unez car design inspiration

CAR DESIGNS- an inspirational approach -UNEZ MERCHANTFormosun Advanced Power ResearchDecember 2013

OverviewHow to design?Designs in community / student projectsDesigns in company projectsComparison

How to design?What does the customer want?Youre designing a car for the world, not for you personalWhat do you want to achieve?Set the goals of the projectHow are you going to do that?Set specifications: propulsion, performance, vision

*The car will be for the customer, so you have to look at the customer and ask them what they want from a car. What do they think is important, what dont they want?Youre designing with a specific goal, why are you designing? Companies are building better cars for their customers to keep in business and get more profit, prototypes are built for showcasing technology, other projects are for specific goals (environmental, record breaking, weirdness)What specifications will able you to reach your goal? Set the types of propulsion, set car performance information, create an idea of what the car has to show to the people, if people see or hear your car, what should they think? Give a vision to your design.

How to design?What does the customer want?Looks, safety, price, feeling, speed

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-buying.htm

*Put yourself in the shoes of a customer and go to car dealers. Although you see many general cars, the average customer still chooses for one specific car. Why do they do that? They weight the looks, the safety, the price etcetera. Every customer has their own weighing factor for each requirement.

Basically, a customer want a car to look good at first because other people will be seeing your car and will associate you with it.

How to design?Customers list

PriceModel / TypeSafetyDesignEfficiencyFeaturesLooksFeelingPerformanceHandlingSizeExtra serviceCapacityUser reviewsQuality / Reliability

*Issues a customer might consider when buying a car. Even this list can be incomplete. Everything should be taken care of when designing a car, except the gray ones, those are business model related. The list might even be incomplete.

How to design?What do you want to achieve and how?Give people a vision about your carThe car specificationsEngine, weight, efficiency, acceleration, topspeed, capacity

*How do you want people to look at your car? This can be from a prototype for technology-display to an easy to use family car to an environmental friendly car to a supercar. When people see or hear about your car, how should they think about it?

To reach that, you need to set the basic car specifications you want to achieve. A supercar is much different than a family car.

How to design?The car classification (EuroNCAP):

SuperminiSmall family carLarge family carhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_classification

*Many different car styles are known. These car types are currently in use by EuroNCAP, the car testing organisation in Europe. Deciding which type of car you want to design is an important step.


SuperminiSmall family carLarge family carExecutive carRoadsterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_classification



SuperminiSmall family carLarge family carExecutive carRoadsterSmall MPVMPVhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_classification



SuperminiSmall family carLarge family carExecutive carRoadsterSmall MPVMPVSmall Off-RoaderLarge Off-Roaderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_classification


How to design?Body styles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_body_styleMinibusMinivanMPVNotchbackPick-upRoadsterSedanSUVSpyderStation wagonVan4x4Semi-convertibleConvertibleCoupCoup convertibleCoupe Utility (ute) Crossover SUVFastbackHardtopLeisure activity vehicleLimousineLiftbackLimousine

*After the car classification, you narrowed down the body types already a lot. But you can also skip the classification part, choose a body type and determine from there which class car youre designing. You have many more options here, and each style has its own specifications

How to design?Why emphasize on body or interior?

*Look around everywhere, what do you see? The car exterior, or when driving one, the interior. How often do you open de bonnet, and gaze at the engine? How often do you get under your car, and be amazed by how everything fits together?

How to design?Why emphasize on body or interior?

Because people dont see belowBut for safety and construction, this is important

*You dont. People believe everything it thought of, and they want a car to look good. They believe the reviews, its the experience people care of.

IntermezzoHow to use the rest of this presentation?LookThinkCreate ideasWrite your opinionsBe amazed

And in the endAmaze others with your design

*The rest of this presentation is mainly images. The important thing here is that you look at this yourself with your view, and think as a customer. Why do people want this car, or not? If you see special things you like, write them down, because you will forget them as the presentation continues.

Community / student project designVehicle Design Summit

http://www.vehicledesignsummit.org/

*Originated in 2006, it started with organizing a 9-week summer summit to design and build 4 cars. 50 mainly solar car team and Shell ecomarathon team members from all over the world were invited and came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. Theyre currently designing a production car with student teams all over the world.

