The Sound Of Silence

A vehicle with an internal combustion engine produces noise – to be precise, the engine produces noise.  This is because when it’s working, the engine is continually producing controlled explosions that are used to power the vehicle. We’re all familiar with the different roars, growls and rumbles coming from different engines, with some enthusiasts being able to tell vehicles apart simply by their sounds – and some mechanics making their initial diagnoses on what the engine sounds like when it’s running. Quite a few of us have something of a fondness for different engine notes, especially those that produce low grumbling noises.

However, it’s a different story when it comes to EVs (here, we’re talking about battery electric vehicles or BEVs and hybrids when they’re running on their electric motor). Electricity makes no sound, so when an electric motor is running, there is very little noise produced. This could be though of as one of the advantages of an EV – and if you’ve tried to get some sleep when the local boy racers seem to be having a drag race on your street at 2:00 a.m., you’d probably agree. However, it can also be a disadvantage.

Pedestrians and cyclists rely on their sense of hearing a lot more than you think. Sound is often the first cue you get that a vehicle is approaching, and the sound also tells you whether it’s speeding up or slowing down, which way the vehicle is travelling and even how big it is. The art of using our ears to help us know when something’s coming is drummed into us ever since our first road safety lessons and the motto of Stop, Look and Listen.

Unfortunately, all this goes out of the window with EVs. When they’re going slowly (i.e., at below 18 km/h), they don’t make much sound at all and they’re practically silent, especially in, say, a busy supermarket carpark. At higher speeds, they aren’t so silent, as the sound of the tyres on the road (road noise) and the hiss and rush of air moving across the outside becomes a factor. Unfortunately, it’s in these low-speed environments that EVs and people are likely to come into conflict. And it can be quite dangerous.

I know this by experience. I remember a few years back, I was coming out of a supermarket and was preparing to cross the bit where the cars move (you can’t really call it a road, but you know the bit I mean). I’d looked right and seen the road was clear, then looked left and seen that there were a few cars coming along. I looked right again and saw nothing coming on that side but saw a couple of cars as they went past and away from me.  I didn’t hear anything coming from that side, so my brain told me that all the cars I had been waiting for had gone past, so I prepared to push my trolley forward.  Peripheral vision kicked in just in time to stop me walking in front of an older model EV approaching silently.

I know it had to be an older model EV, as it wasn’t until 2010 that legislative bodies in Japan, Europe and the US listened to the concerns of the visually impaired and blind community and insisted that all new EVs had to have some sort of audible warning when travelling at low speeds (including in reverse).

I think most of us who lived through the era of audible reverse warnings are grateful that the manufacturers of EVs didn’t rely on beeps or something as annoying as a neighbour I once had in his car. His played a very tinny computer-blip version of Für Elise when reversing, and this irritating tune was practically my alarm clock when my neighbour reversed out of his driveway as he headed off early to work. Elon Musk typically suggested that Tesla models should be able to produce amusing sounds as a warning, such as bleating goats, fart noises or coconut shell clippety-clop sounds. The Powers That Be in Europe, however, cracked down on that suggestion and stipulated that these low-speed warning sounds had to sound something like an actual engine. This sounds like the Powers That Be lack a sense of humour, but there is some sense to what they’re saying. For one thing, we’ve all learned the sound of an approaching car engine, so it makes sense to have the warning sound telling us that it’s a car that’s coming and not, say, a goat. If every single EV had a different sound, we’d have to somehow learn to recognize and subconsciously identify those sounds as “car coming to my left; potential threat”. It’s also been suggested by an article in The New Yorker that the growl of an engine is reminiscent of the growl of a predator, possibly triggering something primal inside us. I’m also pretty sure that farting Teslas would be funny for about five minutes, but the joke would wear off pretty quickly and just become annoying.

The designers of EVs then discovered a whole new world: the art of making an engine-like warning sound that would do its job of letting cyclists and pedestrians know a car is coming without being annoying and, well, sounding right. We respond emotionally to sounds, so designers want to come up with something that is right for their brand and image. They’ve often teamed up with composers to do this, the most notable being BMW teaming up with movie composer Hans Zimmer (composer of the music for Gladiator, some of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Man of Steel). It’s quite a process and is as much of an art as a science. Should the sound replicate the noise of an internal combustion engine perfectly, or should it sound high-tech like something out of a sci-fi movie? What frequencies and harmonics can be heard by everybody? What’s not going to send the driver nuts? How can they avoid making cities noisier than they have to be?

