HYPERCARS

Presentation Skills and Technical Seminar Report

Submitted by

ANZIL M S (191101007)

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
In/ Department of Mechatronics

MAHENDRA ENGINEERING COLLEGE

(Autonomous)
Mahendhirapuri, Mallasamudram, Namakkal DT - 637 503

JANUARY - 2022
 MAHENDRA ENGINEERING COLLEGE

(Autonomous)
Mahendhirapuri, Mallasamudram, Namakkal DT - 637 503

Department of Mechatronics

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Certified that this Presentation Skills and Technical Seminar report on

“ HYPERCARS ” is the bonafide work of “ ANZIL M S (191101007) ” who
carried out the seminar work under my supervision during the academic year 2021-22.

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INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

 ABSTRACT

The Hypercar design concept combines an ultralight, ultra-aerodynamic autobody

with a hybrid-electric drive system. This combination would allow dramatic improvements
in fuel efficiency and emissions. Computer models predict that near-term hypercars of the
same size and performance of today’s typical 4-5 passenger family cars would get three
times better fuel economy .

In the long run, this factor could surpass five, even approaching ten. Emissions, depending
on the power plant, or APU, would drop between one and three orders of magnitude,
enough to qualify as an “equivalent” zero emission vehicles (EZEV).

In all, hypercars’ fuel efficiency, low emissions, recyclability, and durability should make
them very friendly to the environment. However, environmental friendliness is currently
not a feature that consumers particularly look for when purchasing a car. Consumers value
affordability, safety, durability, performance, and convenience much more. If a vehicle can
not meet these consumer desires as well as be profitable for its manufacturer, it will not
succeed in the marketplace. Simply put, market acceptance is paramount. As a result,
hypercars principally strive to be more attractive than conventional cars to consumers, on
consumers’ own terms, and just as profitable to make.
 INTRODUCTION

The hypercar design concept combines an ultralight, ultra-aerodynamic

autobody with a hybrid-electric drive system. This combination would allow dramatic
improvements in fuel efficiency and emissions. Computer models predict that near-term
hypercars of the same size and performance of today’s typical 4–5 passenger family cars
would get three times better fuel economy . In the long run, this factor could surpass five,
even approaching ten. Emissions, depending on the power plant, or APU, would drop
between one and three orders of magnitude, enough to qualify as an “equivalent” zero
emission vehicles (EZEV).
In all, hypercars’ fuel efficiency, low emissions, recyclability, and durability
should make them very friendly to the environment. However, environmental friendliness
is currently not a feature that consumers particularly look for when purchasing a car.
Consumers value affordability, safety, durability, performance, and convenience much
more. If a vehicle can not meet these consumer desires as well as be profitable for its
manufacturer, it will not succeed in the marketplace. Simply put, market acceptance is
paramount. As a result, hypercars principally strive to be more attractive than conventional
cars to consumers, on consumers’ own terms, and just as profitable to make.

HISTORY

Since 1991, Rocky Mountain Institute, a 15-year-old, 43-person independent non

profit resource policy centre, has applied to cars its experience from advanced electric end-
use efficiency. In many technical systems, buildings, motors, lights, computers, etc., big
electrical savings can often be made cheaper than small savings by achieving multiple
benefits from single expenditures. The marginal cost of savings at first rises more and more
steeply (“diminishing returns”), but then often “tunnels through the cost barrier” and drops
down again, yielding even larger savings at lower cost. RMI hypothesized that the same
might be possible in cars. By 1993, this concept had been established and published and by
1995 it refined into papers advised by hundreds of informants; and by 1996, expanded into
a major proprietary study emphasizing manufacturing techniques for high volume and low
cost.
 Most big changes in modern cars were driven either by government mandate,
subsidy, or taxation motivated by externalities, or by random fluctuations in oil price.
However, the more fundamental shift to hypercars can instead be driven by customers’.
. Customers will buy hypercars because they’re better cars, not because they save
fuel— just as people buy compact discs instead of vinyl records. Manufacturers, too, will
gain advantage from hypercars’ potentially lower product cycle time, tooling and
equipment investment, assembly space and effort, and body parts count. Since these
features offer decisive competitive advantage to early adopters, RMI chose in 1993 not to
patent and auction its intellectual property, but rather, like the open- software development
model, to put most of it prominently into the public domain and maximize competition in
exploiting it. In late 1993, the concept won the Nissan Prize at ISATA (the main European
car-technology conference); in 1994, it was the subject of an ISATA Dedicated
Conference, and began attracting considerable attention. By late 1995, RMI was providing
compartmentalized and nonexclusive support.

