Spot the Difference?

Did you know that the Renault Koleos is very much a Nissan X-Trail?  Were you also aware that the current BMW 7-Series is the platform for the new Rolls-Royce Dawn?  These days car manufacturers are sharing a lot of the components that go into making a new vehicle.  A lot of the electronic systems and computer chips are shared between makes and models, even engines and an entire body platform.  As the costs of designing and building a complex new car rise, by getting together and pooling money, skills, assets, and sharing the costs of the new build, these are definitely clever ways for manufacturers to reduce their overheads, and the overall cost of designing and building a new vehicle.

Platform sharing between manufacturers and between models is, perhaps, more common than you may have thought; and particularly now more than ever.  In some cases, the similarities between a particular car, truck, or ute and its platform-twin are obvious.  However, at other times it’s not so easy to detect the resemblance.

A car’s platform is the base (including body shell, floor, and even some of the chassis and engine parts) on which it is built.  Not only can these components be common to more than one manufacturer, but they can also be shared between models in a manufacturer’s line-up.  The initial platform design and its production or engineering works can be shared across a number of different models.  Kia and Hyundai are some of the best brands at doing this sort of thing, and so too is VW.

Sharing componentry between different manufacturers/brands has to be built on an existing good business relationship.  So, when two or more automotive manufacturers with a good relationship have shared the same desire to save money, they can operate together and agree to share development costs and also essentially sell the same cars but under different badges.  Renault and Nissan are great examples of this.  Some of the most talked about illustrations of this occurring recently will have been the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ, which are essentially the same cars tarted up slightly differently.  Also, the Toyota Corolla station wagon and the Suzuki Swace (a less known model here in Australia) are exactly the same car.  Another illustration would be the awesome new Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 cars.  Also, Volvo has platformed shared quite frequently over the years.  The Global C-car Platform from Ford saw the Volvo S40 and V40 share much with the Ford Focus and Mazda 3.  Well known Hyundai and Kia have utilized several duplications of platforms for their small automobile line-up since 1997.

Having a shared engineering platform, where manufacturers build a basic foundation that can be used across many of its own models is an advantage.  The Volkswagen Group (VW), and the brands it owns, (Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda) are masters of this craft.  VW has a common practice where they will build a smaller number of platforms, but the benefits come when they will then re-purpose these platforms across their own different brands.  When VW designed and built the MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten) platform, it was shared across the Audi A3, Skoda Octavia, and Seat Leon.  Also, one of its SUV platforms is shared and utilized by the Audi Q7 and Q8, the Bentley Bentayga, the Lamborghini Urus, and Porsche’s Cayenne.

BMW’s 7-Series is the platform for the immensely luxurious and expensive Rolls Royce Dawn.  The new 7-Series is luxurious and sleek in its own right, but it is also much, much cheaper to buy – comparatively.

Some other new vehicles that are currently sharing platforms:

Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Camaro

VW Polo and Skoda Scala

Mercedes Benz GLE and Jeep Grand Cherokee

Renault Koleos and Nissan X-Trail

Fiat 500 X and Jeep Renegade

Terramechanics: The Science Of Off-Roading

A lot of us have purchased, or have considered purchasing, a 4×4 vehicle. This could be because we like the benefits of extra safety or the visibility of the higher body. Or it could be that we want to go off-road in the vehicle and do a spot of exploring. However, when we get behind the wheel of one of these vehicles and head for the nearest dirt road or river, we don’t often stop to think about all the science behind what we’re about to do. The most we might think about are things like the power and torque needed – and possibly the basic physics involved in getting over or around a gnarly bit of terrain.

However, there’s a whole branch of science related to off-road driving, known as terramechanics. In fact, there’s a specialised scientific journal on the topic. Terramechanics has been a scientific topic since the 1950s, and the concept was introduced by a Polish-born engineer by the name of Dr Bekker, who was one of the key developers of the lunar rover vehicle used on the moon. However, much of Dr Bekker’s work was more down to earth – literally.

