Motor vehicles – Special wheel base – Having only three wheels
Patent
1998-05-29
2000-01-18
Rice, Kenneth R.
Motor vehicles
Special wheel base
Having only three wheels
280786, B62D 6106
Patent
active
06015022&
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention concerns an ultra-light road vehicle comprising only a small number of components, specifically a vehicle of the type known as a "city car" for commuting use, in particular electrically propelled, comprising a supporting structure, two front wheels and one rear wheel mounted on this supporting structure by means of suspensions and a separate passenger compartment fitted on to this supporting structure, which comprises a hollow central beam.
Vehicles intended for use as city cars are already known, particularly electrically propelled. They are generally designed on the principle of miniaturization of standard automobiles. Thus they usually consist of a chassis or a self-supporting passenger compartment which fulfils the functions of a cabin for the occupants and a chassis carrying the wheel suspension arms, motor and all the peripheral components providing the drive, steering, safety equipment such as the braking system, etc.
These vehicles generally possess four wheels, which must be far enough apart, both longitudinally and laterally, that is to say, must form a wheelbase and track sufficient to guarantee a minimum degree of stability to the whole. As a consequence, their weight is considerable in spite of the use of lightweight materials, such as composites and thermoplastics, especially where the passenger compartment is concerned. Because of this weight, the quantity of energy required for propulsion is considerable, a particularly serious handicap for an electrically propelled vehicle, since accumulator batteries are heavy.
The greater the amount of energy required, the greater will be the size and weight of the necessary batteries. Since the possibilities for weight reduction of standard vehicles are limited, development continues to be oriented towards vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines until such time as lighter batteries come on to the market. At present, the net weight of vehicles of this type is so great that the energy required to provide them with optimum range for the function for which they are intended cannot be stored in the form of electrical energy, due to the weight of the storage media of this type of energy.
Apart from the problem of weight of present-day vehicles, the number of their component parts poses a further problem. A standard vehicle, relatively small and at the entry end of the range, comprises over 30,000 parts. The price of these parts, and above all their assembly costs, raises the cost of these vehicles to such a point that the concept of the "city car" ceases to be economically viable.
The German publication DE-30 27 072 A1 describes a three-wheeled vehicle comprising a central supporting structure, two rear drive wheels and one steerable front wheel. The passenger seats are arranged on either side of the central supporting structure.
In practice, it becomes apparent that three-wheeled vehicles having two wheels at the rear and one at the front are highly unstable, their road-holding on bends being much inferior to that of three-wheeled vehicles having two wheels at the front and one at the rear.
In addition, arranging the seats on either side of the central supporting structure results in a wide, cumbersome vehicle, incompatible with the concept of the city car.
This arrangement can also be dangerous for passengers in case of lateral impact, which may result in their being crushed against the central supporting structure.
The purpose of the present invention is to palliate these disadvantages by proposing a vehicle of the above-mentioned type, designed so as to lighten the basic structure to the maximum extent so that it can be driven by an electric motor, without reducing its effective range below the threshold where the vehicle would cease to be of interest. Its design also minimizes the space it occupies, especially when parking, and it is constructed from a reduced number of component parts.
The invention achieves this purpose in that the aforementioned hollow central beam is composed of an extruded constant section profile mad
REFERENCES:
patent: 1989995 (1935-02-01), Martin
patent: 2383611 (1945-08-01), Marcy
patent: 4448278 (1984-05-01), Badsey
patent: 4484648 (1984-11-01), Jephcott
patent: 4506753 (1985-03-01), Wood, Jr.
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