Here are three of the ideas that designers have come up with. Which one do you like the best?

Porsche Taycan Turbo S

Audi E-tron

Jaguar I-Pace

Spot the Difference?

Did you know that the Renault Koleos is very much a Nissan X-Trail?  Were you also aware that the current BMW 7-Series is the platform for the new Rolls-Royce Dawn?  These days car manufacturers are sharing a lot of the components that go into making a new vehicle.  A lot of the electronic systems and computer chips are shared between makes and models, even engines and an entire body platform.  As the costs of designing and building a complex new car rise, by getting together and pooling money, skills, assets, and sharing the costs of the new build, these are definitely clever ways for manufacturers to reduce their overheads, and the overall cost of designing and building a new vehicle.

Platform sharing between manufacturers and between models is, perhaps, more common than you may have thought; and particularly now more than ever.  In some cases, the similarities between a particular car, truck, or ute and its platform-twin are obvious.  However, at other times it’s not so easy to detect the resemblance.

A car’s platform is the base (including body shell, floor, and even some of the chassis and engine parts) on which it is built.  Not only can these components be common to more than one manufacturer, but they can also be shared between models in a manufacturer’s line-up.  The initial platform design and its production or engineering works can be shared across a number of different models.  Kia and Hyundai are some of the best brands at doing this sort of thing, and so too is VW.

Sharing componentry between different manufacturers/brands has to be built on an existing good business relationship.  So, when two or more automotive manufacturers with a good relationship have shared the same desire to save money, they can operate together and agree to share development costs and also essentially sell the same cars but under different badges.  Renault and Nissan are great examples of this.  Some of the most talked about illustrations of this occurring recently will have been the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ, which are essentially the same cars tarted up slightly differently.  Also, the Toyota Corolla station wagon and the Suzuki Swace (a less known model here in Australia) are exactly the same car.  Another illustration would be the awesome new Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 cars.  Also, Volvo has platformed shared quite frequently over the years.  The Global C-car Platform from Ford saw the Volvo S40 and V40 share much with the Ford Focus and Mazda 3.  Well known Hyundai and Kia have utilized several duplications of platforms for their small automobile line-up since 1997.

Having a shared engineering platform, where manufacturers build a basic foundation that can be used across many of its own models is an advantage.  The Volkswagen Group (VW), and the brands it owns, (Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda) are masters of this craft.  VW has a common practice where they will build a smaller number of platforms, but the benefits come when they will then re-purpose these platforms across their own different brands.  When VW designed and built the MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten) platform, it was shared across the Audi A3, Skoda Octavia, and Seat Leon.  Also, one of its SUV platforms is shared and utilized by the Audi Q7 and Q8, the Bentley Bentayga, the Lamborghini Urus, and Porsche’s Cayenne.

BMW’s 7-Series is the platform for the immensely luxurious and expensive Rolls Royce Dawn.  The new 7-Series is luxurious and sleek in its own right, but it is also much, much cheaper to buy – comparatively.

Some other new vehicles that are currently sharing platforms:

Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Camaro

VW Polo and Skoda Scala

Mercedes Benz GLE and Jeep Grand Cherokee

Renault Koleos and Nissan X-Trail

Fiat 500 X and Jeep Renegade

Terramechanics: The Science Of Off-Roading

A lot of us have purchased, or have considered purchasing, a 4×4 vehicle. This could be because we like the benefits of extra safety or the visibility of the higher body. Or it could be that we want to go off-road in the vehicle and do a spot of exploring. However, when we get behind the wheel of one of these vehicles and head for the nearest dirt road or river, we don’t often stop to think about all the science behind what we’re about to do. The most we might think about are things like the power and torque needed – and possibly the basic physics involved in getting over or around a gnarly bit of terrain.

