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

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

Simply fantastic response. More than I could have hoped for!! Much more helpful and informed about electric vehicle gearing than anything written in the Endless-sphere thread. You don't need to read that thread, because what you just wrote above is far more sophisticated.

So if I am reading you correctly, I can continue to insert 90 %? Or should I be inserting 95 %?

I really like the idea of two axles low-geared, and one axle geared for high speeds. This would never have occurred to me in a million years, and would simplify the drive-train from a mechanical point of view, right? But as you wrote, what we are really talking about would be four motors low-geared, and two motors high-geared? Good to know that six motors would be ideal with independent suspension, and also good from an electrical wiring and redundancy point of view. But if I am reading you correctly, these six electric motors would not be mounted in-wheel, because washboard conditions would destroy them. Rather, they would be mounted on the frame, with short "mini-axles" or "mini-driveshafts" (if one can call them that?) connecting them to the wheels, and of course these mini-axles would have flexible or "universal" joints (also called "U-joints" or "Cardan joints" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_joint ). So the wheel jumps up and down with the independent suspension, but not the motor, which is protected from such shocks, especially on washboard.

Your post sounded a bit contradictory at one point. You had just written that six motors would be good for all sorts of reasons, but then you returned to the three-motor solution with three solid axles and diff locks. So which is it?

In this scenario where a division of labor occurs between axles for different speeds, would the drivetrain efficiency be better than 90 %? Would it be 95 %? Could it still be 95 % in the three-motors solution, if there were cross-axle differentials with diff locks? Or would complete drive-train efficiency be only 95 % in the six motors solution?

And: which axle (or which two motors) would be high speed, and which ones low speed, i.e. under 50 kph? Front, middle, back?

There is no question that the TerraLiner will have larger tires, Michelin 14.00 R20 XZLs or equivalent. If memory serves, that's what egn uses on Blue Thunder, and that's what most 6x6 expedition motorhomes built on a MAN TGS chassis are equipped with. These tires are 125.8 cm in diameter, or 49.53 inches -- see https://www.vrakking-tires.com/stoc...earch=Search&gclid=CL-58c-TvsoCFWXnwgoddk0Efg and https://www.vrakking-tires.com/stock/truck-tires/43-1400r20-michelin-xzl-new.html. So with such tires, ground clearance is automatically about 55 - 60 cm with solid axles (??; not certain about this...). Albeit with tire deflation on sand or soft earth, ground clearance would be less.

If I am reading the images of Oshkosh's TAK-4i suspension in operation correctly, the same would be true even for independent suspension. In the images posted earlier in the thread the "up travel" on military-grade, off-road-capable independent suspensions was minimal, and all or most of the play was in the down-stroke. See posts #671 and #672 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1670213#post1670213 ; then #1100 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1738766#post1738766 ; and then, for a full visual analysis, see posts #1106 to #1112 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1738799#post1738799 to http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1738858#post1738858 , and posts #1119 to #1125 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1739065#post1739065 to http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1739197#post1739197 .

In the following images, which were taken from videos of the TAK-4i suspension in operation, the center-line clearance never gets worse than the wheel-centers on the up-stroke. The axle merely "straightens out", so all the play is on the down-stroke:










So in terms of ground clearance, military-grade independent suspension seems to function just like a solid axle: a big rock hitting just one wheel pushes the entire vehicle upwards, and not merely just that wheel. With a solid axle a big rock hitting just one wheel lifts the entire axle, but perhaps not necessarily the entire vehicle?

Sorry that I lost you once I started talking about a 12 m TerraLiner and a TOAD garage. But as I've written, I am designing with a very specific market in mind: full-timing retired couples who want to slow-travel, often staying at particular spots for many months. I am not designing for zippy travel by middle-aged types who are using their vehicles on one or two-month vacations....:ylsmoke:

Again, many thanks for your post. It was simply terrific. And I am really grateful that it wasn't evasive and too complicated, as per the responses that I was getting over in Endless-sphere.

All best wishes,


Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

Glad you appreciated the response.

