence that they simply do not possess. Whatever intellectual skills they do posses are decidedly lightweight, and the vehemence with which they try to ram their ideas and their politics down students' throats, is generally inversely proportionate to the actual depth of their academic background.

It's also worth bearing in mind that when they were young, most of them made career-determining choices regarding the kind of Art they wanted to produce. Although their choices were highly personal, they do not tend to see them that way, and they are highly prone to aggressively universalizing from their own rather limited and particular experiences. They tend to think that everyone else should produce exactly the same kind of Art as themselves. This is especially true of those who create video, installation, or "new media" Art: they think painters are hopelessly reactionary, simply because they paint. Within painting, of course, those committed to Abstraction and who teach courses in the same think that the figurative painters are completely out to lunch, and that Life-Drawing and Life-Painting classes that require nude models should be banned. As one might expect, a certain kind of puritanical feminist strongly dislikes the very existence of such courses, even though more than half of the models are typically male and not female.

In other words, the overall "tone" in Fine Arts departments at Art Schools is incredibly intolerant, and rather politically simple-minded or even downright stupid. Again, the instructors are typically practicing artists who are teaching just to make ends meet. They've read a bit of postmodern pseudo-philosophy or feminist theory, and are then quite wiling to ram the bits and pieces of agitprop they picked up down students' throats. They have very little of that cultivated, studied, nuanced distance with respect to ideas that one comes to expect amongst intelligent professors teaching Liberal Arts subjects at good Universities. At Art school one quickly learns to be very cautious about what one says, and the aesthetic, art-historical, and political views one expresses, because one's teachers can and will give one good or bad grades on that basis alone. They really are that immature, intellectually infantile, and thoroughly incompetent, especially those who are responsible for evaluating senior thesis projects, projects that also require the production of an essay defending one's work. Whereas the figurative artists who teach more skills-based courses in drawing and painting tend to be the exact opposite: they tend to be very professional, fair and non-arbitrary in their approach to students, and tentative about their beliefs. Some of the finest, most truly helpful teachers I've ever had were figurative instructors in the Fine Arts department of the Art School that I attended.

In short, although I began developing the views which follow below at Art School, I very rarely expressed them openly there. It would have been extremely imprudent to do so, because the more fascistic Art instructors would have singled me out for attack. I got straight A's in Art School, but when attending I was already a bit older, with a few university degrees under my belt. I was in my mid-20's, so I could see the writing on the wall early on. Within just a few weeks it was clear that I would have to be very cautious about the courses I took and with whom, and that as a general policy it would be wise to keep my views to myself. However, as will become clear below, at the same time I could not be completely forthright with the more conservative instructors who taught classical figurative drawing and painting. Because on my own view, artistic practice today requires more than mere mastery of representational skill.



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3. Old & New in the Art World: the value of tradition


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First off, there is no question that contemporary super-retro exercises in figurative painting have some merit. Here I am thinking of contemporary painting that demonstrates all the skill of 19th century masters like Joaquin Sorolla, John Singer Sargent, or Bougereau -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent , http://jssgallery.org/Major_Paintings/Major.htm , http://artsfuse.org/76003/fuse-visu...ge-to-john-singer-sargents-fumee-dambre-gris/ ,https://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=187 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquín_Sorolla , http://www.sorollapaintings.com/sorolla_paintings_list.htm , http://www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida.org/the-complete-works-1-150-3-2.html , http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=1393 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau , http://allart.biz/photos/view/Bouguereau.html , and http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=7 :



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[video=youtube;hpchE6ZrvNI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpchE6ZrvNI [/video]


The first four still images are Sorolla; followed by Sargent; andhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7UnAyszhQ , the very last image is Bougereau. In the third video, skip ahead 6 minutes, 30 seconds to get to the interesting part; and in the fourth video, skip ahead 3 minutes, 40 seconds. For more about Sorolla, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3hD5-Y1-fA , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpSmMGWUU7k , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bie5W_ywUsc ,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XjV0aYEwF8 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyDdeyUUoM , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6exUd90nrSE , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyDdeyUUoM , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t74ERN-LuVs , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8f7CeqqFt0 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YlaQJpaXOM , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnujNgo_E4 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcTv31Aqy5E , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsEGvIYfHNI ; for more about Sargent, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcPANMzI7qk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x33qw-VyoOg , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7UnAyszhQ , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsEGvIYfHNI , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcTv31Aqy5E , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FogxsESMPGc , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-LGy9-P1VE ; and for more about Bougereau, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmoayz4wDg , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6eOxIHNGXI , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsVjAXWI0L8 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXQUmZKJ0H8 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPaxPBEQjRw , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzUXhsNkPdY , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqmlPeB47MA .