However, there’s a whole branch of science related to off-road driving, known as terramechanics. In fact, there’s a specialised scientific journal on the topic. Terramechanics has been a scientific topic since the 1950s, and the concept was introduced by a Polish-born engineer by the name of Dr Bekker, who was one of the key developers of the lunar rover vehicle used on the moon. However, much of Dr Bekker’s work was more down to earth – literally.

Terramechanics, in a nutshell, is the science of how a vehicle operates off-road on rough, uneven and soft terrain. It mostly considers the interaction between the wheels and the ground, although the science also acknowledges that things like the length of the wheelbase, the torque and the ground clearance are all very important factors. However, it’s what happens where the rubber meets the (off) road that gets certain people in white coats (probably dirty white coats) very excited.

Now, if you get right into terramechanics, the maths gets pretty complicated. If you’re like me, you probably left quadratic equations behind once you left high school. However, engineers and designers in the field of terramechanics use them all the time. I won’t get into the heavy-duty maths, but here, we’ll have a little look at some of the things that get thought of when the designers are coming up not just with new 4×4 models but also with the tyres that go on them.

Vehicle-related factors

Load: the weight of the vehicle plus what’s in it – probably you, a friend, the dog and something to eat.

Contact area: Exactly how much of the tyre is touching the ground. This is affected by the design of the tyre, the width of the tyre, how much air you put in the tyre and the condition of the tread.

Rolling resistance: Also known as friction.

Torque: You knew this one was going to be important, didn’t you? That’s why the torque – the measure of rotational acceleration (rather than linear acceleration) is always given in the specs of any vehicle.

Wheel width: Put simply, more contact area means more grip.

Wheel radius: There’s a reason why 4x4s have bigger tyres, and it’s not just for better ground clearance.

Terrain-related factors

Designers have to consider these factors when they design tyres and the vehicles. As anybody who’s done any off-roading will know, not all types of terrain are created equal, and the techniques and tyres that work well with, say, snow won’t work with sand.

In fact, a lot of what goes on in terramechanics considers the properties of the soil or the other terrain (snow and sand). You might think of soil as just mud or good plain dirt, but it’s pretty complicated stuff. It’s a combination of solids (the actual particles of soil), liquids (water) and gases (air), and it’s constantly changing even in a single place, to say nothing of how soil varies from place to place. I won’t bore you with all the different factors, what they mean and how they affect each other, but some of the most important ones that researchers have to specify when they run tests of new tyre designs or even whole cars are the following:

Moisture content: How much water is in the soil at any point. This affects the shear strength of the soil, which is very important in a lot of the formulae used in terramechanics to work out whether a wheel will lose traction or not. The shear strength of anything is its ability to stand up to a force that will make it slip sideways.

Porosity: How much air is inside the soil – these pores are where the water goes when you water the garden.

Particle size and shape: How big the minute particles of soil are and what shape they are has a big influence on how the dirt sticks together, holds moisture and compacts under pressure. Most of us have known since childhood that sand and clay are very different, and this difference is mostly down to particle size and shape.

Specific gravity: How dense a substance is. Yes, this is related to the specific gravity known to home brewing enthusiasts.

After considering these basic factors, things start involving complicated equations that make my head ache.

You know, I’m kind of glad that when I go off-road driving, I don’t have to keep all these factors and the science in my head – otherwise, I’d overthink everything all the time and wouldn’t enjoy the experience. An experienced off-road driver will be able to do by feel and “instinct” (i.e. right-brain thinking) what the terramechanics expert would have to calculate. All the same, I’m glad that there are people working hard to make sure that our vehicles and the tyres on them are the safest and best they can be.

The Rise Of The South Korean Motor Industry

When I was a child, I hardly ever saw a car made in South Korea. Japanese cars, yes. They were everywhere. But cars from South Korea, no. However, after about 2000, I started seeing them everywhere. What was behind the big upsurge? Was it simply the case that I didn’t notice them on the roads, or was it that they weren’t around?

It’s certainly the case that today, South Korean cars are among the most popular best sellers on the roads. And it’s certainly true that the South Korean motor industry has absolutely mushroomed of the past 50-60 years. In fact, this is true of many industries in South Korea. Back in the 1950s, Korea had barely any heavy industry going. Today, it’s a work leader in a number of fields, including the automotive industry.

