The Technology Context – B101

THE FUTURE FOR TRANSPOT: THE SMART FORTWO COUPE?

Introduction: Why do we need to change transport as it is today?

With global warming at the heart of the world’s economic problems, some major changes have to be made if we want to keep the world as it is today. Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.




It’s getting warmer and warmer here on earth and this isn’t good, it is causing the artic ice to melt and consequently causing the water levels to rise…



The rise in sea level is rising exponentially, if it continues at this rate some of the world will be underwater, and sooner rather than later! And eventually everything will be submerged.


And that’s where cars come in; one of the many ever increasing factors to contributing to this is fuel emissions from cars. As you can see from the graph on the left, use of fossil fuels is increasing, so by reducing fuel emissions we can help at least slow down global warming enough so we can find a more permanent solution.



So what are the Possible Solutions

• Hybrid Cars?
• No cars?
• Better public transport?
• Low C02 Producing cars?

The aspect of this I’m going to look at is Hybrid Cars. Smart Cars first came about in April 1994 when a group of people formed a company called MCC smart Gmbh. The company was formed to take a traditional car and reform the idea making it much more sustainable. The car I’m going to research and explore is the smart car fortwo coupé.

So how does a smart car work?
At a first glance it looks like a glorified golf cart. It's even ‘Mini-er than the Mini’, so small that two smart cars can share one standard parking space. However due to its size it can appear to look very unsafe. When you think, 1,600 pound, two-seater is meant to share the road with the likes of the 6,400 pound Hummer H2. However it is not as unsafe as you might think.
The rear-mounted three-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine only produces about forty horsepower; however the car is so lightweight that those forty horses go a lot further than one would think. But it's certainly no race car; it takes just short of twenty seconds to accelerate to 100 kilometres per hour (about 62 miles per hour), and it has a maximum speed of about 85 miles per hour due to an electronic speed governor. It's geared with a clutch less 6-speed manual gearbox.
It has high-end braking and stability control features to help it keep its footing, and a few nice little features such as a system to prevent the car from rolling back when starting on an uphill slope. The passenger compartment is protected by a reinforced steel cage which its engineers call the "walnut," allowing the car's exterior to absorb much of the energy of an impact. The cage holds up to some brutal punishment, for example, in one test the cage remained intact after impacting a 20 ton block of concrete at 70 MPH. But it's not perfect; it has many of the same impact-related problems as other smaller cars. In Europe's five-star crash rating system, the smart car fortwo gains a healthy 3 stars. Also on top of this as it is a small car, it makes it very impractical for families, which reduces its selling ability.
The environment / co2 Emissions

So with all the above taken into account I did some research on the actual emissions of the car itself and sort to compare them against other cars of similar size.

Smart Car Fortwo Coupé
Vauxhall Corsa
Mini Cooper
Peugeot 106

Co2 Emissions
g/km
113 g/km
161 g/km
166 g/km
174 g/km
Table 1: Co2 emissions for different car models. Data retrieved from http://www.smmtco2.co.uk/

Not only is the Smart Car fortwo Coupé a little bit more eco friendly, it produces around 30-35% less co2 than other cars of its size. It may not seem a lot on this scale, but if every car in the world was doing that 30-35% less emissions it would make a huge impact.



Petrol Consumption

“The smart fortwo sets standards – especially with its unparalleled low CO2 emissions” This is what they promise, how true is this? Well the low CO2 emissions are only the start of it. Comparing the fuel usage of the Fortwo Corpé against a Vauxhall Corsa you can see from the word go the Smart car is more economic on petrol.

Per Gallon = £4.50
Average Miles per day = 35

Car
Smart Fortwo Corpé
Vauxhall Corsa
Table 2: Fuel consumption by car models. Retrieved from http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/

With a prospective saving of 61p per day, over a course of a year that’s:

61p * 365 days = £222.27 a year savings.

Now looking that over the course of 30 years the savings would be:

£222.27 * 30 = £6679.50!!

This savings show that it is not just the environment that benefits from hybrid card such as the Smart Fortwo Corpé but people who own them will benefit from the savings.

Smartville

'Smartville is as novel as smart itself. Nearly all the components are made on-site, so it's no effort to get them from where they're made to the assembly line, and that cuts transportation and emissions by up to 95%. Because everything is so close together, smart models are produced in the quantities needed, so there are no tarmac airfields lined up with homeless cars.’

'None of the buildings at smartville in Hambach, France, are exposed to harmful substances like formaldehyde and asbestos. In fact, most of the fade linings are built from beautifully seasoned timber from quick growing European woods. Smartville even operates its own biological treatment plant and heat recovery system in plastics processing, so nothing goes to waste. It's a safe and attractive place to be.'

