Deakin's tomorrow's car

Victorian university announces a proposal for a practical city car of the future

Microcars have gone in and out of fashion at various times over the last 100 years, from motorcycle-engined cyclecars produced in the early part of last century to the multitude of egg-shaped bubblecars popular in Europe after WWII.

Their advantages have been many, from being cheap to build and run, safer than a motorcycle yet almost as easy to park, and often providing tax or licensing benefits in that they can be registered as motorcycles.

More recently, as cities have become more congested and fuel prices have soared, car manufacturers have continued to dabble with tiny city cars, particularly motorcycle/car hybrid designs. Work continues on a safer version of the ‘tilting’, three wheel BMW Clever (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) designed by the University of Bath, while the Dutch-built, two-person Carver One with its ‘Dynamic Vehicle Control’ system achieved some success during its brief production period before the company went bust in 2009.

Now a team at Victoria’s Deakin University believes it has come up with a better, more efficient design for a three-wheel crossover vehicle that manages to “combine the best of two worlds: the fun to drive, low cost and small size of a motorcycle with the safety, comfort and ease of operation of a car”.

While admitting that car/bike hybrids aren’t new, the Deakin engineers believe they’ve solved the issues of price and safety that have plagued the commercial success of similar vehicles that have entered the market.

“What has held back the success of crossover vehicles developed in the past decade is the cost and complexity of the mechanism that allows the vehicle to tilt safely, and not roll over,” explained project leader Frank Will from Deakin’s School of Engineering.

“The principal idea is to have a tilt or stability control system which is very cheap to build, and doesn’t consume a lot of energy, because the other systems, they have extra hydraulic pumps, they have extra reservoirs, they all add weight and cost and consume energy to run.”

With the working name of ‘Tomorrow’s Car’, the Deakin microcar design, which looks a bit like a Nissan Micra sliced longwise down the middle, uses the SafeRide tilting control system developed at the University.

“This system is quite simple to manufacture, which would make the vehicle more affordable,” Will said. “And the driver would not need to put their feet on the ground to balance the vehicle, so it can be fully enclosed and include all the safety features of a normal car.”

“It also uses kinetic energy from the driver’s balancing sense in a feedback control system. This means that the driver controls the vehicle through a combination of counter-steering and balancing through body movements, similar as for a push bike. The SafeRide system only kicks in during critical situations, for example at very low speeds, on slippery surface or during side wind.”

“The other advantage is you also have (an) automatic feedback control built in, which indicates to the driver the point at which the vehicle becomes a bit unstable and therefore shows you what the limits of the vehicle are. You don’t get that in any of the others, especially the Carver, where you just drive it like a normal car until basically the wheels start to slip...”

Apart from the SafeRide system, which would allow the vehicle to drive like a normal motorcycle, the two-seat Tomorrow’s Car would offer other benefits including small width for easy parking, an electric or fuel efficient petrol engine delivering less than 2.5L/100km, and a protective exterior similar to a small car with impact zones and collision protection as well as seatbelts, airbags and anti-skid braking.

Anticipated performance from the three-wheeler (two at the front, one at the back) is sub-10 seconds for 0-100km/h and 130km/h top speed. Pricing could be anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 depending on country of manufacture.

According to Will, if it makes it to production, the Tomorrow’s Car would fill a gap in the market for alternative and efficient means of transport.

“Small, safe, affordable and energy efficient vehicles are needed to alleviate the emissions and traffic and parking issues experienced today, particularly in large cities around the world,” he said.

So far, the basic function of the SafeRide system has been demonstrated on a three-wheeled scooter, and the University is currently looking for a funding, research and manufacturing partner to progress to the next, prototype stage.

“We have some companies that have some interest, for example I’m going to India in October to talk to a couple of companies and we’ll see what the outcome will be,” Will said.

 “The next stage is to build a fully functional prototype with production capable safety components so that the vehicle can be driven on public roads to participate in fuel economy competitions and to generate more market research data.”

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