Community / student project designSolar challenge

*Students design for specific events, in this case its solar races. In these races students need to build a vehicle driven only on solar energy. These cars use only the power of a microwave to reach speeds of 80 km/h average and therefore optimization in all fields are found. Best optimization visible is the aerodynamics, but many others can be found (battery, frames, receiving energy optimization, suspension)

Community / student project designEcomarathon

*The Shell Ecomarathon is a race for efficiency, where cars need to use the least fuel as possible. So here its not only limited to electric but every possible fuel is allowed, as long as you use the least.

Community / student project designOScar

http://www.theoscarproject.org/

*Started in 1999, the Oscar project is to develop a simple and innovative car in the Open Source in hardware domain. The car will be electric, and every part of the car is compared to a part of a computer.

Community / student project designDesigns by only one person

*For contests, many individuals let their own inspiration loose and design the most different cars youve ever seen. They base their design on other cars, supercars, video games, etcetera.

Community / student project designDesigns by student design classes

*For their studies people also have to design cars, and design projects are initiated by universities, sometimes in cooperation with universities, to look into future car designs. This often is done in cooperation with companies and competitions again.

Community / student project designDesigned and built

*It doesnt stay with design or specific projects only, some student / university teams also produce their vehicle as a legitimate prototype. Sometimes they use a kitcar as their base, but technology improvements are put in. For example, the yellow sportscar is an EV and soybean hybrid, and the black-green car runs on 3 different fuels (gas, LPG and electric)

Designs in company projectsFrom sketch to reality

*Designers first come up with sketches, and work these out to the real models. Many sketches get discarded, but some find their way through the real products. These sketches are for Mercedes cars, done by Harald Belker.

Note: these are the original sketches and used with permission for this lecture only. Do not redistribute these images except in this lecture.


*Compare these with the slide before. They look similar, but still different. But the basic ideas in the sketches can be seen in the vehicle.

Designs in company projectsConcepts of the past

*Look at concept cars on how people see the future. These are excellent examples: you wont think of them right now, but they did 40 years ago! From left to right, top to bottom: dymaxion 1933, ford gyron 1961, ford levacar 1959, ford nucleon 1958.

Special stories: the dymaxion was intended to be as many passengers and use as less materials as possible and ended up aerodynamic (unknown to that time), the gyro was a car with two wheels, the levacar was planned to be powered by a small jet engine and 3 airjets let the car levitate above the ground and the nucleon was intended to have a small nuclear reactor!

Designs in company projectsThe future

*Concept cars are often designed to show technology of the future. How will cars look in many years from now? The example posted here is a Ferrari Modulo prototype 1970. It still looks futuristic. Then we have a Lamborghini Miura the prototype from 2006 and not the original of the 1960s. The Bertone Stratos, 1970, was the inspiration for the (much different looking) Lancia Stratos. And however the next car also looks like the 1960s, it is a 2002 Ford GT40 prototype.

Designs in company projectsShowing the techniques

*Concept cars are built for two purposes: show the maximum capabilities of design and technique. These are some of them.The GM Autonomy shows modularity, where a complete fuel cell driven frame is incorporated in a flat surface. A body on top of this can be of any shape and any design.The Peugeot Moovie shows how spacious a city car can be, with curved glass windows around the driver. Also, the door houses a gigantic wheel, and the front wheels are spheres.The Nissan Pivo 2 is a city car with a 360 degree movability. Its wheels can turn any direction and can move inward and outward for better weight distribution when accelerating or braking.The Moller Skycar M400 is a car which is capable of flying taking of and landing vertically.

Designs in company projectsTechnical breakthroughs

*Everybody knows the Ford Model T, the car which changed automotive history. It is recognized as the first car produced on a moving assembly line and therefore an affordable consumer car. Every 3 minutes a new Model T finished production, Ford used even the wooden crates in which parts were shipped in his car. The quote You can get any color you want, as long as its black comes from the time that the paint took to long to dry, except black, until a fast-drying paint was invented.

A very important breakthrough was done by Citroen: The Citroen DS (unveiled in 1955) was for its time packed with breakthroughs. First of al its aerodynamic design changed the looks of every car built afterwards (it was the successor of the Traction). The hydraulic system was normally used only for brakes: Citroen now also used it for the suspension, clutch and semi-transmission. Power steering was also implemented and it had a self-leveling steering if the driver let go of the steering wheel. Add to that the techniques of changing the height of the car using the hydraulic suspension and headlights which moved into the direction of driving you will only find those techniques in expensive new cars.