Terramechanics, in a nutshell, is the science of how a vehicle operates off-road on rough, uneven and soft terrain. It mostly considers the interaction between the wheels and the ground, although the science also acknowledges that things like the length of the wheelbase, the torque and the ground clearance are all very important factors. However, it’s what happens where the rubber meets the (off) road that gets certain people in white coats (probably dirty white coats) very excited.

Now, if you get right into terramechanics, the maths gets pretty complicated. If you’re like me, you probably left quadratic equations behind once you left high school. However, engineers and designers in the field of terramechanics use them all the time. I won’t get into the heavy-duty maths, but here, we’ll have a little look at some of the things that get thought of when the designers are coming up not just with new 4×4 models but also with the tyres that go on them.

Vehicle-related factors

Load: the weight of the vehicle plus what’s in it – probably you, a friend, the dog and something to eat.

Contact area: Exactly how much of the tyre is touching the ground. This is affected by the design of the tyre, the width of the tyre, how much air you put in the tyre and the condition of the tread.

Rolling resistance: Also known as friction.

Torque: You knew this one was going to be important, didn’t you? That’s why the torque – the measure of rotational acceleration (rather than linear acceleration) is always given in the specs of any vehicle.

Wheel width: Put simply, more contact area means more grip.

Wheel radius: There’s a reason why 4x4s have bigger tyres, and it’s not just for better ground clearance.

Terrain-related factors

Designers have to consider these factors when they design tyres and the vehicles. As anybody who’s done any off-roading will know, not all types of terrain are created equal, and the techniques and tyres that work well with, say, snow won’t work with sand.

In fact, a lot of what goes on in terramechanics considers the properties of the soil or the other terrain (snow and sand). You might think of soil as just mud or good plain dirt, but it’s pretty complicated stuff. It’s a combination of solids (the actual particles of soil), liquids (water) and gases (air), and it’s constantly changing even in a single place, to say nothing of how soil varies from place to place. I won’t bore you with all the different factors, what they mean and how they affect each other, but some of the most important ones that researchers have to specify when they run tests of new tyre designs or even whole cars are the following:

Moisture content: How much water is in the soil at any point. This affects the shear strength of the soil, which is very important in a lot of the formulae used in terramechanics to work out whether a wheel will lose traction or not. The shear strength of anything is its ability to stand up to a force that will make it slip sideways.

Porosity: How much air is inside the soil – these pores are where the water goes when you water the garden.

Particle size and shape: How big the minute particles of soil are and what shape they are has a big influence on how the dirt sticks together, holds moisture and compacts under pressure. Most of us have known since childhood that sand and clay are very different, and this difference is mostly down to particle size and shape.

Specific gravity: How dense a substance is. Yes, this is related to the specific gravity known to home brewing enthusiasts.

After considering these basic factors, things start involving complicated equations that make my head ache.

You know, I’m kind of glad that when I go off-road driving, I don’t have to keep all these factors and the science in my head – otherwise, I’d overthink everything all the time and wouldn’t enjoy the experience. An experienced off-road driver will be able to do by feel and “instinct” (i.e. right-brain thinking) what the terramechanics expert would have to calculate. All the same, I’m glad that there are people working hard to make sure that our vehicles and the tyres on them are the safest and best they can be.

The Rise Of The South Korean Motor Industry

When I was a child, I hardly ever saw a car made in South Korea. Japanese cars, yes. They were everywhere. But cars from South Korea, no. However, after about 2000, I started seeing them everywhere. What was behind the big upsurge? Was it simply the case that I didn’t notice them on the roads, or was it that they weren’t around?

It’s certainly the case that today, South Korean cars are among the most popular best sellers on the roads. And it’s certainly true that the South Korean motor industry has absolutely mushroomed of the past 50-60 years. In fact, this is true of many industries in South Korea. Back in the 1950s, Korea had barely any heavy industry going. Today, it’s a work leader in a number of fields, including the automotive industry.