strategic and technical, to about a dozen automakers and a dozen intending

automakers from other sectors (such as car parts, electronics, aerospace, polymers, and
start-ups, including a number of alliances and virtual companies).

PRINCIPLES OF HYPERCAR DESIGN

After a century’s devoted effort by excellent engineers, only ~15–20% of a

modern car’s fuel energy reaches the wheels, and 95% of that moves the car, not the driver,
so only 1% of fuel energy moves the driver. This is not very gratifying. Its biggest cause is
that cars are conventionally made of steel—a splendid material if mass is either
unimportant or advantageous, but heavy enough to require for brisk acceleration an engine
so big that it uses only 4% of its power in the city, 16% on the highway. This mismatch
halves an Otto engine’s efficiency. Rather than emphasizing incremental improvements to
the driveline, the hypercar designer starts with platform physics, because each unit of saved
road load can save in turn ~5–7 units of fuel that need no longer be burned in order to
deliver that energy to the wheels. Thus the compounding losses in the driveline.
 In typical flat-city driving (Fig. 2), road loads split fairly evenly between air
resistance, rolling resistance, and braking.

Hypercars could have lower curb mass, lower aerodynamic drag, ´ lower rolling
resistance, and lower accessory loads than conventional production platforms. In a near-
term hypercar, irrecoverable losses to air and road drag plummet.

Wheel power is otherwise lost only to braking, which is reduced in proportion to

gross mass and largely regenerated by the wheel motors (70% recovery wheel-to-wheel
has been demonstrated at modest speeds). The hybrid decouples engine from wheels,
eliminating the part-load penalty of the Otto/mechanical drive train system, so the savings
multiplier is no longer 5–7% but only ~2–3.5%. Nonetheless, even counting potentially
worse conditions in high-speed driving (because aero drag rises as the cube of speed and
there’s less recoverable braking than in the city), the straightforward parameters illustrated
yield average economy ~41 km/l.7

Ultralow Drag
Hypercars would combine very low drag coefficient CD with compact
packaging for low frontal area A. Several concept cars and GM’s productionized EV-1 have
achieved on-road CD 0.19 (vs. today’s production average ~0.33 and best production sedan
0.255, or Rumpler’s 0.28 in 1921). With a longer platform’s lesser rearend discontinuity;
Ford’s 1980s Probe concept cars got wind-tunnel CD 0.152 with passive and 0.137 with
active rear-end treatment. Some noted aerodynamicists believe £0.1, perhaps ~0.08, could
be achieved with passive boundary-layer control analogous to the dimples on a golf-ball.
Between that idealized but perhaps ultimately feasible goal and the 1996 reality of 0.19 lie
many linked opportunities for further improvement without low clearance or excessively
pointy profile.3, 7 Thin-profile recumbent solar race cars illustrate how well side wind
response can be controlled, as in the Spirit of Biel III’s on-track CD of 0.10 at 0° yaw angle
but just over 0.08 at 20°.

Production cars have A £2.3 (US av.) to 1.8 m2 (4-seat Honda DX);
wellpackaged 4-seat concept cars, 1.71 (GM Ultralite) to 1.64 (Renault Vesta II). For full
comfort, we assume 1.9 for 4–5 or 2.0 for 6 (3+3) occupants.
 Proportionally to both gross mass and coefficient of rolling resistance r0. Steel
drum test values of r0 are 0.0062 for the best mass produced radial tires, 0.0048 for the
lowest made by 1990 (Goodyear), and the low 0.004s for the state of the art.