Designs in company projectsMore recent breakthroughs

*Current technical breakthroughs arent so special as the Citroen DS was, but still worth to mention. The Carver One is in Europe classified as an automobile seating 2 people, three wheels and a tilting body.The Toyota Prius is the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, having a combustion and an assisting electric motor. Toyota (and Honda with the Honda Insight) took a big step in choosing to produce the car for the first years it cost them more than it gain them profit. However due to its high popularity, current manufacturers are only now (10 years later) producing hybrids. Many new hybrids however only use the electric motor as support, while the Prius and Insight are also capable of driving electric only.

Solely electric cars are just coming. The GM EV1 was a well-known electric car for the consumers with around the same price as normal cars. However, GM took all produced vehicles back and destroyed them. A documentary movie was made about this vehicle. The Tesla Roadster is only in production recently but a waiting list is set up for customers and plans for future electric vehicles are made.

Designs in company projectsThe future is today

*The Tesla Roadster might not be affordable for everyone, but affordable future cars are made and production of these vehicles is planned. The most futuristic looking production-planned vehicle might be the Aptera, which is planned to be produced in 2008 for around $30000 US and has a projected mpg ratio of 200 to 300.The Loremo is a lightweight diesel set for production in 2009 and reaches a mpg ratio of 160 with the price of 15000 to 20000.The Volkswagen 1 liter is a concept with almost 240 mpg. 2 people sit in tandem, the car is very lightweight to be able to reach the 1 liter for 100 kilometer ratio. However unconfirmed reports say VW will produce the car in limited amounts by 2009 / 2010.

Designs in company projectsBest sold

*The lists of sales are counted in numbers of vehicles sold or revenue, so which single car is on the number 1 spot can be debated. However these cars here have to be mentioned. To start with, the Ford Model T (shown earlier) sold 16.5 million cars. Next is a car much much later in history, the Volkswagen Golf. With 24 million cars, mostly popular in Europe, its a car for everyone. The Ford F150 pickup is one you shouldnt expect maybe, but still it sold 25 million cars, in North America only. The global best selling name, and that will stay for a long while, is the Toyota Corolla. Started in 1966 as a quality, style and cost-effective integrated model it sold 35 million cars in 9 different models.

The reason why the Volkswagen Beetle is mentioned last: it sold 21.5 million cars. This is less than the rest, but from a design perspective this is the most cars ever sold for one single design.

Designs in company projectsDesign variations

*Popular consumer cars start off with maybe one or two different styles, but the more cars are sold, the more different styles for one single car type are built. The Renault 5 is listed as best produced small production car and many variations can be seen. Of course not only in style, which even can differ a lot for one type.

Designs in company projectsWhat about the interior?

*The outside is what people see, the inside is what people experience. The dashboard is the most important part, here the information about the car needs to be displayed and the driver will be looking here a lot. From 1950 to 1980 to 2005, it looks more smooth, but no radical changes have evolved over the years. Concept cars like to play with interior design though, as this is where technology and design can take other levels than it can on the car shape.


*Much more attention to detail is spent when designing the interior. Every little button is designed to give the car a specific feeling and touch, and everything has to be interconnected to form a whole. It also has to fit with its outside style. Harald Becker used these sketches to create 3D models.

Note: these are the original sketches and used with permission for this lecture only. Do not redistribute these images except in this lecture.


*As soon as the model is being decided to be a production model, all exotic features as the lights and special unfamiliar shaped buttons are gone and the car looks more like current vehicles, so users are feeling familiar with the car. A customer is unlikely to buy a car so completely different that he or she has to relearn how to use the car.

Designs in company projectsConcept interior

*Different visions on interiors, some want it spacious, others want it simple but renewed, others use rapid prototyping and use as less materials as possible.

ComparisonCreate the futureBudget and time issueKnowledge limitation

*One thing is for sure: both student/community designs and company designs create the future. Companies have recognized this and write public contests for designing vehicles. Some of these concepts are being built and in the future we might see some of the contest entries specific designs back in concept vehicles and maybe even in production vehicles.

The biggest problem for the community or student projects is budget and time. A established large car company produces a new model at least once a year. A student / community team can never catch up with this and therefore many projects are established with long-term goals. Besides, these teams have to continue their work or study for their income, as companys teams are full time employed.

A student team only can get its budget from corporate sponsors or government subsidies to actually produce a prototype, while companies have money reserved for these matters.

