In addition to designing cars, car designers
I will also be busy applying for various patents.
Some car companies will apply for more than 1000 patents a year.
As the saying goes, "when the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds."
So many patents
Some wide-open and whimsical ideas
Can't be used in production cars immediately.
Whether it can be used.
Say "pit" first.
Maybe it looks like a great design now.
Maybe one day it will appear on the street.
You see, autonomous driving and human-computer interaction are becoming more and more popular.
How incredible it seemed in the past.
Now it has become sparse and common.
Maybe some great patents
It is the future development direction.
Qiqi 1? A car with a long tail
Have you ever seen the tail of a small animal? Have you ever seen a car with a tail? In 20 16, Toyota applied for a wonderful patent: retractable rear. What is the use of this tail? The tail will become longer with the acceleration of the car, which is said to greatly improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the car and effectively reduce fuel consumption. When it is stretched, it looks like an auger of a ground drill, and it looks like a tunnel drill walking backwards. When it stops, it can be retracted into the suitcase. But we don't know exactly how it works, and there are still problems such as whether it will affect the line of sight and the safe distance from the rear car when it is extended.
Wonderful 2? Sticking people to the car after hitting them? !
With the rapid development of autonomous driving, its safety has become one of the concerns. In 20 16, Google registered a patent of adhesive coating for driverless cars, which can reduce the harm to pedestrians when hitting people. When a self-driving car hits a pedestrian, the special coating on the hood, front bumper and side of the car will firmly stick to the pedestrian, so that people will not be hurt twice. Because when a pedestrian has a car accident, the injury to the pedestrian is not only the impact of the car, but also the injury of rolling on the ground or being crushed by other vehicles. On the other hand, the adhesive layer of the vehicle is covered with an eggshell-like protective coating, so that the adhesive layer will not be polluted by dust when driving. After the car hits an object, the protective coating will break and the adhesive layer will be exposed.
But how do you move people trapped in the car? Google's patent shows that they will use a "removable adhesive" that can be loosened after a while. This new concept can reduce the trauma when a car hits a pedestrian, but Google did not say whether to apply this concept to its driverless car. To tell the truth, it's a bit like "flypaper".
Wonderful 3? There are cars in front and behind. Guess where I'm going?
In order to facilitate two-way driving, high-speed rail and subway are both double-headed designs; And the car is also double-headed. 1920, a garage named Mueller assembled an advertising car for itself: Ford double-headed T-car. 1953 10 month, a family named MAC? The company in Alamany applied for the patent of "two-headed car". The patented car has a car that pivots back and forth and can be driven from both ends. Later, someone really built a two-headed car, at the British crazy auto show "Top? In gear, James May's "Salfa Romibo" is a combination of Alfa Romeo 164 and Saab 9000. A double-headed car can't even avoid reversing. Just change the driving position directly.
Wonderful 4? Batman chariot dream come true?
In the automobile industry, Ford is called "patent madman" and applied for various patents. Its insistence on patents is not only manifested in research and development, but also in the acquisition of patents. In 20 17, Ford bought a patent from three Germans, which can combine cars and motorcycles. The patent is to put a pure electric motorcycle between the main driver and the co-driver. When necessary, the motorcycle can be separated from the car by opening the hood of the car. After separation, cars and motorcycles will be able to drive automatically. The car is driven by a hub motor and a rear engine. In the combined state, the motorcycle wheel will not touch the ground. But under special circumstances, motorcycle wheels can also touch the ground to provide extra power for the car. The original intention of this patent is to deal with the problem of urban road congestion, but the more it looks, the more it looks like the cool chariot in the movie Batman.
Wonderful 5? Left rudder and right rudder DIY by themselves
1994, the British-French cross-harbour tunnel was opened, and people can finally drive back and forth between the European continent and the British Isles. However, the driving directions of the roads in the two places are different, and the steering wheel position is also different. France is the left rudder and Britain is the right rudder. So BMW engineers put forward a revolutionary solution. They invented the first "interactive steering wheel" in automobile history. The specific operation only needs four steps: open the glove box, turn out the dashboard, remove the steering wheel and install it on the co-driver. However, they did not explain how to solve the problem of throttle and brake.
Wonderful 6? If the windshield can't be scraped clean, put on an electromagnetic wiper.
Ordinary wipers always have some edges that can't be scraped off, which makes drivers with obsessive-compulsive disorder itch. Wiper systems with multiple wiper blades are usually complicated in design and limited in cleaning, and stains that cannot be cleaned may affect normal driving. The traditional wiper system has many mechanical parts, which will wear out quickly due to the repeated movement of the wiper. In electric vehicles, the movement of the wiper also needs extra power from the on-board battery, which also reduces the mileage of the vehicle.
To this end, Tesla applied for a new patent-electromagnetic wiper. This design patent turns a double wiper into a single wiper. Unlike traditional wipers, this wiper developed by Tesla adopts electromagnetic principle. Behind the engine cover and at the bottom of the windshield, two magnetic guide rails are designed, and a magnetic slider is connected with the wiper arm and wiper blade. When the current passes through the magnet and coil, the slider will slide on the guide rail, just like a maglev train, and the wiper blade will move quickly on the windshield. Perhaps for fuel vehicles, the energy saved is negligible, but for electric vehicles, the improvement of the efficiency of any component will increase the cruising range, which is conducive to the safety of autonomous driving. However, this patent is still in the early stage of research and development, and I don't know if it will be put into mass production, so we have to wait.
Which one do you look forward to most?
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.