On pavement, with toe-in but not wheel-bearing friction, we assume the EV-1’s
empirical 0.0062 (Michelin), which might be further reduced without sacrificing safety or
handling.
Such tires are typically hard and relatively narrow, increasing pressure over the contact
patch to help compensate for the car’s light mass.

Ultralight Mass
Today’s production platforms have curb mass mc ~1.47 t (RMI’s simulations
add 136 kg for USEPA test mass). Some 1980s concept cars made of light metal achieved
mc <650 kg (Toyota 5-seat AXV diesel 649 kg, Renault 4-seat Vesta II 475, Peugeot 4-
seat ECO 2000 449). But advanced composites can do better, with carbon-fibre composites
acknowledged by Ford and GM experts to be capable of up to a 67% body in- white (BIW)
mc reduction from the 273-kg steel norm without/372 kg with closures—to ~90/123 kg, vs.
the 5- seat Ultra Light Steel Auto Body’s 205/– kg or the 5– 6- seat Ford Aluminium-
Intensive Vehicle’s 148/198 kg. RMI assumes near-term advanced-composite 4–5-seat
BIWs not of 90/123 kg but ~130/150.3,4 In contrast, the 4seat Esoro H301’s BIW weighed
only 72/150 (using lighter-than-original bumper and door designs for comparability) far
below the carbon GM Ultralite’s 140/191, even though 75% of the Esoro’s fiber was glass,
far heavier than carbon fibre.2 Of carbon-andaramid BIWs, Viking 23’s (1994) weighed
93 kg with closures, while Esoro composites expert Peter Kägi’s 1989 2-seat OMEKRON’s
weighed only 34 kg without closures. Though these examples differ in spaciousness and
safety, they confirm carbon fibre’s impressive potential for BIW mass reduction. A 115-
line-item mass budget benchmarked to empirical component values indicates that a
130/150-kg BIW corresponds to mc ~521 kg. Near-term values for a full-sized 3+3 sedan
range upwards to ~700 kg but can be reduced at least to ~600 kg with further refinement.
 Advanced composites are used in Hypercars they offer the greatest potential
for mass reduction. Reducing a vehicle's mass makes it peppier and/or more fuel-efficient
to drive, nimbler to handle, and easier to stop. Experts from various U.S. and European car

Companies have estimated that advanced composite auto bodies could be up to 67

percent lighter than today's steel versions. In comparison, aluminium is estimated to be able
to achieve a 55-percent mass reduction, and optimized steel around 25-30 percent. So for
mass reduction and fuel economy, advanced composites look especially promising.

Hybrid-Electric Drive

Hypercars build on the foundation of recent major progress in electric

propulsion, offering its advantages without the disadvantages of big batteries. Batteries’
deliverable specific energy is so low (~1% that of gasoline) that, as P.D. van der Koogh
notes, “Battery cars are cars for carrying mainly batteries ,but not very far and not very
fast, or else they’d have to carry even more batteries.” This nicely captures the mass
compounding snowballing of weight that limits battery cars, good though they’re
becoming, to niches rather than to the general-purpose family-vehicle role that dominates
at least North American markets. It is unimportant to this discussion whether Hypercars
use series or parallel hybrids. Both approaches, and others, may offer advantages in
particular market segments. Either way, an onboard auxiliary power unit (APU) converts
fuel into electricity as needed; the APU can be an internal- or external-combustion engine,
fuel cell, miniature gas turbine, or other device. The electricity drives special wheel motors
(conceivably hub motors, but at least in early models probably mounted inboard to manage
sprung/unsprung mass ratios). The motors may be direct drive or use a single gear, though
some designs might benefit from two gear ratios. A load-levelling device (LLD) buffers
the APU, temporarily stores recovered braking energy, and augments the APU’s power for
hill climbing and acceleration. The LLD can be a high specific- power battery,
ultracapacitor, superflywheel, or combination, typically rated at. ~30–50 peak kW.
High braking-energy recovery efficiency and reducing the APU map nearly to a point
require high kW/kg plus excellent design and controls.
 Fuel cells are also used as APU because they're very efficient, produce zero or
near-zero emissions (depending on the type and origin of the fuel used), could be extremely
reliable and durable (since they have almost no moving parts), and could offer a high degree
of packaging flexibility. Currently, however, they're very expensive because they're not
produced in volume, and a widespread refuelling infrastructure doesn't yet exist for some

