[V8] pickup truck "technology"

[Mike Arman]

Roger,



> The pickup truck is arguably the most useful variety of motor vehicle being
> produced.  In four door form, it carries six adults with room for enough
> packages of gizzies to last those six adults for a month's camping in some
> far off place.

Agreed - that's what it is designed to do, move a bunch of people and a pile of stuff from here to 
there.



  It is also the most inefficient and wasteful example of our
> total disregard for conservation yet devised, aside from a "so-called" SUV
> built on the same platform.
>
> Basically the automobile industry is producing the same pickup truck that it
> produced back in Henry Ford's day.


That's because the basic design works, it does what is required of it in the most economical fashion.


   The vehicle has an engine mounted in the
> front with its transmission and a long driveshaft turning the rear wheels
> through the same kind of pinion arrangement, or differential that was used
> at the dawn of the "modern" automobile.


This turns out to be a good setup for utility vehicles. The weight of the payload "balances" the 
weight of the engine to some extent. This also explains the squirrely handling of unladen pickup trucks.


   The engine in the front is a huge
> multicylinder affair, arranged in either a six, eight or ten cylinder array
> in a "V" shape.


Yes, you need torque to move loads. "V" engines are an efficient use of space and let us put six or 
eight cylinders into a compact package. Ten cylinders is probably excessive, eight is good, most of 
the V-6 engines have been pretty anemic in WORKING truck applications although they are just fine 
for profiling and bar hopping.


   There are around twelve inches of wasted space between the
> engine and humanity due to outmoded design and engineering concepts
> incorporated in the glitzy front ends of these vehicles.
>

Good - I want some room to be able to reach things I have to work on. I understand the 2010 and 
earlier Ford turbo super something pickup trucks need the CAB REMOVED to replace the turbocharger - 
this is just plain dumb, and the smaller you make a vehicle the worse service accessibility is going 
to be. Add complexity, and it gets even worse. (I guess that's the Audi content . . . of all people, 
WE should know about about the problems that come from squeezing ten pounds of technology into a six 
pound bag.)




> I wonder why it is that no one had yet been able or willing to produce a
> light utility vehicle that has a relatively simple four cylinder engine
> mounted beneath the center of the vehicle?


Because service accessibility would be poor to non-existent. Four cylinders won't cut it for heavy 
loads. With emissions requirements nowadays, NOTHING with pistons is going to be simple.



   The configuration would shorten
> the vehicle by three or four feet while still providing the cargo and
> passenger capacity of the modern pickup.


This is a worthy goal for a city pickup truck. Once you get out of metro areas, a couple of "extra" 
feet in length just isn't that important.


   While a pickup needs to have a
> certain GVW rating in order to meet the needs of trades people and those
> private owners who pull trailers and the like, I see no good reason why the
> ONLY kind of pick up is an antique design, using the most expensive and
> consumpitive propulsion systems devised for private transportation.


Pickup trucks being driven around empty are a waste, yes.

But a LOT of pickup trucks work for their living, and work hard. They have to be simple and 
foolproof because sometimes they are driven by employees who couldn't really care less about them, 
they just want to get in, get out, get paid (contractor's mantra, or at least here in Florida). The 
trucks get rode hard and put away wet.

If we had a full-sized FWD, front engine pickup truck, it would EAT half shafts and front tires on a 
regular basis because of the constantly different loads and consequently unpredictable suspension 
geometry. CV joint boots would always be torn from driving around on construction sites.

There have been some small non-conventional pickups in the past, there was a Dodge Omni derivative 
and of course the lovely little VW rabbit pickup, some of them were diesels. I think the new Ford 
urban minivan is FWD/transverse 4 as well, but these are SMALL trucks with limited load capacity, 
and they are really happiest on pavement, making small size multiple deliveries in a limited, 
congested urban market.