Knowledge limitation exists. Student/community teams can only rely on old technology readily available, or develop their own technology. Corporate technology is a companys secret and therefore only used in the company. They often have a large history of designs and automotive related technology, while student/community teams have to rely on their own research. However as many technologies are readily available and not heavily influenced by the change through time, student/community teams are able to use these.

Comparison

*Solar cars might only be for student teams and races, they are an inspiration to others. The Solartaxi has a solar panel as a trailer and travels the world to show the technique, educate and find the answers to environmental friendly transportation. Venturi actually built the Astrolab, currently only a prototype vehicle but customers can buy one in 2008 for around $120.000 US.

ComparisonLooks similar?

*If we compare the produced student team concepts with other concepts, we can see that as of design perspective concerned, both are well capable of designing vehicles.

ConclusionLook at the possibilities

*Much is possible. Dont stick to regular ideas, but maybe you want to design an aerodynamic bus which has to reach speeds of 150 to 250 kilometer per hour, the military needs amphibious vehicles, and why does a car need 4 wheels while it also can have 8, and an 8-wheel electric drive?

ConclusionThink out of the box

*Everything is possible. But keep in mind the customers needs.

Inspiration linkshttp://www.carbodydesign.com/Concept cars, production cars, research papers, explanationshttp://www.conceptcarz.com/A very extensive list with photos of all produced cars and prototypeshttp://www.auta5p.eu/katalog/katalog.htm(Czech) HUGE category of cars

http://www.doubleyoudigital.nl/The place where you can download this presentation

*Some links to use for inspiration

*The car will be for the customer, so you have to look at the customer and ask them what they want from a car. What do they think is important, what dont they want?Youre designing with a specific goal, why are you designing? Companies are building better cars for their customers to keep in business and get more profit, prototypes are built for showcasing technology, other projects are for specific goals (environmental, record breaking, weirdness)What specifications will able you to reach your goal? Set the types of propulsion, set car performance information, create an idea of what the car has to show to the people, if people see or hear your car, what should they think? Give a vision to your design.*Put yourself in the shoes of a customer and go to car dealers. Although you see many general cars, the average customer still chooses for one specific car. Why do they do that? They weight the looks, the safety, the price etcetera. Every customer has their own weighing factor for each requirement.

Basically, a customer want a car to look good at first because other people will be seeing your car and will associate you with it.*Issues a customer might consider when buying a car. Even this list can be incomplete. Everything should be taken care of when designing a car, except the gray ones, those are business model related. The list might even be incomplete.*How do you want people to look at your car? This can be from a prototype for technology-display to an easy to use family car to an environmental friendly car to a supercar. When people see or hear about your car, how should they think about it?

To reach that, you need to set the basic car specifications you want to achieve. A supercar is much different than a family car.*Many different car styles are known. These car types are currently in use by EuroNCAP, the car testing organisation in Europe. Deciding which type of car you want to design is an important step.*Many different car styles are known. These car types are currently in use by EuroNCAP, the car testing organisation in Europe. Deciding which type of car you want to design is an important step.*Many different car styles are known. These car types are currently in use by EuroNCAP, the car testing organisation in Europe. Deciding which type of car you want to design is an important step.*Many different car styles are known. These car types are currently in use by EuroNCAP, the car testing organisation in Europe. Deciding which type of car you want to design is an important step.*After the car classification, you narrowed down the body types already a lot. But you can also skip the classification part, choose a body type and determine from there which class car youre designing. You have many more options here, and each style has its own specifications*Look around everywhere, what do you see? The car exterior, or when driving one, the interior. How often do you open de bonnet, and gaze at the engine? How often do you get under your car, and be amazed by how everything fits together?*You dont. People believe everything it thought of, and they want a car to look good. They believe the reviews, its the experience people care of.*The rest of this presentation is mainly images. The important thing here is that you look at this yourself with your view, and think as a customer. Why do people want this car, or not? If you see special things you like, write them down, because you will forget them as the presentation continues.*Originated in 2006, it started with organizing a 9-week summer summit to design and build 4 cars. 50 mainly solar car team and Shell ecomarathon team members from all over the world were invited and came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. Theyre currently designing a production car with student teams all over the world.*Students design for specific events, in this case its solar races. In these races students need to build a vehicle driven only on solar energy. These cars use only the power of a microwave to reach speeds of 80 km/h average and therefore optimization in all fields are found. Best optimization visible is the aerodynamics, but many others can be found (battery, frames, receiving energy optimization, suspension)*The Shell Ecomarathon is a race for efficiency, where cars need to use the least fuel as possible. So here its not only limited to electric but every possible fuel is allowed, as long as you use the least.*Started in 1999, the Oscar project is to develop a simple and innovative car in the Open Source in hardware domain. The car will be electric, and every part of the car is compared to a part of a computer.*For contests, many individuals let their own inspiration loose and design the most different cars youve ever seen. They base their design on other cars, supercars, video games, etcetera.*For their studies people also have to design cars, and design projects are initiated by universities, sometimes in cooperation with universities, to look into future car designs. This often is done in cooperation with companies and competitions again.*It doesnt stay with design or specific projects only, some student / university teams also produce their vehicle as a legitimate prototype. Sometimes they use a kitcar as their base, but technology improvements are put in. For example, the yellow sportscar is an EV and soybean hybrid, and the black-green car runs on 3 different fuels (gas, LPG and electric)*Designers first come up with sketches, and work these out to the real models. Many sketches get discarded, but some find their way through the real products. These sketches are for Mercedes cars, done by Harald Belker.

