Hacker News Reader

Comment by eiji | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry but my first reaction is "What a waste". Titanium is ridiculously expensive for various reasons. The best these engineers could come up with is to put a sheet of metal under the car? You got to be kidding me. I see why they have to use Titanium for it, anything else doesn't work, but it shows how far away this car is from reality and from true mass production.

View on HN

My feelings too. However, as much as I like steel, I find it incredible that most cars use very heavy materials, e.g. steel, instead of aluminium, plastic, carbon fibre and titanium. Such materials are common on bicycles and planes.

Moving a tonne or two of steel around is a real waste, particularly when it rusts. At least with this wondercar the bottom is flat and aerodynamically sound, unlike all of those legacy vehicles out there.

Well, it's not like they can just redesign the entire platform at this point. Slapping some titanium on is probably the best move they can make right now. It should satisfy any government and customer concerns for a problem that was pretty rare to begin with.

As for the other materials we've been using them sparingly in vehicles. The new Ford F150 is using much more aluminum, enough to bring the weight down by about 900 pounds. Yet people are still criticizing aluminum as a material choice. It's not hard to see that aluminum, carbon fiber and other light weight materials are the future of vehicles. Yet some people are still afraid because they associate heavy steal with strength. That aluminum hood is the only part on my old truck that is not rusting through. Lighters, stronger, no rust. Where is the negative?

I think the concerns of the aluminum body panels on the new F-150 is specific to this segment (trucks). Utility vehicles are expected to take more abuse. Getting hit with tools/logs/ladders/etc. isn't uncommon and people are afraid their truck will look like a golf ball after a year.

The main drawback of aluminum body panels is that it's difficult (i.e. expensive) to make them. I would imaging fatigue (from vibrations, for example) is also a larger problem in this application with aluminum than it is with steel.

Citation on difficulties of fabrication (introduction paragraphs): http://www.thefabricator.com/article/stamping/warm-forming-o...

Additional considerations when designing dies for aluminum forming: http://www.schulergroup.com/major/us/technologien/produkte/a...

A list of some cars using aluminum body panels: http://www.paintgages.com/List-of-Car-Manufacturers-who-use-...

Land-Rover have been using aluminium body panels since 1948, and they can deal with untold amounts of abuse and still keep going. You just swap out the panels when they get too dented.

I think that aluminum holds up better against dings like a car door hitting your door.

Titanium alloy sheets are not that expensive. Something like what is shown in the video is probably less than $500. Seems like a pretty good value if it protects the batteries from damage on a $60,000 car.

Also metal under shields are quite common as vehicle upgrades and not as novel as you might think.

What was your second reaction? After you gave them a benfit of doubt and remembered how light titanium is.

Your statements are in conflict with each other and are glued together with an ad hominem argument. You should focus on why you think increasing safety of a car beyond anything we've known thus far is a 'waste' instead of trying to use a simple bias to devalue the work they've put into it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com