Before we go any further, quick note: to ensure that this article doesn’t fall into the TL/DR category, we’ll refer to “Korea” from here on out instead of South Korea. North and South Korea went their separate ways in 1953 at the end of the Korean Civil War, which was when the Korean motor industry got started. Given North Korea’s political stance, we don’t hear much about their cars…

Not that politics have nothing to do with the Korean motor industry. According to one historian on the topic, the Korean government played a long-term game, creating policies and strategies that guided not just the motor industry but other industry sectors (e.g., ship building) across the years.

From Zero To Hero In A Few Decades

The Korean motor industry got started in 1953 when the US military forces on bases in the South needed more spare parts for their Jeeps. They sent up a local assembly plant with the Jeep name to make these spare parts. The owners of the company also had the bright idea of using old oil drums left behind by the army to make the chassis for their own vehicles, known as the Sibal, which were very popular as taxis. And that’s where the Korean motor industry got started.

After the success of the factory for spare parts for Jeeps, other companies started looking at Korea as a location for production lines and factories – and Jeep kept on going. These were often owned by US and Japanese car companies. This went on until 1962, when the Korean government made a law meaning that foreign companies were only allowed to set up joint ventures that local automotive companies had a share in.

During this period, a surprising number of vehicles that we think of as Japanese or American were actually put together in Korea. Mazda, Nissan, Fiat and Ford were just some of them. In fact, Kia started off as an assembly plant for Mazdas, whereas Hyundai was originally a factory for producing Ford Cortinas.

However, the joint venture model wasn’t enough for the Korean government, as they wanted to stimulate the local economy and industry, and reduce the dependence on foreign companies. In 1973, they therefore switched to focus cars that were not just manufactured in Korea but developed there as well. Some of the companies began the process of developing their own products. To do this, they often copied what they had seen during the process of putting other vehicles together, with a few wee tweaks to make them unique. This often involved using licensed parts from companies outside Korea to ensure a good quality product before the final shift to coming up with their own innovations. And things took off from there!

Hyundai – A Case Study

Hyundai is a typical example of a Korean car company that went through all the stages of imitation and innovation. This company started in the late 1960s as an assembly line for the Ford Cortina. When the Korean government called for locally designed cars in the 1970s, they got licences from other companies for various technologies and developed a locally designed car, the Pony. This was followed by the Excel in 1980. Both of these used tech licensed by Mitsubishi. Because the Excel and Pony sold so well and competed with Mitsubishi, the Japanese company didn’t renew the license for any new tech. Wanting to develop further, Hyundai grabbed technological licenses from a number of different companies just in case, and also set up a training consultancy, where trainee developers headed over to Italy to learn the principles of top car design. After 18 months in Italy, these trainees came back to Korea primed with their new knowledge.

What they (and trainees from other Korean companies such as Kia and Daewoo) had learned worked well. In 1993, the Elantra was Australia’s best-selling vehicle. After Kia and Hyundai joined forces, sales of Korean cars grew even more, until, in 2010, the Sonata and Elantra got onto the list of 10 ton best sellers worldwide. In 2013, Hyundai earned more from car sales than BMW, Honda and Peugeot. In short, the Korean motor industry is a force to be reckoned with, and Korea is certainly one of the countries you should think of when you think of places where cars are made.

You may very easily have driven or owned a Korean car at some point; although I haven’t done so personally, various friends and family members have, and they found them to be sound, reliable and good to drive.

Where To (Or From) Next?

Korean cars may be here to stay, but one has to wonder who’s next? Where will our cars come from in the future? We’ve already seen a few of the Chinese players (LDV, Great Wall and its subsidiary, Haval) enter the Australian market – will we see some of the others? Geely already owns Volvo, so will we see more actual Geely vehicles? India’s another possibility, with a few Tatas and Mahindras already hitting Australian roads. Other Asian countries currently have factories assembling vehicles for other countries, so will Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia take the same route as Korea has done? What about countries from beyond Asia – are we going to drive vehicles from Brazil’s Effa or Uganda’s Kiira? Given the trend towards EVs and the fact that much of the world’s lithium for car batteries comes from African nations, I won’t be the least bit surprised if African vehicles started appearing on the market around the world in the next decade or so.

New Cars, New Year.

