Okay, so I’m sick of this.  GM is notoriously bad.  But now even the high-end auto manufacturers are getting in on the stupidity.  I’ve just got to rant.  So let me make this one thing clear:

MAKING A CAR A HYBRID DOES NOT MAKE IT GREEN!!!!!

Say what?

Yes, you read that right.  Just because it has a hybrid logo on it, just because it has part electric power, does NOT make it green.  It does not by default make it fuel efficient.  It does not by default mean it has low emissions.

For example, here are some average gas mileage ratings of cars that actually get a high enough efficiency rating to be considered green:

Now, these cars all get above 30MPG in real-world driving, according to hybridCARS.  It is by no means an extensive list.  There are many others as well.  (And then there are the super-green cars like plug-in hybrids and electrics.)  And you’ll note that there are even diesel and normal everyday fuel cars in that list.  They don’t have to be hybrid to have a good fuel efficiency.

Now, here are some hybrids which are not green:

So I say again, just because it has a hybrid logo on it, does not make it green.

What makes a car green is that it does something for the environment.  It uses less gas.  It puts out less emissions.  There is no “in its class” beating around the bush.  Either it is green, or it isn’t.  The term “hybrid” is not some carte blanche to feel good about yourself by pretending that you care about the environment.  Slapping a “hybrid” logo onto a car does not suddenly make everything okay.

Hello, and welcome to today’s rant: Crossover.

They’re the vehicles that everyone wants.   At least I guess everyone wants them because you can’t get within two feet of any auto manufacturer (or their advertisements) without hearing that f’ing dirty word: crossover.

Why is it a dirty word?  Well, for starters, it’s grossly overused.  It’s like the new auto slang.  (Imagine Tommy Chong’s* voice here.) Hey man, dig our shiny new crossover!  It’s like, every car, all in one.  Yeah, man.  You know you want one.

Seriously.  The whole crossover concept is that well thought out.

Congratulations, now you can get a not-quite SUV that’s not going to hold quite as much, or go off-road quite as well.  But it still gets rock-bottom MPGs and looks like a__.   Or you know, any equally number of stupid combinations that make no sense to be categorized together.  It’s not a cross-over.  It’s a cross-dresser*!  It doesn’t know what it is!  And neither do we!

Hell, I’ve heard that small station wagons like the Pontiac Vibe and the Toyota Matrix are considered crossovers.  … Why?  (Let’s borrow Tommy Chong’s* voice again.) Because they’re not like full station wagons, man.  I mean look at them.  They’re tiny!

How many stupid “we don’t really know what to call it” cars are going to be categorized all together under this one dirty word: crossover?  How many does it take before the word “crossover” has absolutely no meaning whatsoever?  Why can’t we have more definitive categories like sub-SUV and mini-wagon?  And this new even dumber concept of crossing an SUV with a coup!  That’s not a crossover, that’s a station wagon!  (Or if small enough, a mini-wagon!)  It’s not an f’ing crossover!  It’s not an innovative new car design!  It’s been done to death!  You are not as bright as you think you are if you’re happy over thinking up that one!

The Crossover Vehicle - It’s a dirty word.   It’s a lazy excuse, not an actual vehicle category.  It’s a big cesspool of ineptitude in even bothering to tell consumers what it isn’t.  And in overusing it, it has become some new buzzword.  Everyone wants a crossover.  But no one defines what a crossover actually is.  So every crossover is some different Frankenstein’s monster*, but that makes each auto manufacturer happy because at least now they have their own monster in their pocket.  Some transgendered* crossdressing* monster* that just confuses everyone.

We, the consumer, demand better!  Grab your pitchforks and torches!  We will march upon their castles sales rooms and demand a more informative naming convention!

And the next time that you hear someone say the word “crossover”, slap them!  It’s a dirty word!

* Note: I have nothing against crossdressers, the transgendered, Tommy Chong, or Frankenstein’s monster. They’re all fine people in their own way, and we should consider ourselves lucky to live in a world where we have so much diversity and be glad that it takes all kinds.

** Note: That said, “crossover” is still a dirty word.

So by now, if you’re a tech geek, you should be pretty familiar with the Segway (lack of a) phenomenon.  You can hop on board one and buzz off at speed without walking.  It uses your body motions of balance as a control mechanism.  Vaguely could it be called a scooter.  More like a sci-fi scooter.  What the purpose really is, I’m not sure anyone knows.

But Toyota, never to let America pass them by in Japanese innovation, has taken the concept of the Segway seriously and, as Japan so often does, reinvented it with new refinements.  And they call their version, the Winglet.

So how is the Toyota Winglet any different? Beats me.  It’s Japanese instead of American?  They have prettier models demoing them?

But honestly, maybe that’s all the difference they need to make it work.  In Techno Tokyo streets are pretty crowded as the population is scary dense.  And there, new techno gadgets that make people happy catch on like wildfire.  So maybe the Toyota Winglet has a chance to flourish where the Segway in America is kind of more a joke that won’t die.

You never know!