Fuels considered for their use. Fuel cells generate electricity directly by chemically
combining stored hydrogen with oxygen from the air to produce electricity and water. The
hydrogen can be either stored onboard or derived by "reforming" gasoline, methanol, or
natural gas (methane). Reforming carbon-containing fuels generates more emissions than
using hydrogen created directly with renewable energy, but these fuels are much more
readily available and may be used as a transitional step until a hydrogen infrastructure
develops. Fuel-cell technology has advanced significantly in the past few years, prototypes
. Requiring large (and therefore expensive) fuel-cell power plants, which have led
some observers to predict that it may take 15 to 20 years for fuel cells to become
economical. Yet Hypercar® vehicles could accelerate the adoption of fuel cells, because
the Hypercar® vehicle's much lower power requirements would require far less fuel-cell
capacity than a heavy, high-drag conventional car.

Revolution concept car design

Overview
The Revolution fuel-cell concept vehicle was developed by Hypercar, Inc. in 2000
to demonstrate the technical feasibility and societal, consumer, and competitive benefits of
holistic vehicle design focused on efficiency and lightweighting. It was designed to have
breakthrough fuel economy and emissions, meet US and European Motor Vehicle Safety
Standards, and meet a rigorous and complete set of product requirements for a sporty five-
passenger SUV crossover vehicle market segment with technologies that could be in
volume production within five years (Figure 1).
 Fig. 1 Revolution concept car photo and layout

The Revolution combines lightweight, aerodynamic, and electrically and thermally

efficient design with a hybridized fuel-cell propulsion system to deliver.

Include integration, parts consolidation, and appropriate application of new

technology and lightweight materials. No single system or materials substitution could
have achieved such overall mass savings without strong whole-car design integration.
Many new engineering issues arise with such a lightweight yet large vehicle.

• Seats five adults in comfort, with a package similar to the Lexus RX-300 (6%
shorter overall and 10% lower than a 2000 Ford Explorer but with slightly greater
passenger space)
• 1.95-m3 cargo space with the rear seats folded flat
• 2.38 L/100km (99 miles per US gallon) equivalent, using a direct-hydrogen fuel
cell, and simulated for realistic US driving behaviour
• 530-km range on 3.4 kg of hydrogen stored in commercially available 345-bar tanks
• Zero tailpipe emissions
• Accelerates 0±100 km/h in 8.3 seconds
• No body damage in impacts up to 10 km/h (crash simulations are described below)
• All-wheel drive with digital traction and vehicle stability control
 Ground clearance adjustable from 13 to 20 cm through a semi-active
suspension that adapts to load, speed, location of the vehicle's centre of gravity,

• and terrain

Body stiffness and torsional rigidity 50% or more higher than in premium sports
• sedans
Designed for a 300 000á-km service life; composite body not susceptible to rust or
• fatigue
• Modular electronics and software architecture and customizable user interface
Potential for the sticker price to be competitive with the Lexus RX-300, Mercedes

• M320, and BMW X5 3.0, with significantly lower lifecycle cost.

Designed for a 300 000á-km service life; composite body not susceptible to rust or
fatigue
Lightweight design
Every system within the Revolution is significantly lighter than conventional
systems to achieve an overall mass saving of 52%. Techniques used to minimize mass,
discussed below, include integration, parts consolidation, and appropriate application of
new technology and lightweight materials. No single system or materials substitution could
have achieved such overall mass savings without strong whole-car design integration.
Many new engineering issues arise with such a lightweight yet large vehicle. While none
are showstoppers, many required new solutions that were not obvious and demanded a
return to engineering fundamentals.

