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ajdelange

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Trying to fit marketing terms into binary categories is fraught with error.
It's actually the other way round. The problem come when marketers borrow engineering terminology in their campaigns and the lay public comes away thinking that the marketers terminology is somehow correct even though the marketers intention is to decieve rather than inform. That's clearly the case here. It can result, as it did here, in flawed syllogism. Premise A)The Mercedes has two degrees of freedom (True) Premise B)They call their system Active (True) Conclusion)To be active a system must have 2 degrees of freedom.

The latest Tesla Model S suspension is, from what I've read (I haven't ridden is a Tesla since the Roadster long ago), a hydraulic damping with electrically modulated valves, which they like to call "active damping".
That is, from what I can observe what it is. So it is a suspension system. And, as it requires a source of external energy (an air compressor) to operate it is not a passive suspension system. The WORLDS definition, used in untold numbers of industries and academia, of active is "not passive". Therefore, to say the Tesla system is not an active system is to deny the globaly accepted definition because it conflicts with your flawed reasoning that an active system must have two degrees of freedom which you arrived at by false syllogism. Now this does not mean that the Mercedes system is not active. If it is indeed lifting wheels independent of the roadway it must have an energy source to do that and is therefore an active system. But this does not mean that a system has to do that to be active.


That's not the same as an "active suspension",
It is clear to anyone with technical background, that the Tesla system is, an active system. Not the same as the Mercedes system but an active system nonetheless.

...which doesn't have an SAE definition I could casually find,
The E in SAE stands for Engineers. Engineers in many of its subdisciplines know perfectly well what Active and Passive mean. There would be no need for the SAE to promulgate its own definition of Active and Passive as those mean exactly the same thing to an automotive engineer as they do to an electrical engineer or mechanical engineer or biomedical engineer.


so it's going to be misused and misinterpreted
Well clearly you and Hmp are misinterpreting it but is not misused or misinterpreted by the engineers at SAE, at Tesla, or your faithful correspondent. But you are not technical people and so we overlook your little error. Our only suggestion is that you stop trying to sell those of us who do understand these things on your misconceptions. I've been dealing with active and passive devices for long enough that it's going to be pretty hard to convince me that the engineering/scientific community has been wrong all these years.



But, I've also read the Cybertruck is supposedly going to have an active suspension.
Well as the current cars (at least the X and the S) have it now I'd be surprised if the CT didn't. Were there to be a difference in the CT it might be to add that second degree of freedom. Easy enough (conceptually) to do by sealing the cylinder at the rod end and putting air ports on both sides of the piston.


Also, from what I've read (from their website), the Rivian will have an adjustable air suspension, where the adjustability is for height, and adaptive damping control, similar to the latest Tesla.
I don't doubt that. I'm not sure whether they will have the active component or not as I think the reason Tesla is able to do that is because of the incredible on board computing power.


There's no mention of an active suspension, as I believe they would have highlighted that as it's a significant performance (and comfort) improvement. It'd be nice to have.
When I picked up my new X which has the active suspension as opposed to my old one which didn't, I was told to expect a huge difference in ride comfort. To tell the truth judging from inputs to the sensor I used to use in most of my instrument flying the difference is not that great. I can still feel the road. Perhaps I haven't pushed all the right buttons in the right combination yet.
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ajdelange

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The base model has been announced with 406 mile range (EPA).
They gotcha!. It isn't EPA range (it can't be until EPA certifies it and it doesn't even exist yet). It is "projected range". BTW that doesn't mean that the EPA range won't come in at close to that number. I expect Lucid has been pretty careful to not "project" a number that is going to be too far off what the EPA will eventually certify.

We note that the Tesla X just got an extra 20 miles bringing it to 370. The X I bought less than 2 years ago was only 294! The S is 402. The Rivians will be 400 mi. So 400 miles is now getting to be more or less what we expect. I guess the goal posts have now been moved to 500 and we will presumably be there in a couple of years with the Cybertruck (and other players too, I am sure).
 
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JeremyMKE

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Hmp10

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I went to the opening of Lucid's Miami Design Studio on Saturday. Zak Edson, Lucid's head of Marketing and Sales (who previously held the same position at Tesla), was on hand with a lot of information.

One thing he discussed which has been mentioned nowhere in the car press is that the Lucid drive unit has a differential integrated into the motor rotor. Output is split at the rotor and passes through two planetary gearboxes, one at each end of the drive unit. When looking at an actual drive unit in person, it's almost hard to believe that a motor, inverter, differential, and two gear boxes can be packed into something so compact -- especially a unit producing over 650 hp and 4400 lb-ft of torque.