Could this be more of a key issue than the cars itself, if all car manufacturing companies did this it would help global warming on a huge scale. And on a higher plane if this was shifted to more than just car manufacturing companies this could be a huge step towards preventing the global epidemic which is global warming. I can’t really get any numbers towards estimating the amount that factories contribute to global warming but a reduction of that amount by 95% is a huge step in the right direction.
After researching the benefits of having a smart car fortwo coupe, its clear to me that the pro’s outweigh the cons, so why would they still not be very popular? So I decided to conduct my own short questionnaire and see how much people really know about them and come to the bottom of this.

The Questionnaire Results

As expected only a small percentage of people actually own one, this brings me nicely to my next question.





Figure 1: Showing the number of people who own a smart car.
Again only a small portion of people said they’d consider buying one, now is this because they don’t like them/don’t want one or they don’t know enough about them to want one.


Figure 2: The number of people who would consider buying a smart car.

Now this is interesting, although people said on the whole they weren’t interested in having one they didn’t actually know anything about the car themselves at all.



Figure 3: The number of people knowing about the possible savings from owning a smart car.
After explaining about how much they could save on petrol over a period of time and the cars being a lot more economic friendly than most other petrol cars. More people said they would consider buying one that not considering it.



Figure 4: The number of people who would consider buying a smart car after hearing about the benefits.

Summary of Results

With majority of people saying they weren’t interested in the smart car, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the smart car is undesirable or a bad car. The area of interest which is clear from the results is the lack of knowledge by the general public about the whole smart car concept.

Key Issue: Awareness
I feel that the key issue highlighted by the results of my questionnaire is that there is not enough awareness about the benefits to owners and the environment from the Smart Fortwo Coupé
Conclusion

As can be seen the Smart Fortwo Corpé has a lot of benefits, these could be the start to helping reduce global warming. The Co2 emissions are lower than other cars of similar size, promoting the use of the Smart Fortwo Corpé could help the government reach its goals of reducing the country’s Co2 emissions. People who own a Smart Fortwo Corpé over others cars will also benefit, as they will save money on the petrol. Moving forward what can be done?

• Should the government aim to cut down on use of cars in cities and replace them with better public transport?
• Should the government publicise hybrid cars more?

I believe the solution should be both of these. Protecting the environment is a big part of our lives, whether we choose to ignore it or not is a different matter. Global warming can be seen all around us and things need to change. It has been obvious that people just do not know enough about the smart cars, and these days’ people are reluctant to spend large amounts of money on stuff they are not well enough informed about. I feel that if the government wants us to cut out carbon footprint then they need to make the public more aware of these hybrid cars. A lot of people are quite keen to help the environment but they like information about the options they have. I also think people are more likely to use public transport if it is improved.

There is also another big point that can be taken from here. I think factory production methods should be looked at. Smartville is a prime example of how factories can be more economically friendly and reduce their emissions. I think the government should look at this and give guidelines out for other manufactures to try and follow.

References


Smart – Mercedesstrasse (Information on Smartville) retrieved 29th December 2007 from
http://www.smart.com/-snm-0135207688-1199771051-0000003161-0000006462-1200308986-enm-is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/mpc-uk-content-Site/en_UK/-/GBP/Smart_NG_ViewStatic-PageComponent?NavigationID=urn%3Auuid%3A804a6264-8c43-5b63-89ef-44f8dee2374f

Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) (Vechile Fuel Consumption) retrieved 3rd January 2008 from http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/

The Society of Motor Manufactureres and Traders Ltd (C02 Emissions Data) retrieved 28th December 2007 from http://www.smmt.co.uk/co2/co2intro.cfm

Appendix 1: Questionnaire

Smart Car Questionnaire



1. Do you or any of your family own smart car fortwo coupe or any other kind of smart car?
Yes □ No □

2. Would you consider buying one?
Yes □ No □

3. Do you know about the prospective savings from buying a smart car fortwo coupe?
Yes □ No □

I then explained the following benefits about a smart car fortwo and then re-asked if they would consider buying one.

- You can save on average 61p a day on petrol, over a year that is a saving you £222.27
- A smart car produces roghly 30-35% less Co2 emission than cars of a similar size.

4. After being informed of the benefits of the Smart Car Fortwo would you now consider buying one?
Yes □ No □


Appendix 2: Questionnaire Results

Do you own a smart car?
Yes 4
No 26
Would you consider buying a one?
Yes 6
No 24
Do you know about the savings you could make from buying one?
Yes 6
No 24
Would you now consider buying one?
Yes 18
No 12