For example, conventional wheel and tyre systems are engineered with the
assumption that large means heavy. The low mass, large size and high payload range
relative to vehicle mass put unprecedented demands on the wheel/tyre system. Hypercar,
Inc. collaborated with Michelin to design a solution that would meet these novel targets for
traction and handling, design appeal, mass, and rolling resistance. Another challenge in this
unusual design space is vehicle dynamics with a gross mass to kerb mass ratio around 1.5
. To maintain consistent and predictable car-like driving behaviour required an
adaptive suspension. Most commercially available versions are heavy, energy-hungry, and
costly. Hypercar, Inc. collaborated with Advanced Motion Technology, Inc. (Ashton, MD)
 Design features, other systems also contribute to the Revolution's aerodynamic
performance. For example, the suspension system lowers ride height during highway
driving to minimize frontal area. Also, the suspension and driveline components do not
protrude significantly below the floor level; this maintains smooth underbody airflow and
minimizes frontal area. Having the rear electric motors in the wheel hubs also eliminates
the need for a driveshaft and differential under the vehicle.

Powertrain
The Revolution powertrain design integrates a 35kW ambient pressure fuel cell
developed by UT Fuel Cells, 35kW nickel metal hydride (NiMH) buffer batteries, and four
electric motors connected to the wheels with single-stage reduction gears. Three 34.5MPa
internally regulated Type IV carbon-fibre tanks store up to 3.4 kg of hydrogen in an internal
volume of 137 L (Fig 3).

The fuel cell system's near- ambient inlet pressure replaces a costly and energy-
intensive air compressor with a simpler and less energy-intensive blower, raising average
fuel efficiency and lowering cost. The commercially available foil-wound NiMH batteries
provide extra power when needed and store energy captured by the electric motors during
regenerative braking. The _3kWh of stored energy is sufficient for several highway-speed
passing manoeuvres at gross vehicle mass at grade, and can then gradually taper off
available power until the batteries are depleted, leaving only fuel-cell power available for
propulsion until the driving cycle permits recharging.

Revolution Component Packaging

The front two electric motors and brakes are mounted inboard, connected to the
wheels via carbon-fibre half shafts. This minimizes the unsprung mass of the front wheels
and saves mass via shared housing and hardpoint attachments for the motors and brakes.
The front motors are permanent magnet machines, each peak-rated at 21kW. The rear
witched reluctance motors are each 10 peak kW, so they're light enough to mount within
the wheel hubs without an unacceptable sprung/unsprung mass ratio. Hubmotors also allow
a low floor in the rear, and improve underbody aerodynamics by eliminating driveshaft,
differential, and axles. The switched reluctance motors also have low inertia rotors and no
electromagnetic loss when freewheeling.
 Proprietary innovations within the Revolution manage and distribute power
among the drive system components. Powertrain electronics are currently expensive, and
typical fuel cell systems require extensive power conditioning (using a DC -- DC converter)
to maintain a consistent voltage, since at full power, the stack voltage drops to
approximately 50% of its open circuit voltage. Hypercar, Inc. developed a power
electronics control methodology that simplifies power conditioning while optimally
allocating power flows under all conditions. This cuts the size of the fuel cell DC -- DC
converter by about 84%, reducing system cost, and improves power distribution efficiency,
increasing fuel economy. The normal doubling of radiator size for a fuel cell vehicle doesn't
handicap the Revolution because its tractive load, hence stack size, are reduced more than
that by superior platform physics. The Revolution's cooling system efficiently regulates the
temperature of each powertrain component without resorting to multiple cooling circuits,
which would add weight and cost.
The common-rail cooling has a branch for each main powertrain component and
a small secondary loop for passenger compartment heating. This loop also includes a small
hydrogen-burning heater to supply extra start-up heat for the passengers when required
(though this need is minimized by other aspects of thermal design). The variable-speed
coolant pump, larger-diameter common rail circuit, and electrically actuated thermostatic
valves ensure sufficient cooling for all components without excessive pumping energy.
The Revolution's fuel economy was modelled using a second-by-second
vehicle physics model developed by Forschungsgesellschaft Kraftfahrwesen mbH Aachen
(`FKA'), Aachen, Germany. All fuel-economy analyses were based on the US EPA
highway and urban driving cycles, but with all speeds increased by 30% to emulate real-
world driving conditions. Each driving cycle was run three times in succession to minimize
any effect of the initial LLD state of charge on the fuel economy estimate. In addition to
fuel economy, Hypercar, Inc. simulated how well the Powertrain would meet such load
conditions as start-off at grade at gross vehicle mass, acceleration at both test and gross
vehicle mass, and other variations to ensure that the vehicle would perform well in diverse
driving conditions. Illustrating the team's close integration to achieve the whole-vehicle
design targets, the powertrain team worked closely with the chassis team to exploit the
braking and steering capabilities allowed by all-wheel electric drive to create redundancy
in these safety-critical applications. The powertrain, packaging, and chassis teams also
worked closely together to distribute the mass of the Powertrain components throughout
the vehicle in order to balance the vehicle and keep its centre of gravity low.
Structure
Aluminium and composite front end
The front end of the Revolution body combines aluminium with advanced
composites using each to do what it does best (Fig 4). The front bumper beam and upper
energy-absorbing rail are made from advanced composite. The rest of the front-end
structure is aluminium, with two main roles: to attach all the front-end Powertrain and
chassis components, and as the primary energy-absorbing member for frontal collisions
greater than 24 km/h. Aluminium could do both tasks with low mass, low fabrication cost
(simple extrusions and panels joined by welding and bonding), and avoidance of the more
complex provision of numerous hardpoints in the composite structure.

