Design innovation is sort of a subjective category. Some seemingly great advancements—say the oscillating center vents on the Mazda 626 of a decade or more back—get consigned to the patent office dust heap. Others, like direct injection, become standards that almost all cars eventually adopt.
When it comes to cars, it seems like innovation has slowed considerably in the past few years. Oh sure there’s a move afoot to smaller engines with turbochargers and superchargers but haven’t we seen that all before?
It’s hard in fact to point to the last truly revolutionary innovation that has affected the automotive world. Or, at least it’s hard for me. What do you think was the last really important automotive innovation to arrive and really stick?
Image: BaT
Hooniverse Asks: What was the Last Really Important Innovation in Automotive Design?
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The most recent thing I can think of is still about 20 years old, but still, stability control has undoubtedly saved lives, and has probably helped accelerate today’s horsepower wars (your call if that’s good or bad).
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I see where you’re going with this, but I’d argue that it’s also made chassis designers lazy in some cases. There are cars that are virtually undriveable with the electronic stability aids, etc. switched off.
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Oh, fully agreed. Also, it probably bought the SUV a couple years until we got to the crossover (I remember ESP being a big talking point for the original Benz ML), which I side as a general negative.
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ASR but not ABS? Without which ASR wouldn’t be possible?
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Sure, but the question was about the last great innovation, and stability is obviously more recent than ABS.
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You are, of course, completely correct. What was I thinking? It’s already Friday night here, so I blame the wine. 🙂
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Putting bluetooth in cars, along with steering wheel controls. hands free phone and internet music. Best tech on my TSX
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My first thought is materials, high strength steel in particular. Even though it has become mainstream fairly quickly in the last decade or so it probably doesn’t qualify as revolutionary, though, since it is still steel.
CAD might also be a contender.
*funny line about flowerpots in beetles or something* -
Variable valve timing. Advancing and retarding spark mixed with when, how high and how long the valves stay open has caused 40 mpg to be the new 30 mpg which was the new 20 mpg, etc.
As far as real-world gains, this has given the consumer more HP, better MPG and made the I-4 a viable engine for the mass-market.-
For the record ( and for the pride of Alfisti everywhere) – Alfa Romeo was the first to use variable valve timing in a production car, in the Alfa Spider of 1980.
http://ae-plus.com/milestones/giovanni-torozza-an-engineer-with-imagination-and-flair-
::Honda fanboy grumbles about the fact that Honda took the idea and made it actually work::
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Hey, Alfa’s worked as intended – to pass emissions. Decades later, VW doesn’t get a hall pass for following a similar strategy.
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There is no such thing as pedantry on Hooniverse.
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Electric cars with decent performance, acceptable range, and appealing packaging.
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I was going to say hybrids, and I do think there’s a case to be made for that, but hybrids were never going to be more than an intermediate phase.
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My vote is for electric power steering. I don’t believe that the current electric car trend would be viable without electric power steering.
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Would not have followed that train of thought, but excellent point.
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What, you can’t imagine a Tesla rolling around with a grumbling, groaning FoMoCo-grade hydraulic pump underhood?
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The last really important innovation?
Lightweight materials, 3D printing?
Dean may have it with CAD but I’ll add CNC. Imagine trying to make a Tesla with a slide rule. -
Magnetorheological fluid (ferrofluid). It may never become ubiquitous, as conventional dampers will remain “good enough” for most applications, but MR dampers are becoming commonplace within certain market segments, and they are here to stay.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Ferrofluid_in_magnetic_field.jpg-
They are pretty cool, but lemme tell yuh, when you have to replace a couple, it’s NOT an inexpensive part.
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The car-based minivan with sliding doors. They drive and ride well, get good fuel economy, fit lots of people and/or cargo in reasonable comfort, and some can even tow moderate loads.
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Nearly everything can tow – it’s just a matter of for how long and at what speed.
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The worldwide standardization of the OBDII/CANBus interface. It has made a whole raft of advancements in engine management, chassis dynamics, data logging, instrumentation, tuning, safety and diagnostics not just possible, but quite slickly manageable.
http://cdn.dragzine.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2011/05/powergrid-hookup.jpg-
You’ll probably start to see CANBus being at least replaced by ethernet soon enough though.
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Radial tires.
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Hydroforming
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Start-stop technology.
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Aerodynamics.
Not just streamlining, but actual, proper wind-tunnel design. Without the advancements of the early ’80s cars would look a whole lot different.
I didn’t necessarily say worse…-
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1974: Citroën provides Toyota with twelve years’ worth of exterior styling for the Prius.
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And it’s shape was presaged with the GS
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BMWs 21st century revival of Body on chassis construction for the 21st century incorporating composites. I think this is where the next leap is going to happen and not just in EVs, everything is probably slowly going to move away from pressed steel bodies to different contstruction, perhaps along the lines of Gordon Murrays iStream ideas to get lighter weight, better fuel efficiency and niche models that can be turned around more quickly and more locally without the need for huge tooling and large manufacturing plants
http://www.bmw.com/_common/shared/insights/corporation/bmwi/concept/lifedrive-1.jpg -
I think the biggest changes have been 1) fuel injection, 2) anti-lock brakes 3) turbocharging.
Fuel injection eliminated the pinking/detonation that used to be prevalent.
Anti-lock brakes really help you not crash.
Turbo’s improved performance whilst maintaining fuel economy.
Other items like stability control barely move the needle, except for a lucky few. In 70,000 miles of driving the stability control cut in once on an autocross course … YMMV. -
Not having to buy kitchen cabinets complete with sink at the local boat club?
/snark -
At the risk of bringing on a lot of hate, I’ll put forth Manumatics (dual clutch automatics). I know purists still like the third petal. But, the ability to satisfy my desire to control gear selection (and quite rapidly) with my wife’s desire for an automatic has brought marital peace into our home.
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