You should be using 95% if you are dispensing with the normal multispeed tranny. The 5% loss allows for a differential and gear reduction. If you go for the six motor single speed approach with different ratios in one axle, then you only need gear reduction on the motors and you could be up in the 96 to even 98% level as it is much simpler. The only concern with the idea is that you will still be spinning all of the motors all the time - but since you top speed is limited to something like 100 km/h I don't think it will be a big issue - the lower speed motor should be able to handle the speed since a Tesla's direct drive single speed motor allows up to 250 km/h on the dual motor (one front / one rear) version. The losses involved with spinning the motors is not that much - it would reduce acceleration rate - but that isn't really an issue.

Yes - for your vehicle it would be six motors total - one per wheel / two per "axle" (although there isn't really and axle involved). The motors would be inboard mounted to the frame and short driveshafts would go to each wheel. The gear reduction would probably be built right into the motor itself. The wheel end would be very conventional for an independently suspended vehicle. Easy to have all the wheels steer too.

The three solid axle / one motor per axle would be my own choice for a design, but my vehicle would be smaller, shorter and simpler and would use smaller wheels with portal axles. For the size & weight of what you are proposing, it should probably be six motors with independent suspension and taller 50 inch tires without portal axles. With tires that large and heavy, it might be necessary to have a second gear reduction hub system in the wheel itself like many heavy duty trucks use to reduce the amount of torque on the driveshaft and CV joints. This would reduce the efficiency from the 96% to 98% possibility down to 92% to 96% I would think.

Which axle position to have the high speed versus low speed is a good question - If you are sold on a "chinese six" configuration (two steering axles on the front / one rear) I think that you might want the high speed axle to be in the rear most position. It might also depend on the weight distribution - but since you have such flexibility with the design, it should be able to be kept pretty equal on all of the wheels. Towing adds another consideration. I would have to think about that more...

With the really tall tires (~ 50 inches) the addition of portal axles (like used in Unimogs, Pinzgauers and some other medium sized military vehicles) isn't necessary. The tires are huge, heavy and expensive though. For the amount of weight you are considering, they would be the right tire though.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

Once more, a terrific post, and more than I ever could ever have hoped for. Please, Haf-E, please think out loud in this thread whenever you feel so moved!! Your musings are golden. Or more accurately, your musings are crystalline, true gems. When you are ready, please post further about weight distribution and axle-gearing with the TerraLiner pulling a trailer in mind. Note however that the TerraLiner will pull a two-axle or three-axle drawbar trailer, so in principle the tow-bar should not exert any downward force on the rear axle??

Just one remaining question: As I wrote above, many American states allow trucks to do 120 kph on rural super-highways, and I would like the TerraLiner to have this capability. Would this mess things up in the "division of labor" scenario, where the rear axle is high-speed, and the front two axles (Chinese Six configuration) are low-gear?

Terrific to learn that in six-motor format, all-wheel steering will be no problem.:wings:

The TerraLiner definitely will have the big tires, because that seems to be standard for large 6x6 expedition motorhomes as specified by UniCat or Actionmobil. So given what you wrote, perhaps I should split the difference between 92 - 96 %, and insert 94 % as a good predictive value for the efficiency of the TerraLiner's serial-hybrid, diesel-electric drivetrain??

Perhaps you did not catch this, but a long while back in the thread egn wrote that portal axles are completely unnecessary for vehicles like Blue Thunder, and hence, for a vehicle as large as the TerraLiner. Note that with big tires there is the advantage that on rutted roads of the kind traversed by large trucks, the TerraLiner will not have to struggle with ruts and center-line mound heights that are not properly calibrated to its size. When Stephen Stewart's expedition drove through Tibet, they encountered the problem that the "MCVs" (Most Common Vehicles) on Tibetan roads were large Chinese trucks, trucks that created ruts and scraped center-mound clearances that were totally unsuited to the smaller vehicles in Stewart's expedition, most of which did not have portal axles -- see http://www.xor.org.uk/travel/china2002/20021012.htm . So they found themselves spending huge amounts of time flattening center-mounds on rutted roads with spades, just so that they could use them.

Of course, the solution here for smaller expedition vehicles is exactly the one that you proposed: portal axles.

