If a time traveler from the 1940s popped into the present and casually driven an automobile, he might think at first that nothing much had changed much with man’s favorite conveyance. They still have foot pedals, a steering wheel and four tires. He’ll think otherwise once he starts looking under the skin. Today’s buyers expect significant technological advances from one generation of car to the next, which can usually take as little as four years. Rapid advances in computer technology and mechanical design allow carmakers to introduce features that were previously only science fiction. We look back at 2003 and some of the technologies that entered the mainstream.
01. Adaptive Headlamps. Turn into a corner and observe where your headlamps are pointed. They’re aimed where the car body is, not into the corner, where you’re headed. They would be much more effective if they could turn with the steering. The idea is not new; innovator Preston Tucker had a swiveling headlamp in his 1948 Torpedo. The feature is rapidly gaining ground. Mercedes-Benz installed one in the new E, and BMW has also equipped its new 5. The system works by using a computer to actively measure the steering wheel angle. As the steering wheel is turned, so too are the headlamps by means of electric motors. The Hella-Mercedes-Benz system also takes into account the speed at which the car is turning. During high-speed driving, the headlamps follow the steering-wheel angle almost instantaneously, while at slower speeds, the mechanism follows at a more modest rate—this allows the driver to relate to the beam pattern changes. Result: Illumination of the traffic lane increases by up to 90 percent, and seeing into the corner becomes a reality.
02. Hybrid vehicles. If we all lived in Utopia, then we’d probably be driving around in non-polluting, energy-efficient electric cars. (If we didn’t have a transporter beam handy.) Since we are in the real world, where even your cell phone dies after a few hours of use, we know that we can’t trust our vehicles to be run by batteries. Clever engineers have instead brought us gasoline-electric hybrids. These have engines that are a little smaller than they should be, because in line with the gasoline engine is an electric motor that can kick in to assist acceleration. Toyota’s Prius runs only on the electric motor at low speeds to further conserve fuel, with the gasoline taking over as speeds build. The gasoline engine does the charging of the batteries, so no plugging in is necessary. Proponents of small, fuel-efficient diesel engines may snicker at the complexity of these gasoline-electric hybrids, but where’s the fun and innovation in that? Hybrid cars also incorporate other useful technologies, such as regenerative braking, where previously wasted energy is used to recharge the batteries. Hybrid cars such as the midsize Prius (23.3 km/liter), Honda Civic Hybrid (21.6 km/l) and Insight (28 km/l) are among the most fuel-efficient automobiles on the market.
03. Brake by Wire. Would you feel comfortable knowing that your brake pedal doesn’t really push anything but is just a switch for the computer to activate the brakes? Borrowing a page from the aerospace industry, Mercedes-Benz engineers have put into production a completely brake-by-wire system called Servotronic for the new SL and E-class. Indeed, the brake pedal merely signals the computer, and the computer then actuates servomotors at each wheel to start putting pressure on the brake discs. The response time is reportedly quicker than a conventional hydraulic system. The computer can also detect moisture on the brake discs and lightly wipe away the water with no intervention required from the driver. A quick release of the brake pedal also prompts a “get-ready” mode where the brake pressure lines are charged, ready for full application of braking force. This can reduce the distance of a full emergency stop. In practice, most publications have reported that the new system is far from smooth and feels artificial. As with most computer-assisted devices, one or two more generations of development and it should be quite smooth as well as effective. We will then wonder how we managed without it.
04. Audi Direct-Shift Gearbox. Few tactile pleasures can match the feel of a good manual shifter, but they can be a pain in heavy traffic. The next best thing is an automated manual—you still command the shifting but don’t need to press on a clutch pedal. BMW’s Sequential Manual Gearbox and Ferrari’s F1 shift, among others, use a conventional manual gearbox with hydraulic actuators engaging and disengaging the clutch and selecting the gears. Paddles behind the steering wheel or a toggle-type shifter act as switches to direct the action. These systems usually incorporate a full-auto and a quicker-shifting sport mode.
Audi’s Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG) is an advancement in sequential manuals because the shift action is much smoother and operation is just like a Tiptronic-style auto. DSG has two multiplate clutches and six gears. It also has two input shafts, one to handle the odd-numbered gears, the other the evens. The car of course starts off with one gear engaged. As revs build to the next gearshift point, the next higher gear is preselected but its clutch kept disengaged. The shift takes place by engaging the clutch of the preselected gear and disengaging that of the current gear with some overlap. The gear change takes fractions of a second and there’s no palpable loss of drive during the shift.
05. Continously Variable Transmission. Automatic transmissions are not only a relief during the daily grind on EDSA but they also allow a driver to concentrate on steering and accelerating a vehicle. Conventional automatics use sets of planetary gears to alter ratios. These tend to be heavy and bulky. One possible answer is the Continuously Variable Transmission, which made its Philippine debut this year in the Mitsubishi Lancer, then in the Honda City. CVT eliminates the numerous gears in a conventional automatic and instead uses a steel belt wrapped around two conical pulleys. Each pulley has two separate halves, and by controlling the distance between the halves, the pulley diameters are effectively varied to produce infinitely (thus, continuously) variable drive ratios. Because the transmission slides smoothly from one ratio to another, there is no shift shock. Most CVTs also do without a torque converter and this lessens power loss and improves fuel economy. CVTs can hold an engine at a certain rpm where it’s generating the most torque, thus providing optimum acceleration. This however gives the strange sensation of a car accelerating while the engine speed stays the same. If the future begins to feel too weird, Mitsubishi and Honda thoughtfully provided a “geared” mode for their CVTs, where the engine is allowed to accelerate and drop revs just like with a conventional auto.
By Jason Ang | Photos Courtesy of Automotive Media Sites
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