Aluminium And Composite Front End

Composite safety cell

The overarching challenge to using lightweight materials is cost-effectiveness.
Since polymers and carbon fibre cost more per kilogram and per unit stiffness than steel,
their structural design and manufacturing methods must provide offsetting cost reductions.
Hypercar, Inc.'s design strategy minimized the total amount of material by optimal
selection and efficient use; simplified and minimized assembly, tooling, parts handling,
inventory, scrap, and processing costs; integrated multipurpose functionality into the
structure wherever practical; and employed a novel manufacturing system for fabricating
the individual parts.
Occupant environment
The occupant environment typically accounts for 30% of the mass and cost of
a new vehicle. Since it is also what users most intimately experience, automakers pay close
attention to design for aesthetic appeal, ergonomics, and comfort.
The result: much of the inner surface of the carbon-fibre safety cell is exposed to
the interior, and energy-absorbing trim is applied only where needed to meet FMVSS
requirements (Fig 5). The carbon fibre `look' is becoming increasingly popular in several
automotive and non-automotive markets, so this feature should meet all requirements
(light weight, aesthetically appealing, low cost, and safe) though it may not fit the tastes of
all market segments. Other interior safety features integrated into the Revolution include
front and side airbags, pretension seatbelts, and sidestick control of steering, braking, and
acceleration. While using a sidestick to control automobiles may take some time to gain
wide consumer acceptance, its safety benefits are compelling. It gets rid of the steering
column and pedals -- the leading sources of injury in collisions because they are the first
things that the driver hits. Without these obstacles, the seat belt and airbag system have
more room to decelerate the driver more gently. This is especially important for short
drivers who typically have to pull their seat far forward in order to reach the pedals, putting
them dangerously close to the airbag in conventional vehicles.

Revolution Interior
In the Revolution, the seat does not adjust forward and back, only vertically,
so drivers of all sizes will be the same distance from the airbags, improving its deployment-
speed calibration and increasing overall safety. Sidesticks also improve accident avoidance.
Studies have shown that after a short familiarization period, sidestick drivers
 Much better at performing emergency evasive manoeuvres than are stick-andpedal
drivers, due to finer motor control in hands than in feet, and greater speed and ease of eye-
hand . .
. Head foot coordination. Clearly, more work would be required in this area for
sidesticks to be feasible, but for the purposes of this concept vehicle, the team could
demonstrate sufficient safety benefits to keep them in the final design. DaimlerChrysler,
BMW, and CitroÈ en appear to share this view.
Another user interface safety feature is the LCD screen that replaces
numerous traditional gauges and displays. Placing the screen at the base of the windshield,
centred on the driver's line of sight, allows the driver to change any vehicle settings via a
common interface without greatly shifting the driver's viewline or focal distance. The
multi-function display and the software-rich design of the vehicle also add such non-safety
benefits as the ability to customize the interface and add new softwarebased services
without adding new hardware.