Many thanks, and gosh, your feedback has been truly priceless,



Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

Thanks for the positive comments.

I did just checked in with my brother who is a mechanical engineer that does a lot of unique projects with large electric motors and he says that electric motors with built-in gearboxes tend to be only offered in 10 hp or less sizes. So that means it would require a separate reduction gearbox to get the motor speeds down to the wheel speeds. He argued for a right angle type box since that would allow mounting of the motors more in line with the chassis and would allow the driveshafts to each wheel to be longer and would have less angle in the CVs. Losses would be still be the same in either type of gearbox.

I looked up some common ratios for the geared hub reduction axles and they are around 5. So that isn't enough for a typical electric motor - especially when the wheel is so much larger - 50 inches versus the Telsa's 25 (?) inch wheel. If the Tesla needs a 9 to 1 ratio with its smaller tire then the TL would need double that with its taller tire in order to keep the RPMs of the electric motor similar.

There isn't anything impossible with this - just not "off-the-shelf" parts.

If the gearbox is separate from the motor than that opens up the possibility of some type of clutch between the motor and the wheel in order to allow operation on the high speed axle without subjecting the motors on the low speed axles too much RPMs. The clutch idea is more challenging since we would want to be able to bring in the other axles "on the fly" to help the high speed axle on hills etc. It is possible to bring up the electric motors to a speed which matches the RPMs of the gearbox and then couple them together - so no synchronizer or slipping of the clutch would be required possibly. Even without the clutch, I think it should be possible to find a happy arrangement of gear ratios to allow 120 km/H driving speeds since the Telsa is capable of twice that with a single speed motor and since we aren't designing this to be a rock crawler or to carry hundreds of tons of materials.

Another benefit of the two different axle ratios would be regenerative braking would work better since it could be done with the two low speed axle's motors. Almost the same as downshifting a gearbox...

So with the two stage gear reduction scheme (one in a right angle box up in the frame and a second in the wheels hub itself) it would be back to the 92 to 96% range - I would just go with 95% for the six motor approach.

 

[Haf-E]

BTW - Here is an example of an independent suspension with hub reduction gearing made for commercial / military applications by a company called "Axletech"

AxleTech International has developed independent suspension planetary axle systems (ISAS) for high-mobility and maneuverability applications. Designed for commercial and military applications, ISAS helps to optimize protection, payload and performance.

Double-wishbone design combines ride control and handling with cross-country mobility and safety
Provides track control in rough terrain with improved steering and maximized tire-to-ground contact
Improves ride quality via suspension flexibility
Operates in axle capacity ranges from 16,000 to 25,000 pounds
Multi-wheel steer improves maneuverability on tight turns
Sealed-for-life suspension joints and bearings reduce maintenance costs
Available inborad brakes (hydraulic or air) provide weight savings and improve NVH
Configures for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles

 

[biotect]

Haf-E,

I have to write this: WOW. I am speechless.

THANK YOU.

Quite honestly, I only understood about 60 % of what you just wrote above, but I know that you always know what you are talking about, and you never bull****. When someone writing in a web-forum does not truly grasp a given topic, somehow it always shows. And conversely, those who do know what they are talking about will write with a degree of precision, exactness, confidence, maturity, and rational calm that convinces because it is so pure, so authentic. Whenever you have posted in this thread, Haf-E, you have always written this way: as a master.

So 95 % it is.

If anyone reading this thinks otherwise, they are of course welcome to tangle with Haf-E....:sombrero:... But the quality of what Haf-E has written on this page should give them pause. If they want to tangle with Haf-E, they need to match his prose, and his crystalline engineering intelligence.

Back to Haf-E: many thanks also for the AxleTech lead, which I will be sure to research thoroughly.

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

I found these axles as I was searching for what the highest axle ratio was available for highway capable (not agricultural or construction) axles.

That one in the photo has inboard brakes - they also offer them with more conventional outboard brakes as well. They offer four axles capacities and they are all offered with overall gear ratios as high as 28:1 - which would make it easy to directly connect an electric motor to their input shaft on the differentials and have the ideal motor RPMs.

