Hyundai QarmaQ’s Plastic Skin: Reduces Weight, Saves Gas

[LSK]

Any concept vehicle with a name derived from the word the Inuit’s use for their dwellings made of Earth, whalebone, and animal skins is bound to be interesting. Hyundai Europe's Design and Technical Center in Russelsheim, Germany partnered with GE Plastics in the Netherlands to create the QarmaQ – a quirky looking Crossover Coupé concept.

One of the QarmaQ’s key features is its innovative use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles to create a large portion of the vehicle’s skin. GE says the use of plastics, instead of more traditional metal and glass, gives the vehicle a 130-pound weight savings. That weight loss equates to 20 gallons a year savings in gas, not to mention fewer plastic bottles clogging up the local landfill. These numbers are nothing to scoff when you think of all the cars on the road.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/geneva_auto_show_2007/73/hyundai-qarmaqs-plastic-skin-reduces-weight-saves-gas

[opihimoimoi]

1. Its a start...we need less cars and more efficiency....more miles to a gallon

80+ MPG should be a goal...

[The2ndWheel]

2. More efficiency will bring more cars

80 miles to a gallon will bring more travel, longer travel, and more people traveling more often and longer distances. Then we'll need to build more roads. Then we'll have to build more places for those roads to take us while we're traveling more often and further each day. Then we'll need more efficiency. That will create more cars, more travel, longer travel, more roads, more places.

What is needed is fewer cars and less efficiency. However, that would never sit too well. Only the elite and wealthy could travel then, and the middle class has as much right to travel as the top class. The lower class(must exist with a "middle" class by definition) has to be pulled along, because they have as much right to a middle class lifestyle, which has the right to a top class lifestyle.

The question that needs to be asked; has efficiency led to a decrease or increase in overall energy use? The answer to that question explains why efficiency will not help. Well, depending on what the goal of efficiency is.

[LSK]

3. well, does anyone keep mileage statistics???

Considering Europeans already have very high mileage cars and much higher gas prices, maybe theres some statistic on miles/person/year for the US vs EU.

Auto travel has been very cheap in the US up until recently, so I think we are at the max of Americans traveling. I dont think building more efficient cars will increase the amount of miles traveled vs what we already did in the 90s when the price of gas was around $1.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Then why would we need more efficient cars?

"Auto travel has been very cheap in the US up until recently, so I think we are at the max of Americans traveling."

If we can't travel any more than we have, why go through the process of making cars more efficient? Why waste the energy? If we're at the max now, no matter how efficient we get, don't we end up losing? Is the goal of efficiency to waste energy to just stay in a steady state(over time, quite likely)? Or is the point of it to get more for less?

"I dont think building more efficient cars will increase the amount of miles traveled vs what we already did in the 90s when the price of gas was around $1."

Again, then why go to all that trouble? If we've hit a wall, why make our wall hitting more efficient? You're now increasing complexity and getting less and less of a return.

"Considering Europeans already have very high mileage cars and much higher gas prices, maybe theres some statistic on miles/person/year for the US vs EU."

You have to think there's a stat like that out there somewhere. We've categorized and numbered almost every aspect of existence, why wouldn't we do the same for this? There would be variables obviously. Taxes, geography(the EU isn't quite one entity yet the way the US is), population, I'm sure there would be others.

[Nihil]

9. Why? Try "to consume less"?

> If we can't travel any more than we have, why go through the process
> of making cars more efficient? Why waste the energy?

Your second question actually answers your first one.
Making cars more efficient whilst not increasing the amount of travel
will reduce the amount of energy wasted.

The fact that you have asked that question suggests that you are American.

(Yes, I know that many of you - especially on this forum - are excellent on
environmental issues but this attitude encapsulates the "typical American"
as seen by the rest of the world ... "Why use less fuel?" presented as a
serious question FFS ...)

[The2ndWheel]

11. But we will travel more

That's the whole point of making things more efficient.

[Nihil]

13. Only in circular arguments

I disagree with
> (Travelling more is) the whole point of making things more efficient.

The whole point of making things more efficient is to waste less.

Now your assumption that "by wasting less that means we have to travel
more to consume the same amount of input" is what I'm questioning.

I am saying that by travelling the same amount - i.e., not changing
your lifestyle in that respect - then being more efficient is reflected
in wasting less energy.

You are saying that by having this greater efficiency, people will
automatically change their lifestyle to travel more than at present
(thus negating the saving in energy and leading to the additional
congestion etc. that you mentioned earlier).

My argument is that if someone is prepared to change their lifestyle
in order to deliberately waste more fuel then they can damn well change
their lifestyle in the other direction instead as "the American way
of life" has obviously become negotiable after all!

(FWIW, if your "increasing efficiency = increasing mileage" assumption
was valid then there would be fewer miles driven each year in a SUV than
in the original Model T Ford ...!)
:hi:

[The2ndWheel]

14. I don't even own a car

I pretty much walk everywhere, in any type of weather. As you can guess, I am a ladies man, and I have to keep the ladies away from me with a shotgun. Seriously, ladies, you're all over me.

"The whole point of making things more efficient is to waste less."

Yes, but at the same time getting more out of it. It may just be an American thing. Might be why we use 25% of the world's energy.

"I am saying that by travelling the same amount - i.e., not changing
your lifestyle in that respect - then being more efficient is reflected
in wasting less energy."

Agreed. You just have to be positive that people won't ever travel one extra mile. Or add another mile since they already added that first extra mile. But then what's a third mile going to cost? Again, it could be an American thing. It could be that our energy costs don't have the taxes added on the way European countries do it. The cheaper something is, the more of it will be used.

"You are saying that by having this greater efficiency, people will
automatically change their lifestyle to travel more than at present"

If it's cheaper, yes.

"My argument is that if someone is prepared to change their lifestyle
in order to deliberately waste more fuel then they can damn well change
their lifestyle in the other direction instead as "the American way
of life" has obviously become negotiable after all!"

Sure, they can. That hasn't really been the case for the last few thousand years, but they can.

"(FWIW, if your "increasing efficiency = increasing mileage" assumption
was valid then there would be fewer miles driven each year in a SUV than
in the original Model T Ford ...!)"

Except that we made getting the energy more efficient(cheaper...in economic terms, not habitat terms), which made the SUV possible.

[Odin2005]

10. You are truely mad.

"Jevon's Paradox" is over-rated.

[The2ndWheel]

12. Very possible

Still, after we've made improvments in efficiency, is there anything that we've used less of?

[LiberalEsto]

4. What about safety?

How will it hold up in a crash?

[LSK]

5. airbags? lots of cars are moving to plastics/composite materials lately

[Massacure]

6. I doubt the skin material matters much. It's usually the frame that takes up the impact.

And that as far as I can tell is still steel.

[phantom power]

7. I have to ask. Is saving one tankful of gas per year worth the other tradeoffs?

I mean, if the goal was fuel efficiency, that's not a big win. The recycling angle is nice, but other materials can be recycled too.