To adjust settings, the driver or passenger would use voice commands or a small pod
with four buttons and a jogwheel located in the centre console between the front seat
occupants.

The buttons govern climate control, entertainment, navigation, and general settings,
while the jogwheel is used to navigate menus and select options. The menu structure is
simple and intuitive, with options for user control of distraction level and data privacy.

Climate control

The climate control strategy illustrated in the Revolution design is intended to

deliver superior passenger comfort using one-fourth or less of the power used in
conventional vehicles. This required a systematic approach to insulation, low thermal mass
materials, airflow management, and an efficient air conditioning compressor system. The
foamcore body, the lower-than-metal thermal mass of the composites, ambient venting,
and spectrally selective glazings greatly reduce unwanted infrared gain, helping cooling
requirements drop by a factor of roughly 4.5. Power required for cooling is then further
reduced by heat-driven desiccant dehumidification and other improvements to the cooling-
system and air-handling design.
 The chassis system combines semi-active independent suspension at each
corner of the vehicle, electrically actuated carbon-based disc brakes, modular rear corner
drivetrain hardware and suspension, electrically actuated steering, and a high- efficiency
run-flat wheel and tyre system. This combination can provide excellent braking.

Suspension

The Revolution's suspension system combines lightweight aluminium and

advanced-composite members with four pneumatic/electromagnetic linear-ram
suspension struts developed by Advanced Motion Technology, a pneumatically variable
transverse link at each axle, and a digital control system linked to other vehicle
subsystems (Figure 7). The linear rams comprise a variable air spring and variable
electromagnetic damper. The pressure in the air spring can be increased or decreased to
change the static strut length under load and to adjust the spring rate. The resistance in the
damper can be varied in less than one millisecond, or up to 1000 times per vertical cycle
of the strut piston. The overall suspension system takes advantage of the widely and, in
the case of damping, rapidly tunable characteristics of these components. Thus the same
vehicle can pass terrain that requires high ground clearance, but also ride lower at
highway speeds to improve aerodynamics and drop the center of mass.

Revolution Chasis System

Each strut is linked transversely (across the vehicle) to counter body roll . The
link itself is isolated so that a failure that might compromise anti-roll stiffness would not
compromise the pneumatic springs. Hydraulic elements connect the variable pneumatic.
 Element at the center of the transverse link to the left and right struts. The stiffness of
the transverse link is adjusted by varying the pressure in the isolated pneumatic segment.
Oversized diaphragms reduce the pressure required in . .

Minimizing the energy required to tune the anti-roll characteristics. The anti-roll
system works in close coordination with the individual electromagnetic struts to control
fast transients in body roll and pitch during acceleration, braking, cornering, and
aerodynamic inputs. .

Brakes

The Revolution's brakes combine electrical actuation with carbon/carbon brake

pads and rotors to achieve high durability and braking performance at low mass. The front
brakes are mounted inboard to reduce unsprung mass. Carbon/carbon brakes' non-linear
friction properties depending on moisture and temperature are compensated by the
electronic braking control, because the caliper pressure is not physically connected to the
driver's brake pedal, so any nonlinearities between caliper pressure and stopping force are
automatically corrected. Electrical actuation also eliminates several hydraulic components,
which saves weight, potentially improves reliability, and allows very fast actuation of anti-
lock braking and stability control. The brake calipers and rotors should last as long as the
car.