2000 series http://www.axletech.com/resources/product_literature/pdf/2000_ISAS_TechSpecs.pdf

3000 series http://www.axletech.com/resources/product_literature/pdf/3000_ISAS_TechSpecs.pdf

4000 series http://www.axletech.com/resources/product_literature/pdf/4000_ISAS_TechSpecs.pdf

5000 series http://www.axletech.com/resources/product_literature/pdf/5000_ISAS_TechSpecs.pdf

These axles are available with open, limited slip or locking differentials also. The low profile dual springs is a nice option on these as it would keep the floor as flat as possible.

These being available "off-the-shelf" makes me think that using three motors (one per axle) with two different axle ratios (28:1 in the two low speed axles and about 18:1 in the high speed) would work - when driving at 60 mph (100 km/h) the low speed motors would be spinning at about 12,000 RPM while the high speed motor would be at 8000. The Tesla motor max's out at 16,000 RPMs for a comparison, but are most efficient between 6000 and 9000 based on what is available on the web. The most powerful Tesla's electric motor has a power rating of 416 hp (310 kW) and 443 ft·lb (600 N·m) of torque - so three of them should be plenty! In their dual motor model they are using two smaller motors BTW...

Either way, three motors or six motors, the gearing loss would be around 5% since we are eliminating the multispeed gearbox. Six motors would be slightly higher (1 or 2% less loss) due to the elimination of the differential, but since both solutions would require two stage gear reduction, the use of a differential for the first reduction and using three motors instead of six would make it all more easily sourced and off-the shelf.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

I just wanted to grab this spot so that this page becomes complete as an exemplary exchange. This page serves as a model of what ideal discourse should be like in this thread. It is filled argument and evidence, tight thinking and clear prose. It also shows what it really means to help move the TerraLiner design process forward.

Sourcing or "off the shelf", for instance, is definitely another important design consideration. If six motors would necessitate a more bespoke or custom solution, and would be harder to implement practically, then three motors it is. Personally, I would prefer six motors because of redundancy. But if three Tesla motors could provide 1248 HP of power, that would be good enough for me. In the six-motor solution I was imagining Wrightspeed's 250 HP motors, for 1500 HP in total. But Tesla is a much bigger and more proven company than Wrightspeed, and so any solution that involves Tesla technology (including Tesla battery technology) would be preferred.


*************************************************


As you know, having electric motors as big as possible is important, because when descending an incline, that same HP becomes braking power via regenerative braking, and we want the TerraLiner to use its Air-Disc brakes as little as possible -- see http://www.truckinginfo.com/article/story/2014/07/brake-trends-drums-vs-discs.aspx . Iain has deftly pointed out the central problem when descending inclines: that ICE vehicles need to resort to a variety of fixes to dissipate the enormous energy that descent generates, for instance supplementary retarders, "jake-braking", and engine-braking -- see posts #1994 and #1995 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1965033#post1965033 . Ergo, because regenerative braking power is so important, the TerraLiner's electric motors can be considerably bigger than the power delivered by the generators. Or even the generators + the batteries. At present I am projecting 300 KW for the primary generator, and a 300 KW battery bank. So those 600 KW would be equivalent to 804 HP, assuming that the battery could discharge all of its power in an hour, i.e. that it has a fast potential discharge rate (or "C") of 1.

But for all sorts of reasons I would prefer that the driveline be designed conservatively. By this I mean that even when ascending the longest and steepest of realistic inclines -- for instance, from Nepal up to Tibet, a distance of 151 km, with a 3 % grade -- the battery pack should always be able to reach the top with at least 100 KW still remaining in reserve. Do you think this is an excessive or unreasonable requirement? If so, please let me know why.

If you've read the past 10 pages or so, you will know that the size of the battery pack is partly determined by the requirement that the TerraLiner should be mostly silent when it dry-camps. It should run the generator for no more than 2 hours every three days, when solar is minimal. Furthermore, a central design goal has emerged that average TerraLiner solar power generation should be about 50 KW per day. Here "average" means average per day computed over the course 5 years' use, in a variety of climates. Yes, I know that this is a bit of an odd and perhaps impossible way to put things..... But unfortunately that's what it has to be, for a globally capable motorhome that moves around. Sometimes DNI will be off-the-charts terrific, for instance, on the Altiplano in Bolivia. Other times it will be negligible, for instance, Siberia during the winter. I have no idea how to predictively calculate so that the TerraLiner's solar cells cover enough square meters and have a high enough power density, such that they will in fact deliver this average. But this average is nonetheless a design goal.