Note: these are the original sketches and used with permission for this lecture only. Do not redistribute these images except in this lecture.*Compare these with the slide before. They look similar, but still different. But the basic ideas in the sketches can be seen in the vehicle.*Look at concept cars on how people see the future. These are excellent examples: you wont think of them right now, but they did 40 years ago! From left to right, top to bottom: dymaxion 1933, ford gyron 1961, ford levacar 1959, ford nucleon 1958.

Special stories: the dymaxion was intended to be as many passengers and use as less materials as possible and ended up aerodynamic (unknown to that time), the gyro was a car with two wheels, the levacar was planned to be powered by a small jet engine and 3 airjets let the car levitate above the ground and the nucleon was intended to have a small nuclear reactor!*Concept cars are often designed to show technology of the future. How will cars look in many years from now? The example posted here is a Ferrari Modulo prototype 1970. It still looks futuristic. Then we have a Lamborghini Miura the prototype from 2006 and not the original of the 1960s. The Bertone Stratos, 1970, was the inspiration for the (much different looking) Lancia Stratos. And however the next car also looks like the 1960s, it is a 2002 Ford GT40 prototype.*Concept cars are built for two purposes: show the maximum capabilities of design and technique. These are some of them.The GM Autonomy shows modularity, where a complete fuel cell driven frame is incorporated in a flat surface. A body on top of this can be of any shape and any design.The Peugeot Moovie shows how spacious a city car can be, with curved glass windows around the driver. Also, the door houses a gigantic wheel, and the front wheels are spheres.The Nissan Pivo 2 is a city car with a 360 degree movability. Its wheels can turn any direction and can move inward and outward for better weight distribution when accelerating or braking.The Moller Skycar M400 is a car which is capable of flying taking of and landing vertically.*Everybody knows the Ford Model T, the car which changed automotive history. It is recognized as the first car produced on a moving assembly line and therefore an affordable consumer car. Every 3 minutes a new Model T finished production, Ford used even the wooden crates in which parts were shipped in his car. The quote You can get any color you want, as long as its black comes from the time that the paint took to long to dry, except black, until a fast-drying paint was invented.

A very important breakthrough was done by Citroen: The Citroen DS (unveiled in 1955) was for its time packed with breakthroughs. First of al its aerodynamic design changed the looks of every car built afterwards (it was the successor of the Traction). The hydraulic system was normally used only for brakes: Citroen now also used it for the suspension, clutch and semi-transmission. Power steering was also implemented and it had a self-leveling steering if the driver let go of the steering wheel. Add to that the techniques of changing the height of the car using the hydraulic suspension and headlights which moved into the direction of driving you will only find those techniques in expensive new cars.*Current technical breakthroughs arent so special as the Citroen DS was, but still worth to mention. The Carver One is in Europe classified as an automobile seating 2 people, three wheels and a tilting body.The Toyota Prius is the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, having a combustion and an assisting electric motor. Toyota (and Honda with the Honda Insight) took a big step in choosing to produce the car for the first years it cost them more than it gain them profit. However due to its high popularity, current manufacturers are only now (10 years later) producing hybrids. Many new hybrids however only use the electric motor as support, while the Prius and Insight are also capable of driving electric only.