Steering

The Revolution's steer-by-wire system has no mechanical link between the

driver and the steered wheels. Instead, dual electric motors apply steering force to the
wheels through low-cost, lightweight bell cranks and tubular composite mechanical links.
This design permits continuously adjustable steering dynamics and maintains Ackerman
angle over a range of vehicle ride heights, in a modular, energy-efficient, and relatively
low cost package.
 Steer by Wire System

Wheel and tyre system

Hypercar collaborated closely with Michelin on the design of the wheel and tyre
system for the Revolution. The PAX1 run-flat tyre system reduces rolling resistance by
15%, improves safety and security (all four tyres can go flat, yet the vehicle will still be
driveable at highway speeds), and improves packaging (no need for a spare). The PAX
technology is slightly heavier per corner than conventional wheel/tyre systems, but
eliminating the spare tyre reduces total net mass.

Power distribution, electronics, and control systems

The Revolution's electrical and electronic systems are network- and busbased,
reducing mass, cost, complexity, failure modes, and diagnostic problems compared with
traditional dedicated point-to-point signal and power wiring and specialized connectors.
The new architecture also permits almost infinite flexibility for customer and aftermarket
provider upgrades by adding or changing software. In effect, the Revolution is designed
not as a car with chips but as a computer with wheels.

Control system architecture and software

The vehicle control system architecture relies on distributed integrated control.

Intelligent devices (nodes) perform real-time control of local hardware and communicate
via multiplexed communications data links. Nodes are functionally grouped to
communicate with a specific host controller and other devices using well- developed
controller-area-network (CAN) or time-triggered network protocols. (The latter includes
redundant hardware and deterministic signal latencies to ensure accurate timely control.
 steering, braking, and airbag deployment.) Each host controller manages the
objectives of the devices linked to it. Host controllers of different functional groups are
mounted together in a modular racking system and communicate via a high-speed data
backplane. This modular, three-level architecture provides local autonomous real-
time control, data aggregation, centralized control of component objectives,
centralized diagnostics, and high reliability and resilience. The central controller
runs additional services and applications related to the operation of the vehicle
entertainment systems and data communications. It also provides a seamless graphical user
interface to all systems on the vehicle for operation and diagnostics.

This system, developed in collaboration with Sun Microsystems and STMicro-

electronics has many advantages. First, networking allows data to be shared between
components and aggregated to create knowledge about the car's behaviour and its local
environment and to create new functions in the vehicle.
The central controller and user interface and the user communications are all
handled by a Java embedded server developed by Sun Microsystems and conforming to
the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGI) standard. This network-centric approach
provides high security, resilience, and reliability. .

Power distribution
All non-traction power is delivered via a 42-volt ring-architecture power bus,
providing fault-tolerant power throughout the vehicle. Components are connected to the
ring main via junction boxes distributed throughout the vehicle, via either a sub- ring (to
maintain fault-tolerance to the device) or a simple branch line for non-fault- tolerant
devices. The junction boxes are fused so that power can be supplied to the branches from
either leg of the ring main. The benefits of this system include low mass, high energy
efficiency, fault-tolerance, simplicity, and cost-effectiveness.

Cost analysis
Given the many new technologies in the Revolution, one might wonder how
much such a vehicle might cost to produce. Answering this question was one of the main
goals of the Revolution development programme, which was explicitly designed around
cost criteria. The engineering team estimated the vehicle's production cost at a nominal
volume of 50 000 units per year, using extensive anonymous supplier price quotations (for
82% of the components), plus some in-house and independent consultants' bottom-up cost
modelling for technologies not yet in production. As designed, the vehicle.
 CONCLUSION

The automobile industry is on the threshold of potentially dramatic change in

its materials use and platform design. Ultralight-hybrid hypercars, using advanced
composites for the auto body, may be more attractive to the consumer, just as profitable to
the producer, and much friendlier to the environment than conventional cars. With careful
design and the industrialization of recycling technologies, hypercars may even increase the
recyclability of cars in the future. Hypercars’ reduced power requirements could make the
drivesystem smaller and simpler, enabling components to be modular for easy removal and
upgrading.
Hypercars using fuel cells are very heavy and very expensive nowadays.
Therefore using composite materials for body parts may not reduce the mass of the body
to the desirable extent. Yet Hypercar vehicles could adopt the fuel cells, because their much
lower power requirements would require far less fuel-cell capacity than a heavy, high-drag
conventional car.