I am a great fan of these artists, and related 19th century movements like the Pre-Raphaelites in England, and the Macchiaioli in Tuscany; I've taught figurative drawing and painting; and I think that free-hand and observational drawing and painting skills are absolutely foundational for any truly worthwhile contemporary art practice -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macchiaioli .


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3. Traditional Freehand Drawing & Painting from Life: the Alpha & Omega of the Design Professions


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Furthermore, in the world of design as opposed to art, traditional drawing & painting skills are the Alpha & Omega. If you can't draw and express your ideas visually, then you can't design. Lots of American high-school Art teachers who were trained at Universities instead of Art Schools will try to instill in their students the silly idea that the only thing that matters is personal "expression" or "creativity". Their students will then waste their high-school years producing lots of splatter-paintings that look like Jackson Pollock rip-offs. They will throw these into a portfolio, and will then be surprised when all of the best Art Schools in the United States will reject their applications -- schools like RISD in Rhode Island, SVA in New York, Ringling for animation in Florida, and Art Center for transportation design in California.

All of the admissions committees at these schools are looking for something that seems to have become increasingly rare in American secondary-school Art education, namely, basic foundational training in drawing and painting from Life. The admissions people at these schools have told me, time and again, that they are looking for raw visual skill, as manifested in observational drawing and painting . When it comes to application portfolios, they strongly dislike seeing paintings that are mere copied photographs; they are not sympathetic to students who imagine themselves Jackson Pollock reincarnated; and in Animation, they hate seeing drawings that simply duplicate the visual primitivism of Japanese Anime or Manga cartoons. It's apparently quite astonishing just how many American high-school students submit portfolios to Art Schools filled with this kind of nonsense, and who are then surprised when they are rejected.

Consider: Ringling College of Design (see www.ringling.edu) is probably the top school in the United States for Computer-Graphic (CG) animation. Ringling is a technology-intensive school, a school that has a higher computer-to-student ratio than any other post-secondary institution in the United States, apart from Cal-Tech. But the animators at Ringling are no slaves to technology, and they strongly believe that the foundation of all good Animation, no matter how computer-assisted, is traditional visual skill. As such, they want to see lots of traditional figurative drawing and painting in student portfolios. Which is often a challenge for high-school students, because few American high-schools provide Life-drawing or Life-painting classes. By way of contrast, Italy's system of "Liceii Artistici" never lost sight of this basic formative requirement, despite the upheavals of the last 60 or 70 years -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liceo_artistico and https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liceo_artistico.

So my position on this issue of "old/new" in Art & Design is complex, because personally speaking, I do have traditional drawing and painting skills; I have taught the same to students; and I have a love-hate relationship with CAD. Like contemporary artists who practice traditional figurative representation, I think that the "deskilling" of the Art World in the 20th century was simply nuts -- see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/a...my-of-art-recovers-from-a-bad-reputation.html .

The problem here is best understood comparatively, via contrast with Music and Dance. Even though classical music became just as experimental and avant-garde as the visual Arts in the 20th century -- for instance atonal music, the 12-tone scale, and John Cage's "Dada-esque" stunts -- nobody thought that being experimental in music and having a foundation in traditional musical skills were antithetical. To this very day, conservatories of music continue to emphasize traditional training in voice, instruments, reading and understanding music, music history, music theory, and composition. In Music the formal experiments of the 20th century were simply “added on to” the overall pre-existing vocabulary of Western Music. At the very least, if musicians had not voluntarily explored a-tonality and dissonance in Music, Hollywood would have commissioned them to do so, because Hollywood needed soundtracks for the scary bits in horror films. The attitude of contemporary composers is now decidedly “both/and”: their symphonies will borrow from Debussy and Mozart in one passage, and from Wagner and Schoenberg in the next. One minute they will be asking violinists to play their instruments in a very traditional way, and then the next minute, we will hear clicks, pops ,and screeches, as violinists are asked to do strange things to their instruments….. So why could the Visual Arts not develop an equally broad-minded, “both/and” approach?

Furthermore, even though many “Pop” or “Rock” musicians have become famous and wealthy, music conservatories and teachers have not then concluded that traditional training is pointless, useless, a waste of time. The fabulous financial success of aurally "primitive" Pop musicians -- many of whom possess only the most rudimentary training -- did not have a corrosive, acidic effect on traditional music education, and in the 20th century music educators did not try to destroy the traditional conservatory system that would produce the next generation of classical musicians and composers.

