2006: California.
Drawings on Display at Michelin Challenge Design™
Biography:
Bas Heitkamp (Sebastiaan Gabriel Heitkamp), 23, Netherlands, has shared his passion of automobiles with his father since he was a child. As a kid, he could name the brand and type of every car on the street. After high school, Bas made the decision to combine his passion for design and his father’s background in architecture to further his education by attending the Technical University of Eindhoven to pursue a degree in Architecture.
In his second year of studying architecture at the university, he got the chance to participate in a national competition for architecture students, the Wood Challenge. Being one of the youngest participants, he was really surprised to be awarded the first price. His design was for an Elephant Keeping in the Emmen Zoo, designed to be an abstract forest of wooden columns.
Bas never stopped drawing cars and upon reading about Michelin Challenge Design, he decided to enter. Once again, he was surprised to be amongst the finalists in the prestigious challenge.
Description:
With its aggressive looks and powerful V8’s, it was all about the American dream, the Car for the land with unlimited possibilities. It is also a car out of an era where gas prices and environmental care were no big issues. My new interpretation of the Dodge Charger: a small, affordable sports car that will combine the aggressive looks, power and attitude of a muscle car with the necessary car tradition. This car will keep it alive when the big V8 engines are long forbidden.
Wide tires are instantly associated with speed. They are used on almost every sports car providing them with better traction while accelerating, better grip and handling when taking a fast corner. The more contact with the road the better.
To get maximum fuel efficiency it is best to keep rolling resistance as low as possible. Slimmer tires have less contact with the road and therefore, less rolling resistance, which saves fuel.
My design wants both, wide tires for grip and traction and slim tires for a better (less polluted) environment.
This new tire system proposal is manufactured with two air-chambers. One will have a constant tire pressure and the other will be connected to a tire inflation system. This system makes it possible to change the tire pressure inside chamber one while driving.
When the car is driving slowly or driving at a higher speed but in a straight line (that means when there is no extra need for good traction or grip), the tire pressure inside chamber one will be higher than the pressure in chamber two. This means that only part of the tire has contact with the road.
When electronic sensors detect sideways motions or a loss of grip, tire pressure inside chamber one is automatically lowered to the same height as in chamber two. This means the whole running surface of the tire makes contact with the road to get the required extra grip.
The tire inflation system will be connected with and activate by sensors that are like those that activate an ESP system, only more sensitive and they will come into action long before the ESP sets in.
When there is a puncture in one of the two chambers, the other chamber will dive the driver enough control to get to a service point safely.
The car will be driven by a hybrid system, similar to the systems that are being used by various other car manufacturers. The combustion engine however will not be a petrol one. It will be a small diesel engine that will be engineered to run on bio-diesel. This engine can be equipped with DaimlerChrysler’s new SCR system to make it even cleaner. This engine will be assisted by an electronic generator. Energy will be absorbed while braking. Photovoltaic cells integrated in the glass on the back of the car generate extra power on sunny days, days that require extra energy for air-conditioning use. Thereby the sun shines a large percentage of the days in California. Use of these photovoltaic cells isn’t new to DaimlerChrysler either, they use them already in large sunroofs on Mercedes E- and S-class.
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