Before we go any further, quick note: to ensure that this article doesn’t fall into the TL/DR category, we’ll refer to “Korea” from here on out instead of South Korea. North and South Korea went their separate ways in 1953 at the end of the Korean Civil War, which was when the Korean motor industry got started. Given North Korea’s political stance, we don’t hear much about their cars…

Not that politics have nothing to do with the Korean motor industry. According to one historian on the topic, the Korean government played a long-term game, creating policies and strategies that guided not just the motor industry but other industry sectors (e.g., ship building) across the years.

From Zero To Hero In A Few Decades

The Korean motor industry got started in 1953 when the US military forces on bases in the South needed more spare parts for their Jeeps. They sent up a local assembly plant with the Jeep name to make these spare parts. The owners of the company also had the bright idea of using old oil drums left behind by the army to make the chassis for their own vehicles, known as the Sibal, which were very popular as taxis. And that’s where the Korean motor industry got started.

After the success of the factory for spare parts for Jeeps, other companies started looking at Korea as a location for production lines and factories – and Jeep kept on going. These were often owned by US and Japanese car companies. This went on until 1962, when the Korean government made a law meaning that foreign companies were only allowed to set up joint ventures that local automotive companies had a share in.

During this period, a surprising number of vehicles that we think of as Japanese or American were actually put together in Korea. Mazda, Nissan, Fiat and Ford were just some of them. In fact, Kia started off as an assembly plant for Mazdas, whereas Hyundai was originally a factory for producing Ford Cortinas.

However, the joint venture model wasn’t enough for the Korean government, as they wanted to stimulate the local economy and industry, and reduce the dependence on foreign companies. In 1973, they therefore switched to focus cars that were not just manufactured in Korea but developed there as well. Some of the companies began the process of developing their own products. To do this, they often copied what they had seen during the process of putting other vehicles together, with a few wee tweaks to make them unique. This often involved using licensed parts from companies outside Korea to ensure a good quality product before the final shift to coming up with their own innovations. And things took off from there!

Hyundai – A Case Study

Hyundai is a typical example of a Korean car company that went through all the stages of imitation and innovation. This company started in the late 1960s as an assembly line for the Ford Cortina. When the Korean government called for locally designed cars in the 1970s, they got licences from other companies for various technologies and developed a locally designed car, the Pony. This was followed by the Excel in 1980. Both of these used tech licensed by Mitsubishi. Because the Excel and Pony sold so well and competed with Mitsubishi, the Japanese company didn’t renew the license for any new tech. Wanting to develop further, Hyundai grabbed technological licenses from a number of different companies just in case, and also set up a training consultancy, where trainee developers headed over to Italy to learn the principles of top car design. After 18 months in Italy, these trainees came back to Korea primed with their new knowledge.

What they (and trainees from other Korean companies such as Kia and Daewoo) had learned worked well. In 1993, the Elantra was Australia’s best-selling vehicle. After Kia and Hyundai joined forces, sales of Korean cars grew even more, until, in 2010, the Sonata and Elantra got onto the list of 10 ton best sellers worldwide. In 2013, Hyundai earned more from car sales than BMW, Honda and Peugeot. In short, the Korean motor industry is a force to be reckoned with, and Korea is certainly one of the countries you should think of when you think of places where cars are made.

You may very easily have driven or owned a Korean car at some point; although I haven’t done so personally, various friends and family members have, and they found them to be sound, reliable and good to drive.

Where To (Or From) Next?

Korean cars may be here to stay, but one has to wonder who’s next? Where will our cars come from in the future? We’ve already seen a few of the Chinese players (LDV, Great Wall and its subsidiary, Haval) enter the Australian market – will we see some of the others? Geely already owns Volvo, so will we see more actual Geely vehicles? India’s another possibility, with a few Tatas and Mahindras already hitting Australian roads. Other Asian countries currently have factories assembling vehicles for other countries, so will Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia take the same route as Korea has done? What about countries from beyond Asia – are we going to drive vehicles from Brazil’s Effa or Uganda’s Kiira? Given the trend towards EVs and the fact that much of the world’s lithium for car batteries comes from African nations, I won’t be the least bit surprised if African vehicles started appearing on the market around the world in the next decade or so.