This solar array average output then ensures that the average length of time that the TerraLiner will be able to dry-camp in a demanding climate that requires high energy usage, will be 90 days. If maximum daily power consumption (primarily due to A/C) were 100 KW, then 50 KW provided by the solar cells, + 50 KW provided by the battery pack, would mean that the battery pack only has to be recharged once every 6 days. With safas I worked out that this means that once every 6 days the TerraLiner will need to consume 100 liters of fuel to do the recharging, using the fuel-efficiency of a Pierce generator as a baseline. The TerraLiner's diesel tank will be 1500 liters. So 6 days x 15 = 90 days, or 3 months. This needs to be the design goal for boondocking without refueling, and with the battery recharge time never lasting more than 2 hours. Ergo, the battery pack's size in relation to the generator size.

Of course, in Siberia during the winter the amount of solar power available per day will shrivel to much less than 50 KW. But the lower bound scenario -- one in which the TerraLiner is immersed in complete Arctic winter darkness, with no solar available whatsoever -- would still allow 45 days of dry-camping in just one spot before needing to refuel, with the generator recharging the battery pack every 3 days instead. Daily energy consumption in the Arctic would probably be much lower than 100 KW, because as campo suggested in the Camper Thermal Engineering thread, heating requires much less energy than cooling. So even in an Arctic night scenario the lower time-limit would probably be more like 55 days or more.

Now given the requirement that the TerraLiner retain 100 KW "in reserve", and given new assumptions about (1) the TerraLiner's drive-line efficiency -- 95 %, (2) changing air-density as the TerraLiner ascends, and (3) a drag coefficient of .41 (the same as the MAN Skyliner), I need to re-do the power calculations for some real-world extended ascents, like the I-70 up to the Eisenhower pass, or Nepal up to Tibet. These would then give numbers for the minimum size of the secondary generator, assuming different ascent-speeds and head-wind speeds as design targets. Give my previous calculations, I strongly suspect that even with a 300 KW primary generator and a 300 KW battery pack, if retaining 100 KW in reserve is a requirement, then having the secondary generator be a lightweight turbine APU that delivers 450 KW may still prove highly desirable.

So combined, the TerraLiner's two generators would deliver 750 KW, or 1006 HP. Add the battery pack to that, again assuming a discharge rate or "C" of 1, and 1050 KW would be 1408 HP. This would then be more than the 1248 HP provided by three Tesla motors. But who knows, by 2020 it is entirely possible that Tesla will have developed an off-the-shelf electric motor that delivers 500 HP. So three of these hypothetical Tesla motors would provide 1500 HP, more than the TerraLiner's generators + battery pack could deliver per hour, but nonetheless important as braking power.

I was very much struck by the discrepancy between the size of electric motors in serial hybrid systems, and the output of their generators. For instance, the Mercedes Citaro Blue-Tec bus has four 80 KW electric motors, 320 KW in total, versus a generator that produces just 160 KW. But the gap is there because the electric motors become generators and brakes when descending inclines or stopping. So having a considerable gap between two generators producing 1006 HP, and electric motors rated for 1500 HP, would be a good thing, or so it seems Simultaneously, knowing that the TerraLiner could deliver sustained "bursts" of power for up to an hour, bursts that almost nearly match the HP capability of the motors -- 1408 HP available for an hour, to power 1500 HP motors -- also sounds like a "good thing". Although I am not exactly sure why; it's just intuition. If I am wrong about this, please correct me.


*************************************************


In this spot I also wanted to post the images from the four PDFs that you just referenced. Valuable PDFs and articles have a habit of disappearing from the web. For whatever reason companies that are generous with information one moment, can suddenly become miserly the next. For instance, the PDF that originally inspired this thread is no longer available on MAN's website, a PDF in which MAN describes its SX trucks in detail, and makes it clear that the SX has a very rigid, almost-torsion-free frame. The Rheinmetall-MAN website, in fact, now contains precious little information about the SX series. If I hadn't come across that PDF when I did, this thread would probably not exist.

