BMW Introduces GINA Concept Car, Covered In Fabric 347
smithtuna33 writes "Ever wondered what the metal skin on your car is actually good for? Engineers at BMW have decided that fabric might work just as well. The doors literally peel away from the side of the car, the engine bay opens up down the middle, and pretty much everything (such as headlamps) is hidden until the fabric reveals it. It is a stunning concept that has already been influencing BMW's designs. The video is well worth watching."
Re:Finally.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the most obvious danger would be someone taking a knife to the skin to break into the car and hotwire it. Or is this material stronger than that?
Re:Very cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finally.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm more concerned about security. Would this feature make it easier to break into my car? Would it make it easier to sabotage or steal from my engine? My gas tank?
Skin-schmin (Score:5, Interesting)
Moving forward, the skin of this car is almost purely for aerodynamic effect. There is a certain amount of visual additive, and it keeps the wind and dirt off the occupants. In reference to other mechanical value, there are plenty of cars which have no skin at all and are faster than pretty much any other production road going vehicle. Ariel's Atom [arielmotor.co.uk], to name one. Cars don't need skins. Hell, look at motorcycles. The passengers aren't even contained in the vehicle!
I think it's an awesome idea. Of course, my current roadster is paint chipped all to hell and being able to replace body panels of fabric would be rather appealing, but think about washing your car. Strip it down like bed sheets and throw the skin in the washing machine. Want a new paint job? Maybe a thousand dollars of fabric, or perhaps even just a dye job. You could change your car's color in a matter of minutes.
That brings up a really interesting point. How do the police identify cars? Color and shape? Well those two are irrelevant with this vehicle. You can change the shape while you're moving and theoretically the color in about 10 minutes, I figure. It goes into a parking garage as a red roadster and comes out as a green pickup truck.
Most importantly, and realistically, I'm sure the weight savings are impressive. And saving weight improves performance both in the go fast and the save fuel sense of the term. Imagine this combined with the Tesla Roadster. Shazam!
Like any good looking lady.... (Score:4, Interesting)
How the hell would you wash these things? Something makes me think that a sponge and a hose just wouldn't cut it....
Re:Appropriate name (Score:2, Interesting)
Bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finally.. (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Keying (Score:5, Interesting)
My conclusion: cloth is more resistant to minor cosmetic damage than painted sheet metal, and harder to cut than flash.*
Seriously though, cloth is actually quite resistant to things like impact and scratching, which to me sounds like a great reason to make parts which are really prone to little other than cosmetic damage out of it (keep in mind that in a serious accident, the damage which we are concerned with is not to the painted sheet metal on the outside, it's to the frame and chassis... if those are essentially undamaged, then any damage is really just cosmetic). Even a flimsy t-shirt requires some serious twisting or a tremendous amount of blunt trauma to take any noticeable damage, and something like canvas is substantially tougher, not to mention Kevlar and other synthetics which are highly resistant even to sharp trauma.
*Do not try this at home, goodness knows I didn't. All experimental data is fabricated... get it ated. I crack myself up.
Linux featured as well (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i_sZtw0edo&feature=related [youtube.com]
Re:Finally.. (Score:4, Interesting)
fabric might yeild less friction (Score:3, Interesting)
It could be possible that the right type of fabric could reduce air friction. Although water and air turbulence is different, scientists have found that dolphin skin is faster underwater [iop.org] than smooth steel-hulled craft.
Weight reduction is more valuable to fuel efficiency than reducing wind resistance. Both are important, but the biggest hit on fuel economy is generating momentum from a stop. Reducing weight reduces the energy required to put a car in motion. A BMW is going to spend more fuel going 0-30 than wind drag at 60+.
Then there's also the advantage this design would have for active aerodynamics. With a fabric skin, the body could dynamically reshape itself to create downforce only when needed, etc.
Seth
Like I needed another reason to hate Chris Bangle (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I see he can design a beautiful car.
And so all those other designs must be out of spite. Damn you, you sadistic bastard!
Re:Finally.. (Score:5, Interesting)
My favorite: Brake fluid. Very passive-agressive. Spray it on, and after a couple of days, the paint just sloughs off. I've never done it on purpose, but I did do it accidentally once 8-(.
We built racecars this way. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was on a team in college that built both hybrid-electric and straight E85 racecars. In this competition, power-to-weight and handling were everything!
So this is exactly how we built those cars. They were a space frame covered with aircraft fabric. Prior to that, we had been using fiberglass shells, but the aircraft fabric was so much lighter that I expect it's what we'll use for the foreseeable future.
After it is stretched tight over the frame and heat-shrunk, that stuff is like a drum head. I don't see flutter as a problem!
Re:Sounds interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
All that does is save a thief from looking around for a brick.
And, having slashed the bodywork apart, they'll still have to climb through/between the structural members of the car, which will remain metal.
And, THEN, they'll have the chore of hotwiring a BMW, which is easily among the most nontrivial cars to do that with.[1]
Honestly, I think brick-through-the-window is a faster method.
[1]: I spent several days reading schematics and researching the topic on Google, trying to learn how to hotwire my own 1995 BMW 325i without replacing or adding any substantial parts, in an attempt to install a remote start as cheaply and simply as possible. And while I do consider myself somewhat talented in the art, I failed miserably.
Ended up needing to buy a spare BMW key (which requires two trips to the dealer, along with the car's registration and matching photo ID).
This key now sits in a box inside of the dashboard, with a coil of wire wrapped around it to act as an antenna, and with the metal shaft of the key (the business end) cut off and discarded. A relay, controlled by the remote start box, switches between the new (additional) coil and the one which is at the ignition switch. This allows the remote starter to satisfy the car's electronic controls -- each key has a unique, RFID-esque element in it, and the car will only run if the correct key is in the ignition.
There are replacement chips for the car's ECM available which can remove this functionality (called EWS), but you've got to get under the hood to do it and the chips themselves are model-specific.
But even then, there's the trick lock cylinder on the ignition switch which freewheels if the tumblers don't get set right, so it resists conventional lock picking and screwdriver attacks very well. Plus the usual gamut of mechanical and electrical interlocks, like: Can't shift from park without key switched on. Can't shift from park without brake pedal depressed. Can't turn steering wheel with key switched off. And so on. Some of these are more interdependent than usual: You can't activate brake pedal shift interlock without having car switched on, because (somewhat atypically) the brake lights don't work without the ignition switch turned on. And on top of all that, it is also possible to set up the car so that it is necessary to enter a code number into the computer in the dashboard before the car will run, such that even physical possession of a valid key won't necessarily enable stealing a BMW without additional (nontrivial) work.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. You're getting the point. Merely having access to the inside of a 13-year-old BMW does not mean that it's suddenly easy to steal; I can't imagine what tricks they'd come up with for a fabric car if it were ever to hit production.
Re:Good god (Score:3, Interesting)