GM HyWire

I'll try a little experiment and see how one of these GM/FCV threads goes without my input.

 

Let's see. They've taken one great concept: modularity, aided by the flexibility of by-wire control, and saddled it with the economically-crippling fuel-cell idea; then they've made it look very futuristic by putting brake, accelerator, and steering all on the steering "wheel," making it a car only a video-game champion could drive safely.

Sorry, Dave, I don't think GM got this one right at all.

Of course, the 7-million-dollar price will come down with mass-manufacture. I bet they could bring it to the public for around a million dollars. Maybe half a million if there's a real break-through in the manufacture of fuel cells.

 

Why does GM keep choosing names that are so easy to parody? This one's gonna be the 'Hay Wire', fer sure.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 17 2006, 05:14 PM) [snapback]334160[/snapback]</div>

Blah.

Companies have been working with accelerator and brakes on the steering wheels for decades. Saab even used to use a Joystick (not sure if the HyWire uses this or not) because (and here's the kicker Daniel) a joystick is much more natural than a wheel.

Think about it... steering wheels are holdovers from 100 years ago when to turn a carriage you turned a wheel, which turned a shaft, which via gears turned wheels. It's not really natural at all, it's just what people are used to.

Of course, this will never take off. We'll be stuck with steering wheels for the foreseeable future.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Oct 17 2006, 06:54 PM) [snapback]334263[/snapback]</div>

What I remember, the first cars were steered with a stick, not a wheel. Some looked like a crank even.

Steering wheels are what we get because it's immune to vibration and driver error (leaning). Can you imagine doing a 0.5 G turn and loosing control because you didn't hold the stick steady?

We're talking about cars piloted by anybody who can pass a simple monkey-see test and a paper test, not the rigors of hours and hours of log time like real pilots.

I vote for hours and hours of logged driving time qualifying people as better car drivers and lower insurance rates.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Oct 18 2006, 05:59 AM) [snapback]334335[/snapback]</div>

I don't think it's quite like a plane, and I don't think if you let the joystick go the wheels would just automatically recenter..

What happens if you're doing a .5G turn (which is fairly tame) with a car and let go of the steering wheel?

 

Alexander Winton:
http://www.wintonhistory.com/
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2732
http://www.pbs.org/horatio/educators/act05.html

You tell me why they gave up tiller-type steering for a steering wheel. Torque steering?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Oct 18 2006, 05:59 AM) [snapback]334335[/snapback]</div>

You obviously never drove my fathers 1971 AMC Ambassador station wagon. That car had a huge steering wheel and power steering that was so sensitive it felt like it wasn't connected to anything. You could turn the wheel effortlessly with your pinky while stopped in a parking lot. As a teenage driver, it seemed like every little bump and pot hole sent me veering to one side or the other because I couldn't keep the damn steering wheel straight.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Oct 18 2006, 12:01 PM) [snapback]334481[/snapback]</div>

Because it gave the driver more mechanical advantage than the tiller-type steering. Thereby requiring less effort to steer, permitting finer control.

A drive-by-wire system, would give you infinitely more mechanical advantage and therefore by the above reasoning, would be a much better steering system, even if it is joystick based.