So here are the PDFs that you just referenced, converted to JPGs:










All best wishes,




Biotect

 

[Haf-E]

I wasn't very excited about the Oskosh TAK-4 suspension because I thought it would be near impossible to source something from them (although MRAPs are being parted out and sub assemblies are being sold on e-bay now) since Oshkosh is a vehicle manufacturer - not a parts supplier.

Axletech is exciting because they are a parts supplier. They sell their axles to companies. They also have operations in both France and Brazil.

I had never seen a reduction axle that was highway capable with a ratio of 28:1 available - that changes a lot of my thinking and makes this project a lot more possible for a variety of vehicle sizes.

The smallest of the Axletech ISAS series (the 2000) can work with 17 inch tires and is available with portal end boxes as well. Ideal for a smaller / lighter vehicle... if you consider a 7.700 lbs (3500 kg) rating per axle with a weight of 915 lbs (415 kg) per axle a "small" vehicle.

Gotta go for the day.

 

[biotect]

Hi Haf-E,

Thanks for the further clarification, and for explaining why TAK-4i could not be realistically sourced. When you return to the thread and if you are inclined, please have a look at the last post on the previous page, #2350, where I speculate that perhaps Tesla might have a 500 HP electric motor available by 2020, and why this might be a good thing.

All best wishes,


Biotect

 

[safas]

I was very much struck by the discrepancy between the size of electric motors in serial hybrid systems, and the output of their generators. For instance, the Mercedes Citaro Blue-Tec bus has four 80 KW electric motors, 320 KW in total, versus a generator that produces just 160 KW. But the gap is there because the electric motors become generators and brakes when descending inclines or stopping.

There is also another reason. It may not be the primary one in city buses, but usually it is.
There is a huge difference between the peak and the average power.
You need a lot of it to accelerate, but much less to maintain speed. The difference is huge in the city, but it's big even on a highway.

BTW, 1300 HP is not a lot if you want serious use of regen braking with a 30 ton rig.
Though I wonder if you need a lot of regen breaking....
1. The vehicle will not do a lot of city driving. Regen is of marginal use on the highway. It matters in the mountains, but since you want to concentrate on coasts, mountains will be a small fraction of distance covered too.
2. The vehicle will not travel much. 2-4 weeks in place and then move on by 1000 km? That's 18000 km/year, moderate use, the owner can afford marginally higher fuel consumption. In fact, the extra engines may never pay for themselves.
Obviously, not having enough of electric brakes requires you to solve the downhill brake cooling issues though. Is 1300 HP enough? Likely yes, but it would be great if someone calculated that.

Side thought:
You don't need to store all the fuel for boondocking. You can have your farmer fetch some. You can fetch it yourself with the auxiliary car.

 

[biotect]

Hi Safas,

You have clearly read the thread.....:victory:

Sorry, but I just had to add that. It's really enjoyable exchanging with you, or with Haf-E, Libransser, dwh, Joe Maninga, egn, campo, Nick, Iain, Rob Gray, etc., because all of you have been willing to think in terms of the "spirit" of what has been developed and expressed so far. The TerraLiner is not Haf-E's personal favorite size of vehicle, but nonetheless he was willing to think past that. Over the previous page he brainstormed and worked out an ideal drive-train solution for a vehicle the size of the TerraLiner that includes Tesla electric motors, and that will work with a commercially available independent suspension that has the necessary kind of reduction axle. It will take me a bit of additional research and reading to figure out everything that he wrote on the previous page, but wow, that was a great exchange!!



********************************************


1. Coastal Driving is often Up-and-Down hill driving


********************************************


Coastal driving would be flat driving only on some coasts. Many coasts are mountainous, or at the very least very hilly.

