Early EVs and horse carriers had large wheels because the roads and paths where dirt or cobblestone.
My point is that, if they had simply said “okay, that is the condition that we need to accept, adapt to and solve” like we do today with tarmac roads taking for granted, they could have developed a vehicle to do that.
It would probably have larger wheels and soft suspension, but the only reason cars are shaped as they are today is because they didn’t solve it back then.
What happened instead was that low torque combustible engines were subsidized and rolled out on the condition that tarmac roads were also provided by the state. This was largely due to bitumen being a biproduct from petrol production. The oil industry pushed for both combustible engines and tarmac because they could supply both.
My previous rant is basically just entertaining the idea of what we’d do today if posed with a similar challenge. Roads are absolutely taken for granted and tmwe will never be able to undo that. It might be relevant if we ever inhabit another planet, but the last I read was that road planning had already begun on the moon…
Large flat roads are also more efficient. Have you ever driven down a bumpy road? That shit aint efficient. All of your horizontal speed gets turned into vertical speed in a jarringly unpleasant way. That’s part of why trains are so efficient because their tracks are so smooth.
Large wheels have nothing to do with a vehicles ability to go off road/on bumpy roads, if anything they’re counter productive because you want large soft tires and small wheels for that scenario.
Early EVs and horse carriers had large wheels because the roads and paths where dirt or cobblestone.
My point is that, if they had simply said “okay, that is the condition that we need to accept, adapt to and solve” like we do today with tarmac roads taking for granted, they could have developed a vehicle to do that. It would probably have larger wheels and soft suspension, but the only reason cars are shaped as they are today is because they didn’t solve it back then.
What happened instead was that low torque combustible engines were subsidized and rolled out on the condition that tarmac roads were also provided by the state. This was largely due to bitumen being a biproduct from petrol production. The oil industry pushed for both combustible engines and tarmac because they could supply both.
My previous rant is basically just entertaining the idea of what we’d do today if posed with a similar challenge. Roads are absolutely taken for granted and tmwe will never be able to undo that. It might be relevant if we ever inhabit another planet, but the last I read was that road planning had already begun on the moon…
Large flat roads are also more efficient. Have you ever driven down a bumpy road? That shit aint efficient. All of your horizontal speed gets turned into vertical speed in a jarringly unpleasant way. That’s part of why trains are so efficient because their tracks are so smooth.
Large wheels have nothing to do with a vehicles ability to go off road/on bumpy roads, if anything they’re counter productive because you want large soft tires and small wheels for that scenario.