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McLaren Partners With Lockheed Martin Skunk Works on Road Car Technology
The partnership will allow McLaren to experiment with bringing design technology from aerospace to their hypercars.
BY FRED SMITH
DEC 12, 2022
mclaren artura at lockheed martinMCLAREN
McLaren announced a partnership on Monday with Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works team, the famous relatively autonomous unit responsible for secretive aerospace projects like the SR-71 Blackbird and U2. McLaren calls the pairing a "technology collaboration," but details seem to indicate that the pairing will largely be about exploring potential applications of existing Skunk Works software.
McLaren says the partnership will allow them to "focus on deploying a new Skunk Works’ design system, developed for the world of aviation, into the realms of high-performance, cutting-edge automotive supercar design." This, apparently, will allow the company to "[set] the parameters for high-speed systems more accurately and swiftly than traditional design methods."
Given the nature of the pairing, it is likely that the resulting partnership will be more about optimizing the process of developing and maintaining cars rather than anything that McLaren customers will see on their vehicles. However, it did present a great opportunity for a photo: McLaren brought an Artura to the company's headquarters, where it posed next to the fictional Darkstar hypersonic jet from Top Gun: Maverick. That plane famously exploded at speed very early in the movie, so hopefully McLaren is not taking any design cues from it.
IIHS Making Sure Crash Test Equipment Can Handle 9600-Pound EVs
The safety agency stuffed an old Ford F-150 full of concrete and steel to see if the equipment can handle testing heavyweight vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV.
BY SEBASTIAN BLANCOPUBLISHED: DEC 13, 2022
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IIHS crash propulsion system still pulling its weight
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IIHS has been crashing vehicles into barricades for decades. Until now, the heaviest vehicle the organization has tested was a 6000-pound Audi e-tron.
With heavier electric vehicles on the way, like the 9640-pound Hummer EV, IIHS wanted to make sure it could handle bringing something that heavy up to speed in the crash chamber.
To that end, an old Ford F-150 was loaded with concrete and steel and successfully smashed. IIHS, of course, provides the video receipts.
After a crash, first responders need to approach electric vehicles differently than internal combustion engine vehicles. But even before a collision happens, people who work with crashed cars are changing their approach.
That's what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has discovered as it gets ready to crash test some incredibly heavy EVs. In a video posted to YouTube, IIHS explains that it acquired a junked Ford F-150 that could still roll and loaded it up until the total weight hit 9500 pounds. The heavy tests aren’t meant to see what happens when an old F-150 loaded with concrete blocks and heavy steel plates hits a wall at 40 miles per hour (spoiler alert, it’s not pretty), but to make sure that IIHS's test equipment can handle testing, for example, the GMC Hummer EV, which in our testing measured the scales at a whopping 9640 pounds. The heaviest vehicle IIHS has yet tested was an Audi e-tron that almost hit 6000 pounds.
"With electric vehicles coming in and that battery weight pushing vehicle mass higher and higher, we want to be able to know that we can conduct the test here," Raul Arbelaez, vice preside of vehicle research at IIHS, said in the video. "And if we can't, we need to make some modifications to our crash machine."
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The machines IIHS uses tow cables connected to the crash machine to bring the vehicles up to speed before they hit the barrier. IIHS has 600 feet of runway, but when you’re trying to get almost five tons of steel and batteries to 40 mph, you need a robust propulsion system. Based on the video IIHS released, the system works just fine. Stand by for slow-motion videos of a giant, zero-emission beast being torn apart.
IIHS has studied the effect of vehicle size and weight on occupant safety for decades. In 2003, automakers entered into a "compatibility agreement" that they would work on improving the safety of smaller vehicles when in a crash with a larger one, especially when it came to front-to-front and front-to-side crashes. The agreement was finally adhered to in 2009, and a 2012 paper noted that the reduction in "car crash partner death rates" for SUVs and pickups had dropped, and that intentional safety efforts in specific areas like this one could lead to "a passenger vehicle fleet that is much more compatible in crashes."
Sounds like the US really needs to follow the UK and introduce a separate catehory for those ridiculously heavy vehicles. To drive anything over 3.5 tonnes you need a C1 driving licence in the UK. That's over 7,700 lb. That is sensible as the larger vehicles really do handle very differently.
That last para by the IIHS is a little forlorn. If a 5 tonne EV hits a 1.4 tonne commuter car head on, the small car will see three times the acceleration that the larger one sees. If the large car is designed for a 50 kph impact at 15g then it will need a force of 750 kN before it start to crumple, rather more than 50g on the small one. In other words there isn't much you can do with a 5 tonne truck to make it 'safe' for a 1400 kg car, except by making the crumple zone longer and softer, but the crumple zone would need to be twice as long to even start to crumple when hit with the 1400 kg car. It is interesting stuff, it is amazing how Newton's laws pretty much define the problem when it comes to crash.
warshipadmin wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:09 am
That last para by the IIHS is a little forlorn. If a 5 tonne EV hits a 1.4 tonne commuter car head on, the small car will see three times the acceleration that the larger one sees. If the large car is designed for a 50 kph impact at 15g then it will need a force of 750 kN before it start to crumple, rather more than 50g on the small one. In other words there isn't much you can do with a 5 tonne truck to make it 'safe' for a 1400 kg car, except by making the crumple zone longer and softer, but the crumple zone would need to be twice as long to even start to crumple when hit with the 1400 kg car. It is interesting stuff, it is amazing how Newton's laws pretty much define the problem when it comes to crash.
Millennial cars don’t identify with Newtons Laws of Motion
warshipadmin wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:09 am
That last para by the IIHS is a little forlorn. If a 5 tonne EV hits a 1.4 tonne commuter car head on, the small car will see three times the acceleration that the larger one sees. If the large car is designed for a 50 kph impact at 15g then it will need a force of 750 kN before it start to crumple, rather more than 50g on the small one. In other words there isn't much you can do with a 5 tonne truck to make it 'safe' for a 1400 kg car, except by making the crumple zone longer and softer, but the crumple zone would need to be twice as long to even start to crumple when hit with the 1400 kg car. It is interesting stuff, it is amazing how Newton's laws pretty much define the problem when it comes to crash.
Millennial cars don’t identify with Newtons Laws of Motion
Well why did so many millenials become members of Momentum then?
warshipadmin wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:09 am
That last para by the IIHS is a little forlorn. If a 5 tonne EV hits a 1.4 tonne commuter car head on, the small car will see three times the acceleration that the larger one sees. If the large car is designed for a 50 kph impact at 15g then it will need a force of 750 kN before it start to crumple, rather more than 50g on the small one. In other words there isn't much you can do with a 5 tonne truck to make it 'safe' for a 1400 kg car, except by making the crumple zone longer and softer, but the crumple zone would need to be twice as long to even start to crumple when hit with the 1400 kg car. It is interesting stuff, it is amazing how Newton's laws pretty much define the problem when it comes to crash.
Millennial cars don’t identify with Newtons Laws of Motion
Well why did so many millenials become members of Momentum then?