I have to admit, I do kind of like the arms-free designing.

With enough practice you might never get off of one, and then your legs are free to completely atrophy!  Is walking really that much of a problem for people?

Motorcycles are great.  The wind in your hair.  The acceleration.  The maneuverability.  The gas mileage.  There’s a lot to love.

But there’s also a lot to not love so much.  Like bugs in your teeth, rain, and being turned into hamburger when some jerk in a car does something stupid.

Which is why one of my next automotive feats of engineering would be a hardtop covered motorcycle convertible.

The cover isn’t really that hard to imagine.  Two lower panels clip into place into sockets built into the bike.  These two lower panels then hold in place an upper panel that is the “door”.  I figure the upper panel would shift upwards a few inches, and then swing open on a hinge in the front so that the back end lifts up, allowing you in and out.

That part is relatively easy.

The hard part is, how do you make a completely covered motorcycle not fall over when you come to a stop?  You can’t put your feet down.  Something has got to balance the bike.

That’s where a strange idea I’ve had for a while now comes in.  The rear wheel is actually two wheels.  At high speeds they’re compressed together to act like a single wheel.  You get all of the maneuverability and driveability of a motorcycle.  But at low speeds the wheels separate enough to safely balance the bike like it was a trike.  That way you don’t have to put your feet down to balance at a stop.  You don’t even need a kick stand now.

Nifty, eh?  I’m not sure if the rear wheel expander should work by a spring (which I’m afraid might wear down over time) that the forward movement causes the spring to compress so that it expands as you slow down by mechanical force, or just a small hydraulic system that’s tied into the speedometer.  Or maybe there’s another better way to do it.  I don’t know.  Not having a shop to R&D in and tons of money to throw at projects, I can’t actually test anything.  All that I can do is dream.  But I’ve already thought of two ways that might work well.  That’s a start.

So why would you want a motorcycle that has a cover?

Well, for starters, remember this is a hard-top convertible done by removable panels.  By day it’s any ordinary motorcycle.  Well… almost.  Any ordinary motorcycle that has an expanding rear wheel so that at 10mph or less it turns itself into a trike so that you don’t have to hold up your bike at a stop sign.  But by night … or well, really, by bad weather, it offers all of the amenities of a car.

What do I mean “of a car”?

Well for starters no more bugs in the teeth.  The wind is out of your hair, so rain and windchill are no longer factors.  On top of that I figure there can be a heater and AC built in, so that especially when covered, you have those simple creature comforts.

But it’s about a lot more than comfort too.  It’s also about safety.  The panels aren’t just simple panels.  They’re a lightweight external shell suspended from a motorcycle roll cage on the inside.  So now when bike meets car, or bike meets road, the rider is offered a lot more protection than a brain bucket.  For the first time the bike actually protects from impact.  And to that end, I can even see miniature air bags arrayed in the frames to further protect the rider.  So now you not only have an all-season biking option, but you’re infinitely safer from Bad Things That Happen.

And again, when it’s a nice sunny summer day, just take off those panels and it’s basically any other motorcycle.

It’s about options.  It’s about safety.  And it’s about smaller vehicles that have better fuel economy and don’t congest the roads quite as much.

Maybe it’s crazy, but at Arah’s Automotive … who cares? 

Do you ever have ideas about things that you are dangerously undereducated on? Like you know just enough to be dangerous? Yeah, I do. And one thing I’d love to learn more on, through hands-on experience if at all possible, is exploring new and innovative automotive designs. Mostly I’m drawn to cars and motorcycles, which considering I’ve never even ridden a motorcycle may seem a tad weird. But just because I’m not an expert doesn’t mean I don’t have any ideas.

If I had millions of dollars, one of the first things I’d love to do is start my own out-of-the-box automotive design business. And one of my first R&D projects? Electric disc brakes.

Instead of a hydraulic system that pushes pistons into calipers that grab a disk, why not simply have a capacitor-backup (for safety) electro-magnetic caliper system? Imagine how much better response time an electromagnet has compared to a hydraulic piston and what that could do for traction control, anti-lock brakes, and so forth. But for that matter, imagine a system where water can’t get into a brake line because there is no brake line.

Toyota is already replacing their hydraulic power steering system with the electric power steering system that they pioneered for the Prius hybrid. They liked the electric system so much better that it’s moving into other cars now. It has fewer parts. It has less ways to break. It needs less maintenance. And best of all, it works better.

I think the same type of move could easily be done for brakes. More responsive brakes with less maintenance and failure points? Who wouldn’t want electro-magnetic brakes? Especially as more cars become hybrids, more cars are going to have electrical systems capable of supporting new ideas like this. The general concept is still ultimately the same anti-lock disc brake design. You just replace a complex and high-maintenance hydraulic system with simple maintenance-free electromagnets.

Yep. If I could open up Arah’s Automotive, electromagnetic antilock brakes would be one of my first projects.

Since I don’t have the money to do that in real life, I’ll just have to imagine. So I’m imagining Arah’s Automotive here, on my blog. This is where it begins.