Solely electric cars are just coming. The GM EV1 was a well-known electric car for the consumers with around the same price as normal cars. However, GM took all produced vehicles back and destroyed them. A documentary movie was made about this vehicle. The Tesla Roadster is only in production recently but a waiting list is set up for customers and plans for future electric vehicles are made.*The Tesla Roadster might not be affordable for everyone, but affordable future cars are made and production of these vehicles is planned. The most futuristic looking production-planned vehicle might be the Aptera, which is planned to be produced in 2008 for around $30000 US and has a projected mpg ratio of 200 to 300.The Loremo is a lightweight diesel set for production in 2009 and reaches a mpg ratio of 160 with the price of 15000 to 20000.The Volkswagen 1 liter is a concept with almost 240 mpg. 2 people sit in tandem, the car is very lightweight to be able to reach the 1 liter for 100 kilometer ratio. However unconfirmed reports say VW will produce the car in limited amounts by 2009 / 2010.*The lists of sales are counted in numbers of vehicles sold or revenue, so which single car is on the number 1 spot can be debated. However these cars here have to be mentioned. To start with, the Ford Model T (shown earlier) sold 16.5 million cars. Next is a car much much later in history, the Volkswagen Golf. With 24 million cars, mostly popular in Europe, its a car for everyone. The Ford F150 pickup is one you shouldnt expect maybe, but still it sold 25 million cars, in North America only. The global best selling name, and that will stay for a long while, is the Toyota Corolla. Started in 1966 as a quality, style and cost-effective integrated model it sold 35 million cars in 9 different models.

The reason why the Volkswagen Beetle is mentioned last: it sold 21.5 million cars. This is less than the rest, but from a design perspective this is the most cars ever sold for one single design.*Popular consumer cars start off with maybe one or two different styles, but the more cars are sold, the more different styles for one single car type are built. The Renault 5 is listed as best produced small production car and many variations can be seen. Of course not only in style, which even can differ a lot for one type.*The outside is what people see, the inside is what people experience. The dashboard is the most important part, here the information about the car needs to be displayed and the driver will be looking here a lot. From 1950 to 1980 to 2005, it looks more smooth, but no radical changes have evolved over the years. Concept cars like to play with interior design though, as this is where technology and design can take other levels than it can on the car shape. *Much more attention to detail is spent when designing the interior. Every little button is designed to give the car a specific feeling and touch, and everything has to be interconnected to form a whole. It also has to fit with its outside style. Harald Becker used these sketches to create 3D models.

Note: these are the original sketches and used with permission for this lecture only. Do not redistribute these images except in this lecture.*As soon as the model is being decided to be a production model, all exotic features as the lights and special unfamiliar shaped buttons are gone and the car looks more like current vehicles, so users are feeling familiar with the car. A customer is unlikely to buy a car so completely different that he or she has to relearn how to use the car.*Different visions on interiors, some want it spacious, others want it simple but renewed, others use rapid prototyping and use as less materials as possible.*One thing is for sure: both student/community designs and company designs create the future. Companies have recognized this and write public contests for designing vehicles. Some of these concepts are being built and in the future we might see some of the contest entries specific designs back in concept vehicles and maybe even in production vehicles.

The biggest problem for the community or student projects is budget and time. A established large car company produces a new model at least once a year. A student / community team can never catch up with this and therefore many projects are established with long-term goals. Besides, these teams have to continue their work or study for their income, as companys teams are full time employed.

A student team only can get its budget from corporate sponsors or government subsidies to actually produce a prototype, while companies have money reserved for these matters.

Knowledge limitation exists. Student/community teams can only rely on old technology readily available, or develop their own technology. Corporate technology is a companys secret and therefore only used in the company. They often have a large history of designs and automotive related technology, while student/community teams have to rely on their own research. However as many technologies are readily available and not heavily influenced by the change through time, student/community teams are able to use these.*Solar cars might only be for student teams and races, they are an inspiration to others. The Solartaxi has a solar panel as a trailer and travels the world to show the technique, educate and find the answers to environmental friendly transportation. Venturi actually built the Astrolab, currently only a prototype vehicle but customers can buy one in 2008 for around $120.000 US.*If we compare the produced student team concepts with other concepts, we can see that as of design perspective concerned, both are well capable of designing vehicles.*Much is possible. Dont stick to regular ideas, but maybe you want to design an aerodynamic bus which has to reach speeds of 150 to 250 kilometer per hour, the military needs amphibious vehicles, and why does a car need 4 wheels while it also can have 8, and an 8-wheel electric drive?*Everything is possible. But keep in mind the customers needs.*Some links to use for inspiration

unez car design inspiration

Documents