The coastal highways that run down the full length of both sides of Italy, for instance, and that then continue across the border into France, along the French coast down to Spain, and then further down past Barcelona: these are 4-lane highways the whole way, but some stretches are very hilly, with long ups and downs, and would benefit immensely (I should think) from regenerative braking. In the first video below, the car gets past Genoa and starts driving the coast about 2 minutes, 30 seconds in. But he chooses to use the slow road that's directly on the coast. Just a bit further inland there is a 4-lane superhighway the whole way, called the E-80, that does go up and down and drives through any number of big tunnels -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/G...f:0x40819a5fd979ac0!2m2!1d7.49754!2d43.774481 . The second is an excellent video that shows the same 4-lane superhighway as the E-80, but now it has become the French A8, a highway running between the border with Italy and Marseille -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/M...3:0x40819a5fd970220!2m2!1d5.36978!2d43.296482 . The video picks up the A8 highway from Nice onwards, and is a particularly good record of the ups and downs that one can find even on a coastal 4-lane superhighway. The third is a great video of highway driving in southern Italy, in a region called Calabria, from Reggio Calabria at the toe of Italy, up the coast to Sala Consilina in the province of Cosenza -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/S...b84ae4f8854603c!2m2!1d15.5900661!2d40.4028308 . The fourth is a drive from Bilbao to San Sebastian in Spain, again on a costal superhighway that goes through lots of ups and downs -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/B...e43ec55994864649!2m2!1d-1.9812313!2d43.318334 . The actual highway begins about 50 seconds into the video:



[video=vimeo;103632009]https://vimeo.com/103632009[/video]


In the other direction, going west from Bilbao along the Atlantic coast towards Santiago De Compostela, the Autovia A-8 is the same for much of the route, a hilly coastal highway -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovía_A-8 :






If you don't live in Europe, you might be surprised by how much "up" and "down" driving there is, even on major highways, and even outside the Alps. Southern France, most of Italy, most of southern Germany, and much of Spain: even when the mountains are not 3000 m high, the terrain is still incredibly hilly, even on the coast. European highway engineers try to smooth things out with tunnels and bridges, but there's only so much of that they can do, otherwise the road becomes prohibitively expensive. So even big 4-lane super-highways will still have lots of ascents and descents. Needless to say it's great fun to drive these roads, and the views of the ocean are often spectacular, which can be a problem, because one's eyes should be on the road.....:sombrero:


********************************************

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
.

 

[biotect]

.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

********************************************


In the United States there is also the two-lane Pacific coast highway, paved the whole way, that hugs the coast from Astoria in Oregon down to Eureka, and then through Humboldt and Marin county in California, continuing down Big Sur between San Francisco and Los Angels. It's a spectacular stretch of pavement, with incredible ocean vistas. But it has plenty of ups and downs, for thousands of miles. In California it is called coastal highway 1 -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_1 , and ends at Legget in northern California. Here are some time-lapse videos. In the first, skip ahead about 1 minute, 15 seconds to get to the mountainous part; in the second video, skip ahead 1 m minutes 45 seconds:



[video=youtube;NVsPUv4uEaQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVsPUv4uEaQ [/video]



********************************************

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
.

 

[biotect]

.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

********************************************


At Legget a more interior highway, the 101, takes one up to Eureka in Oregon -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...2!3m1!1s0x54d4cc1fffa328f9:0x28dffafca0e1592e . Here is a great Time-Lapse video of driving the #1 from San Francisco up to Oregon:






Once in Oregon, from Euraka all the way up past Cannon Beach, with its famous off-shore rocks, the 101 highway hugs the coast the whole way. And just like the #1 down in California, there are stretches where it climbs high to get around mountain spurs, and provides spectacular ocean vistas:



[video=youtube;I3AQ27nDDmI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3AQ27nDDmI [/video]
[video=youtube;vAu6St4srD0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAu6St4srD0 [/video]



Things get more complicated in Washington, but camping in Olympic National Park, or along the seacoast in Kalaloch, would be a blast -- see https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@47.6075386,-124.3633321,13332m/data=!3m1!1e3 .

I have personally driven most of the routes just discussed, including the routes in Italy (both coasts), across southern France, down to Barcelona all the way to Gibraltar, and across most of northern Spain. As well as the entire length of coastal highway from Astoria in Oregon down to Los Angeles. In short, on my own view, it's a bit of mistake to think that coastal driving is "mostly flat" driving.


