Lightened Bodyshell been done yet, comments please

We could drill a bunch of big holes in it and cover it with carbon fiber.

I would be interested in lightening a car.

Creature comforts account for a lot of weight.

let me know if you need any help.

Truth of the matter is that the car is already paper thin and there would be no upholstery left.

I would not change the windows or any design structure unless you want to put a Prius engine in a carbon fiber chassis car.

The most weight saved in the body panels would be the doors if they were carbon fiber that would help.

Thing is the car is probably so light now that is you lighten it more you loose safety ratings.

Side by side crash test would be different.

When they start building carbon fiber cars the doors will still weigh a lot.layball:

I bet that the Prius would get over 100 mpg lightened up a bit.

Franklin

 

I'd like to puncture some mis-conceptions here. Carbon fibre body panels will end up about the same weight as aluminum body panels (ie - 3rd gen RX-7 has an aluminum hood - aftermarket carbon fibre hood is the same weight).

So punching out the hood or hatch and covering with carbon fibre will not gain you anything.

I'd start by making replacement underhood bracketry out of aluminum. It's easy and very effective, though you will probably only be able to loose about 20 lbs. I suspect you might be able to loose another 80 lbs or so by removing seats etc. Be aware, the Prius stock seats are already pretty light.

I doubt taking off 100 lbs will gain a lot of mileage. Certainly the Volk eco wheels will help. Rotating momentum is a multiplied loss every time you have to change speed.

 

Dude If I made a 1000 lb Prius including drive train it would bounce like a ping pong ball if it got hit.

OOPS I forgot about the batteries. Maybe add 200 lbs or more.

The weight of the batterys will play into the desighn and effect of crash worthy ness.

 

Hi All,

This would take a serious designer, but I think a good place to lighten up the Prius would be the torsion beam rear axle. Carbon Fiber, or titanium, or both.

Are carbon/carbon brake rotors lighter than iron ?

How about tubular titanium half shafts?

As to glazing, Polycarbonate is the lightweight plastic of choice for cars. Been used in various concept cars so far.

Carbon Fiber doors make sense.

Not too much sound deadening to take out of a Prius (any?). There is a insulation panel under the hood, but its there for thermal as much as sound insulation. Pretty light weight.

 

So far the lowest RR tires I've seen are the Bridgestone B381s. Most all of the other true low RR tires that were developed in the 80s and 90s have been discontinued. What are advertised today as low RR or mileage enhancing tires seem to have coefficients of 0.85-0.95. The B381s come in at 0.0062-0.0065 depending on whose data you look at. Looks like the stock tires (at least US oem) are pretty decent at 0.00758 as well.
Low-rolling resistance tires - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Down side to the B381s is they only come in one size, and its a 14". The good thing is the revs/mile is almost exactly the same as the Prius stock tire. Might be a good opportunity to shed some wheel weight as well. They are not cheap but both Enkei and Superlite make sub 10 lb 14" racing wheels that might work.

Its my understanding that the Prius does not currently use any aluminum body panels, although they are a somewhat lighter than usual steel. Still, I would think you could save a fair deal of weight there. Particularly if you don't need all the added weight to make the rear doors functional. I'm sure the weight of the hatch is significant as well. As I understand the big challenge is that a good deal of the Prius' structural strength comes from the body shell itself. Still, with careful bracing, I'm sure that you could even reduce weight there while maintaining strength.

I would think there is a lot of room for simplification under the hood as well. Obviously shedding all the AC equipment would be a good start. I would think that in your climate the cooling system could also be stripped back. Maybe even just two small plastic intercoolers would cut it in place of the existing two part radiator? Given that a number of folks over here are running with their grills completely blocked up into the 50s and 60s F it seems like their must be a lot of margin there. The coolant storage system would probably be another thing to consider tossing, though you might need to add a block heater to keep your warmup times down as that could end up costing you more fuel than you save.

You might consider having a chat with this gentleman, as he chops up Priuses and puts them back together for a living. He'd probably have some very good insights on what stuff weighs, and what you can do without. Steve is a good guy, and has been a big help to a number of folks on the forum. He's also working on PHEV conversions, so you know his interest is in the right place.
Autobeyours Salvage and Rebuildable Prius cars

I look forward to seeing how this project goes!

Rob

 

Hood and trunk


Yeah a drag strip Prius