Happy New Year to you all!  2023 sees some brand new cars coming into view, and we’re set to observe a considerable increase in the number of EVs sold on our shores.  Here’s a brief look at some of the exciting cars and SUVs you can get your hands on in the near future!

Alfa Romeo Tonale

Here’s the first of the Alfas that take the special brand into EV mode.  The Alfa Romeo Tonale Hybrid kicks it off with its hybrid engine offering the new 48-volt hybrid propulsion system.  You’d expect an Alfa to be sporty, and the nicely designed compact SUV delivers on this front.  Comfortable interiors and decent technology make this a good way of upgrading into 2023.

BMW iX1

The smallest X model from BMW comes in as the X1, and the iX1 is the EV model with a battery range up over 400 km.  Nicely laid out interiors, an athletic driving style (typical Beemer), and a good dollop of performance make this a great new compact SUV.

BYD Atto 3

The BYD Atto 3 is a new kid on the block for Australia.  Being an electric medium-sized SUV with a decent range makes this an efficient EV for the new year.  The Atto 3 also offers a comfy interior and plenty of the latest technology and safety features.

CUPRA Born

CUPRA cars are exciting.  They have plenty of performance and are generally a well-priced product with high-end features.  This new model called the CUPRA Born is an EV with a handsome range of beyond 500 km.  The CUPRA Born is an exciting car to look at, and it comes with advanced technology and great connectivity.

Ford E-Transit

Ford’s lovable Transit has a new ticker with the latest vans now offering electric power.  This is a brand new, full-size, pure-electric E-Transit that features a 68 kWh battery and a driving range of up to 317 km.  Ford say that it is possible to fast-charge the E-Transit from 15% to 80% in a bit over 30 minutes.

GWM Tank 300

One of the best vehicles to come out of 2023 will be the impressive looking GWM Tank 300.  Doesn’t it make a statement!  The Tank is powered by a 2.0-litre petrol-electric hybrid system, and the internal-combustion engine offers a juicy 180 kW.  Nappa leather, all the tech, and very handy off-road makes this a hugely appealing.

Lexus RX

Toyota has their luxury Lexus brand offering their latest RX.  If you’re wanting a new hybrid, these are some of the best ones out there.  Toyota make a great hybrid powertrain with smooth performance and impressive efficiency.  The RX interior sees an updated luxury interior design with ever-impressive build quality.  The RX is roomy too and very comfortable.

Maserati Grecale

Maserati is becoming ever more affordable.  That’s a great thing because they make great cars.  The new Maserati Grecale is a front-engine, medium-sized luxury SUV that comes with the promise of plenty of performance.  Three engines are available: two 2.0-litre petrol motors and a 3.0-litre V6 petrol.  Generous on the equipment levels, the Grecale will be rewarding to drive.

MG4

MG offers the new MG4 hatchback this year.  It is an affordable electric hatchback that has been packed full of innovation, style, technology, and an impressive 440 km driving range.

Nissan X-Trail E-Power Hybrid

Nice to look at, and equally at home off-road as it is on, the Nissan X-Trail E-Power Hybrid SUV is very comfortable and very well-equipped.  Rear cargo capacity in the 5 seat version of this awesome SUV is 575 litres (super handy for a family).  A 7-seat option is also available.  The entry point model is a mild hybrid version and uses a 1.5-litre petrol most of the time.  The other powerplant uses the same 1.5-liter ICE, but it doesn’t connect to the wheels directly.  Instead, it becomes the electrical generator of the system that works in unison with a small battery operating as a buffer.  The wheels are fed power via electric motors.

Renault Kangoo

Renault’s new Kangoo definitely can do, especially with its brand new E-Tech EV versions becoming available for the Australian market.  This will be Australia’s cheapest electric van.  The E-Tech has a 90 kW/245 Nm electric motor that drives the front wheels via a single-speed transmission.  You should easily run about town for well over 250 km before needing to recharge.

Keep your eyes open for these new models travelling our roads and on showroom floors across Australia.  Also keep your ears open via Private Fleet, where we’ll keep you up to date with what other new models are coming our way shortly.  All the best for 2023!