Whereas this is precisely what two or three generations of Art "educators" tried to do in the the visual Arts, clear across the western world throughout the 20th century, but especially in the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by the "visual primitivism" of 20th century iconoclasts such as Picasso and the Fauves, and the extraordinary financial success of so many visually untrained "conceptual" and "expressionistic" artists, many Art educators concluded that traditional drawing and painting skills no longer mattered.

It always struck me as foolish that so many Artists and Art-educators tend to see the Art World as a “Zero Sum” game: either the Modernists win, or the Academic Classicists win, but both can't win. This then makes me wonder: Is visual primitivism somehow less noticeable and less obviously ugly than musical primitivism? Are musicians simply more intelligent than visual artists? Are musicians less taken in by the fancy words of "conceptual" types, less easily mesmerized by novelty-for-its-own-sake, more immune to marketing hype? Are collectors of visual Art less discriminating than Music or Dance connoisseurs?

Perhaps larger institutional or cultural forces have also militated against Classical Art education. For instance, at Universities words are the dominant medium of exchange. So once Universities started teaching Art, and once most high school Art teachers were products of Universities instead of Art Schools, a kind of “verbal rot” was bound to set in. In effect, the visually illiterate were soon teaching the visually illiterate, in University contexts where only words really matter in any case. Certainly no-one outside University Fine Arts Departments values or understands pre-verbal or non-verbal, purely visual intelligence. And soon no-one inside University Fine Arts Departments understood it anymore, either. So the “verbalization” of the visual Arts may in fact be the consequence of this institutional development. University Art Departments are notorious for their meager quantities of concrete student output, at least in comparison to Art Schools, because Universities over-emphasize thinking at the expense of doing. Furthermore, University Art Departments are notorious for producing cookie-cutter “conceptual” artists, artists whose work is so visually anemic that it needs a long accompanying text just to explain it, let alone justify it.

The comparison between visual Art and Music becomes all the more worrying once one realizes that Western “Art Music” or “Classical Music” is a relatively recent phenomenon. Complex, scored, multi-instrumental music only really gets going in the 1700s, and the Opera and the Symphony reach their apogee in the 1800s -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera . Even more tellingly, "classical Ballet" is really a 19th century Art-form. Ballet begins in the 1500s in Italy, but it only began to evolve into its recognizably modern form in 17th century in France, at the court of Louis XIV, many centuries after the Renaissance that produced painters like Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian in Italy. Furthermore, when one speaks of “classical Ballet,” one is usually talking about pieces first performed – and a training regime that was first established – only in the 19th century. And yet in the world of Dance, just as in the world of Music, sound traditional training never went out of fashion, and continues to be widely respected. Sure, in the 20th century choreographers developed “Modern Dance”, and became wildly experimental. But even the most avant-garde choreographer usually prefers dancers who have sound traditional training, preferably through Ballet.

By way of contrast, traditional figurative training in the visual Arts is quite literally thousands of years old, and goes back to the Greeks. So, if anything, one might expect an ancient pattern of traditional visual education to be more immune to 20th century avant-gardism, not less. There is a comparative mystery here, one that demands a historically, sociologically, and philosophically nuanced explanation. Because clearly, given that Music and Dance training were not similarly gutted in the 20th century, perhaps the visual Arts also need not have experienced so much evisceration of traditional teaching methods?

As it turns out, the thing that saved visual Art from its very odd program of self-destruction, was design. "Conceptual" art that had no visual value and that looked like crap, may have sold for a while in galleries in the 1970s. But in the more commercially-minded world of design, if you can't draw, you can't work. Over 90 % of the students attending so-called "Art schools" today are actually studying one of the design professions: industrial, graphic, fashion, or interior design, web design, animation, etc. And in all of these professions freehand drawing remains the Alpha and Omega of basic design competence. So many traditionally trained figurative artists and painters migrated to design and illustration departments, where their skills were appreciated, and where traditional Life-drawing and Life-painting techniques were preserved.

Most universities, unfortunately, do not have Design departments or majors, and usually they only offer classes in Fine Arts subjects like Painting, Drawing, Print-Making, Sculpture, and perhaps Ceramics. Because Designers are not in the building to keep the Art-educators honest, in every one of these sub-disciplines what's usually offered in University Fine Arts departments is as far removed from Classical training as possible. Sculpture classes will invariably address “Installation” or “Performance Art”, painting classes will be devoted to “New Media”, and drawing classes will address “Collage”. And for better or worse, it's the Universities in the United States that produce the next generation of high-school Art educators, not the Art Schools.


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