********************************************

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
.

 

[biotect]

.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

********************************************


2. The TerraLiner: Water Glamper. The example of Lake Titicaca


********************************************


Furthermore, although I do love coastlines more than any other kind of landscape, and although I particularly love mountainous coastlines, I also just love water, period. So lakes, streams, and rivers too. I could see a vehicle like the TerraLiner, if it were equipped with a robust RIB, spending lots of time exploring high-altitude mountainous lakes such as Lake Titicaca, for instance -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca .

As freshwater lakes go, Titacaca is on the large side of things, with a surface areas of 8,372 km². I may be wrong about this, but just looking at maps and images of Lake Titicaca on-line, it seems that with the right equipment (i.e. a turbocharged RIB that can handle high altitude), lake Titicaca would be a boating paradise. Lake Titicaca is dotted with at least 10 or 15 large islands (including the must-see “Isla del Sol”), indented by many deep bays, and on the coastline there seem to be a number of large towns, ports, and hamlets – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca , http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_del_Sol , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_del_Sol , http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...&u=https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_del_Sol , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Isla_Del_Sol,_Bolivia , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taquile , http://www.titicaca-taquile.com , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserva_nacional_del_Titicaca , http://www.sernanp.gob.pe/sernanp/zonaturismoi.jsp?ID=9 , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana_(Bolivia) , http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...s://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana_(Bolivia) :








As the first map in the second row suggests, lake Titicaca is also rich with ancient Inca sites of archeological interest. Not just the famous Isla del Sol, but also Isla Taquile, Isla Amantani, the peninsulas behind them, the floating communities built on reed islands in the Uros wetland just outside Puno, and Isla Anapia in the southern basin -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_del_Sol , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taquile_Island , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amantaní , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uru_people , and http://titicacaperu.com/cultural_anapia_island.html . For a terrific, interactive map of the Lake Titicaca basin, see http://en-us.topographic-map.com/places/Lake-Titicaca-6797957/ . The last map above was taken from that website. No, the black “mountains” on the east side of the lake are not a mistake. They are actually not mountains, because high altitude is red and pink. Rather, the black area is a kind of notch or hole in the mountain chain, and the relief shading is valleys running down towards the Amazon. Use the spot-elevation function on the interactive map, and you’ll see that the area where one finds a black “notch” in the Andes is much lower than the lake itself.

At present Lake Titacaca drains to the south, via the Desaguadero river, which feeds into Lake Poopó, an intermittent large saline lake – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desaguadero_River_(Bolivia) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poopó_Lake , and https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Poopó :







Although hydrologically speaking Lake Titicaca basin is a closed watershed that has no outlet, Lake Titicaca itself is fed by enough rivers that, despite its high altitude, semi-arid climate, and very high rate of evapotranspiration, it remains a freshwater lake. In short, the Titicaca basin is a bit like the closed basin in eastern Israel, where the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake teeming with fish, drains via the Jordan river into the Dead Sea, a completely contained salt lake. But oddly enough, Lake Titicaca does not lose most of its water via the Desguardo river; in fact, on an annual basis, less than 10 %. The remaining 90 % is lost through evaopo-transpiration. For a full description, but in Spanish, see https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_endorreico_Titicaca-Desaguadero-Poopó-Salar_de_Coipasa and http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSistema_endorreico_Titicaca-Desaguadero-Poopó-Salar_de_Coipasa .

Lake Titicaca is definitely suffering from pollution, and the wider basin is suffering the toxic consequences of mining activity. Even still, the entire lake has been declared a “RAMSAR” wetland, and some areas in the basin have been set aside as parks – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar_Convention , http://www.ramsar.org , http://www.ramsar.org/lago-titicaca , http://www.globalnature.org/19504/Data-Lake-Titicaca/02_vorlage.asp , and http://webworld.unesco.org/water/wwap/case_studies/titicaca_lake/titicaca_lake.pdf . These are indicated along with a biosphere reserve in the first map directly above.


********************************************

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
.