For serious work, you need high ground clearance, robust construction, plenty of horsepower and a 
reliable way to deliver it to the ground, and the machine needs to be simple and low maintenance 
because in many cases it is going to be abused on a regular and long-term basis. It is going to get 
stuck in the mud, hung up on rocks, beat halfway to death and will be expected to shrug this off and 
come back for more every day for at least five years, maybe ten.

It should also have absolutely minimal electronic doo-dads to fail and get you stuck somewhere off 
in the boonies. Simplicity is an absolute virtue in vehicles that work for their livings. (The new 
BMW motorcycles have a system where if the computer sees something it doesn't like, the bike shuts 
down into "hard lock" mode and absolutely cannot be driven. You're supposed to call the dealer for 
service - the theory being that the service call to Antarctica will be cheaper than the damage you 
will do if you press on. Turns out to be a bad sensor . . . )


   I have
> no idea what such a fleet of light and medium duty pickups would yield in
> terms of conservation of fuel, but I do know that such a concept will be
> nigh onto impossible to implement because it will require the kind of
> leadership at the legislative level that simply doesn't exist.


"leadership at the legislative level" . . . wuzzat? We haven't seen that since Teddy charged up San 
Juan Hill on his unicorn. (Yeah, that's what we need, unicorns with SHARP horns to prod our 
"legislators" into doing something *for* us instead of *to* us for a change!)


I read an article in of all places the NYT about Toyota's lack of success in the US pickup truck 
market. Toyota makes quality vehicles (for the most part), but they never understood why US buyers 
didn't want Toyota pickups. Gen 1 pickups were too small and anemic, Toyota never understood why 
anyone would need or want (or actually pay for) a full size pickup truck. Gen 2 pickups were larger, 
but had V6 engines, and were perceived again, as lacking by the marketplace. Gen 3 pickups finally 
got V8s, but Toyota management still isn't clued into the truck market - to the GREAT relief of 
GM/Ford/Chrysler (Fiat?)

Yes, Toyota sells pickup trucks in the US, but in nowhere NEAR the numbers they should.


The leadership needs to come from the market - someone needs to design and build a vehicle that is 
reasonably priced, simple, tough, rugged, durable, resilient, can carry the load required, is easy 
and reasonably inexpensive to fix AND gets some kind of rational fuel mileage. Tall order indeed, 
and it is a futile waste of time to try to legislate against the laws of physics. You can't move 
large vehicles without using a lot of energy, and if your needs actually do dictate that you need a 
large vehicle, you are simply not going to get 40 mpg no matter what laws you pass or what you run 
it on (except perhaps recycled political promises, or better, recycled politicians).


Further, for trucks that are used in business, there is NO incentive to be 
green/economical/efficient. This is because the cost of the truck and the cost of the fuel are paid 
by someone else. The cost of a contractor's equipment is figured into the price of the building, the 
cost of the UPS truck is figured into their rates. ALL of this is business expense and is fully tax 
deductible. From my accountant's standpoint, where's MY incentive not to cost YOU money? (Other than 
my good intentions and sense of social responsibility, both of which are going to be balanced 
against my P&L statement.)

The other problem is that no one raindrop thinks it is responsible for the deluge. OK, I wasted half 
a gallon of fuel yesterday by running the A/C, what's the big deal it is only half a gallon. Now 
multiply that half gallon of fuel by 200,000,000 cars on the road, suddenly we have a LOT of fuel 
used to keep cool getting zero mpg instead of being used to move around. Every day, all summer long. 
Hmmmm.

What will provide a push towards more efficient trucks is the same thing that is providing a push 
towards more efficient cars - fuel prices. For any vehicle, the size is pretty much determined by 
the payload, whether it is two people, four people, ten bags of cement or ten bales of hay (or all 
of the above at the same time).

We also might want to think about tweaking the tax structure to encourage businesses to select more 
fuel-efficient vehicles - right now, there is no such incentive other than that provided by their 
advertising departments (See how green we are? We just painted all our 7 mpg trucks green with 
biodegradable paint!)


Best Regards,

Mike Arman
90V8Q (a really efficient way to move one person around! We should talk . . . ;-)