Cadillac engineers augmented the optimized structural load path with materials that further reduced weight. They employed high-strength steel, which offers yield and tensile strengths about four times higher than those of conventional steels. They also used ultra-high-strength steel, which is about four times stronger than high-strength steel. Those materials allowed strategic structural members to be made from thinner gauges.
To further reduce vehicle mass, the engineering team also employed an aluminum hood, aluminum shock towers, an aluminum engine cradle, an aluminum instrument panel beam, and magnesium engine brackets.
Cadillac's 3,400lb ATS will mark the automaker's debut in the compact luxury market.
(Source: Cadillac)
The new car's powertrain and suspension also make extensive use of aluminum. Its cylinder block, cylinder heads, and pistons are made of lightweight cast aluminum. The intake manifold saves about 5.5 pounds, and the exhaust manifold saves about 13 pounds through the use of aluminum. And the engine's connecting rods are made from a powder metal that incorporates a high ratio of copper, thus further cutting weight.
The ATS five-year design effort is notable, not only for its intelligent structural design, but also for Cadillac's ongoing commitment to costly engineering processes while GM struggled with its finances. During that period, Cadillac engineers benchmarked competitors' vehicles, such as the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C-Class, and Audi A4. They ran clinics in China, Germany, the US, and Great Britain. They visited and rode with owners of those vehicles and learned about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Finally, they built multiple ATS mules to analyze the performance of sub-systems, such as the suspension, and tested them on race tracks.
if a car reduces the weight speed will increase? is it really true i just got this idea from my friend. when we are discussing some materials used in the cadillac parts.
"Cadillac's design effort called on teams of structural engineers, chassis engineers, materials specialists, and mathematicians to create a body structure that would manage loads intelligently."
I commend the automotive structural engineers for their efforts in reducing the weight of the metals used in this Cadilac. I also commend the inteligence of those who commented about this project.
What I found missing was any reference to the structural weight reduction through the use of advanced composite materials.( Forgive me if I missed it.)
A glance at any modern airplane will reveal the latest in strength to weight engineering with the use of composite structures in airframes.
Might be time for the auto industry to bring in some structural engineers from the aviation industry if weight reduction is the goal.
It clearly obvious that airframe engineers have already achieved that goal.
I definitely agree with that -- the design conservatism of Toyota (and for that matter, Honda too) -- and made a similar comment earlier in the thread. I also agree with Chuck about marketing mucking about too much in U.S. carmaking. Incremental improvements are the only way to both assess the effects of change incrementally improve reliability. Change all the subsystems at once and who knows what's going on. I also think that the U.S. car companies only started focusing on the build quality in their factories after Japanese and German automakers had come to the U.S. and set up factories which were more flexible, required fewer people, and built higher quality cars than they did or could.
I was thinking human safety as well while reading this. That weight savings goes towards fuel economy, yes, but in a crash there's conservation of momentum to consider as well. The weight savings means you're going to have more momentum transferred to this lighter car.
Smokey Yunik made a similar comment about reducing race car weight, a whole lot of years ago. " You don't take a hundred pounds out of a car in one place, you take an ounce out in sixteen hundred places."
Of course, one way to do that is to use the much stronger, much thinner steels. Unfortunately, when they finally do bend it is a much more destructive failure mode, and much less likely to be able to straighten. So there certainly is a tradeoff made there.
Ratsky: Excellent point about the conservatism of Toyota. That may also be the reason why Toyota thoroughly dominates Consumer Reports' reliability ratings year after year. Even after Toyota's supposed "unintended acceleration" problem a couple of years ago, Toyota's vehicles again came in with the highest marks on virtually all of their vehicles.
Re Japanese makers: all tend to be pretty conservaitive, but the most is Toyota. I was once told by a Toyota executive that they would not even consider adding any new technology until they were losing significant sales because they didn't have it! Nissan was a bit more adventurous, Honda much more so. Can't speak to the 2nd tier players (Mitsubishi, Suzuki, etc.), though.
Biggest difference: US manufacturers have been driven more by marketing, German more by engineering and function, Japanese by process (focus on quality).
One other point: largely because of their slow incremental approach to evolving thier products, the Japanese get away with 18-month design cycles, vs. 30-36 months for everyone else! Thus, when they DO decide to introduce something new, it appears quickly after the decision.
I enjoyed my 87 Cadillac deVille. It got gas mileage compareable to to the dodge stratus you mention and it wasn't that all heavy of a car. My 96 deville is rated, wikipedia, at 4,000 to 4,300 lbs and doesn't get a necessarily bad gas mileage. Some would probably say other wise, but I don't like little cars.
In the end the article says it's comparable in weight to most anything else on the market. So.. they didn't blindly reduce weight as they shouldn't if they don't want huge problems later on. But I am surprised Cadillac is even building a compact. Prior compacts like the Cimmaron did poorly. Why play that tune again? An aluminum hood? That's race car stuff from the 60's and you don't build mass produced bodies with aluminum. They dent too easy and too difficult to repair.
With LEDs dropping in price virtually every year, automakers have begun employing them, not only on luxury vehicles, but on entry-level models, as well.
Using almost 200 light-emitting diodes in the front and back of the new 2014 CTS, Cadillac designers are showing how LEDs can change the character of a vehicle.
We recently posted an online slideshow called, “18 People You Didn’t Know Were Engineers.” Within hours of its publication, readers began to suggest names of other luminaries -- astronauts, politicians, athletes and actors -- who were educated or had worked as engineers.
In yet another sign that hydrogen is creeping into the consciousness of global automotive designers, sports car maker Aston Martin plans to run a hydrogen-fueled vehicle in a 24-hour Grand Touring race later this month.
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