It's never the design that keeps things out of production, we engineers can
always make it work, and pass those silly government requirements; its
the cost that keeps it out. If the gullwing door costs $100 more to manufacture,
and the manufacturer makes 100,000 (a reasonable estimate for a pass car) a
year,
thats $10 million in pure profit they are throwing out the window. So if the
customer
will accept a standard door, the manufacturer won't spend the extra money.
I was actually more interested in the kinematics of their hinge design. If you
go to Volvo's
website you can see a little more of the detail. It looks much more complex
than the
Bricklin's, and it looks like they are probably using linear actuators instead
of hydraulics or
pneumatics.
Seth
#1544
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 5/22/2004 at 10:45 AM High Tech Coatings wrote:
>Good luck getting it past side impact standards and having a door light
>enough to be suspended by the tiny supports shown on the prototype. The
>concept probably has composite doors and weigh next to nothing but won't
>come close to meeting standards. The door doesn't seem to have enough front
>or rear overlap to keep it in place during side impact. Then again I'm no
>engineer .....but I can spell it!
>
>
>> Volvo has been showing a gull wing concept car that they are considering
>for
>> production.
>> http://www.motoring.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=751&fArticleId=364070
>>
>> Scott Isensee
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