I also asked Edson what happened to the cycloidal gearbox that early press reports said Lucid was developing for the Air. He said they are still working on that, and it might appear in future cars that need a broader range of power output. However, he said the planetary gearboxes were good for 200 mph in the sedan, which was deemed to be sufficient.

I also asked why, after a Dream Edition production run of only about two months at very low volumes, the highest power available in the Air will drop from 1,080 hp to 800 hp. He said one of the reasons was that the rear motor in the Dream Edition uses special metallurgy that would not be used in regular production. However, that didn't explain a 280 hp difference, and he was mum on other differences. I asked whether it had anything to do with different fusing, as I recalled that when Tesla took the Model S from "insane" mode to "ludicrous" mode a different power fuse was involved. (Existing Model S Performance owners could upgrade to "ludicrous" for a $5,000 fee to change the fuse and the software.) Edson said there was no difference in fusing. All he would say is that the Dream Edition was sort of a pet project for Peter Rawlinson to build his own "dream car" without regard to limits that might apply to larger production runs.

Edson said that a four-motor vehicle is also under consideration, presumably for the SUV and a future truck, but was unsure whether the Air might go beyond the tri-motor car still in development. Other than perhaps for very minor improvements in torque vectoring, I asked whether there was really any point in going beyond two motors for the Air sedan, as I assume the two motors are already producing output well beyond tire traction limits, and that under hard acceleration traction control was almost certainly in constant play. He chuckled and said that the Dream Edition that was run at the drag strip with its traction control turned off was burning rubber past 60 mph.

As for production, Lucid is now wrapping up tool tryout in its new Casa Grande, AZ factory, whereby the manufacturing process for every in-house component has been finalized. However, no fully-assembled car has yet come off the production line. That will begin the last two days of this month and mark the transition to "pre-release" production cars. The first of those cars will be subjected to crash testing and the next units will be turned over to the EPA for range testing. Beyond that, pre-release cars will go to the Design Studios for customer test drives and to the automotive press for their testing and reviews in the early weeks of 2021. The first cars to customers are expected off the line in April.
 
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DucRider

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The first of those cars will be subjected to crash testing and the next units will be turned over to the EPA for range testing.
The EPA doesn't do range testing.
They spot check some production vehicles against what the manufacturer submits, but don't do the testing associated with the application and certification process.
 

Hmp10

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The EPA doesn't do range testing.
They spot check some production vehicles against what the manufacturer submits, but don't do the testing associated with the application and certification process.
According to the EPA website, they test 15-20% of cars themselves and rely on manufacturer-submitted data for the rest.

Edson told me that Lucid was submitting cars to the EPA for testing. Perhaps since there have been so many naysayers on the internet claiming that the Lucid range testing that FEV conducted using EPA protocols was not reliable, Lucid wants the EPA to do the actual testing.

There was a flap a few months ago when Elon Musk claimed the EPA had incorrectly rated a Tesla's range by leaving a key fob in the car overnight with the door open. The EPA defended its testing procedures with this statement in a press release:

"We can confirm that EPA tested the vehicle properly, the door was closed, and we are happy to discuss any technical issues with Tesla, as we do routinely with all automakers.”

I'm wondering if the EPA chooses which cars to test themselves based on the novelty of the technology or the history of hyperbole of the automaker?

There are so many Tesla fanboys intent on disputing every claim Lucid makes that I certainly hope Lucid gets the EPA to test their cars and put the FEV vs EPA flap to rest. It got really tiresome.
 
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Hmp10

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The EPA doesn't do range testing.
They spot check some production vehicles against what the manufacturer submits, but don't do the testing associated with the application and certification process.
I just re-read this post and see your point more clearly.

FEV North America is the U.S. branch of a German engineering consulting firm that, among other services, conducts mileage and range testing for a wide array of automakers, including the likes of GM and Ford, in preparation for their submissions to the EPA.

Lucid had FEV do range testing on the Air using EPA protocols, just as FEV does for its other customers. The internet promptly exploded with claims that the test result were bogus: this isn't the EPA, so it means nothing; FEV used outdated EPA procedures; FEV is a hired gun that will find whatever the manufacturer wants them to find; nothing Lucid claims about range should be believed until the EPA itself conducts the range test.

Some of these claims that FEV testing could not be relied upon were even raised on this forum. Yet, despite my having followed the car press for years, I have NEVER seen such loud and voluminous claims raised about non-EPA testing by ICE or other manufacturers.

Lucid should do everything it can to have the EPA produce the test numbers that go on their Morony stickers.
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