A sport utility vehicle, or SUV, is a type of passenger vehicle which combines the load-hauling and versatility of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a van or station wagon. Most SUVs are designed with a roughly square cross-section, an engine compartment, a combined passenger and cargo compartment, and no dedicated trunk. Most mid-size and full-size SUVs have 5 or more seats, and a cargo area directly behind the last row of seats. Mini SUVs, such as the Jeep Wrangler, may have fewer seats.

It is known in some countries as an off-roader or four wheel drive, often abbreviated to 4WD or 4×4, and pronounced “four-by-four”. More recently, SUVs designed primarily for driving on roads have grown in popularity. A new category, the crossover SUV uses car components for lighter weight and better fuel economy.

Contents

1. Sport Utility Vehicle Design Characteristics
2. Sport Utility Vehicle History
1. Sport Utility Vehicle Popularity
3. SUVs in Remote Areas
4. Other Sport Utility Vehicle Names
5. Sport Utility Vehicle Criticism
1. Sport Utility Vehicle Safety
1. Sport Utility Vehicle Risk to Other Drivers
2. Sport Utility Vehicle Risk to Pedestrians
3. Recent Sport Utility Vehicle Improvements
2. Sport Utility Vehicle Fuel Economy
3. Sport Utility Vehicle Pollution
4. Sport Utility Vehicle Slang

Sport Utility Vehicle Design Characteristics

SUVs were traditionally derived from light truck platforms, but several SUVs and crossover SUVs are based on platforms of unibody construction.

SUVs typically have high seating and most can be equipped with four wheel drive, providing an advantage in low traction environments. The design also allows for a large engine compartment, which allows for a wide variety of engine choices, both gasoline and diesel.

Sport Utility Vehicle History

Moskvitch 410 Sport Utility Vehicle

Sport utility vehicles were originally descended from commercial and military vehicles such as the Jeep and Land Rover. SUVs have been popular for many years with rural buyers due to their off-road capabilities. The Jeep Wagoneer and the Ford Bronco were early SUV examples, followed by the Chevrolet Blazer and the GMC Jimmy. International Harvester also sold SUV’s, notably the three-door International Scout and the five-door International Travelall.

In the last 25 years, and even more in the last decade, SUVs have become popular with urban buyers. Consequently, more modern SUVs often come with more luxury features and some crossover SUVs, such as the BMW X5, the Acura MDX, and the Toyota RAV4, have adopted lower ride heights and utilize unibody construction to better accommodate their use for on-road driving.

Sport Utility Vehicle Popularity

SUVs became popular in the United States, Canada, and Australia in the 1990s and early 2000s for a variety of reasons. Buyers became drawn to their large cabins, higher ride height, and perceived safety when in the market for a new vehicle. Additionally, most full-size SUVs have far greater towing capacities than conventional cars, allowing owners to tow RVs, trailers, and boats with relative ease, adding to the utilitarian image.

A large growth in SUV popularity and sales is due to advertisement targeted towards women. Women constitute more than half of SUV drivers, and SUVs are the most popular vehicle choice of women in the United States.

The most common reason for SUV popularity cited by owners was their perceived safety advantage in a collision with regular cars, though the rollover fatality risk is much higher in SUVs than cars. Some of their success could also be attributed to their “utilitarian” image. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, vehicle manufacturers sold SUVs very effectively, with per-vehicle profits substantially higher than other automobiles. Historically, their simpler designs often made the vehicles cheaper to make than comparably-priced cars.

In the mid 2000s, however, their popularity has waned, due to higher gasoline prices, rollover accident fatalities and higher relative pollution. As of the spring of 2006, some of the larger SUVs now require over $100.00 per fillup, making thier everyday use more cost-prohibitive. Current model SUVs (crossovers) take into account that 98% of SUV owners never offroad. As such, SUVs now have lower ground clearance and suspension designed primarily for paved road usage.

SUVs in Remote Areas

SUVs are often used in places such as the Australian Outback, Africa, the Middle East, Alaska, Northern Canada and most of Asia, which have limited paved roads and require the vehicle to have all-terrain handling, increased range, and storage capacity. The low availablity of spare parts and the need to carry out repairs quickly allow model vehicles with the bare minimum of electric and hydraulic systems to predominate. Typical examples are the Land Rover, the Toyota Land Cruiser and the Lada Niva.

SUVs targeted for use in civilization have traditionally originated from their more rugged all-terrain counterparts. For example the Hummer H1 is derived from the HMMWV, originally developed for the US Armed Forces.

Other Sport Utility Vehicle Names

Outside of North America and India, these vehicles are known simply as four-wheel-drives, often abbreviated to “4WD” or “4×4”. They are classified as cars in countries such as the UK where the U.S. distinction between cars and ‘light trucks’ is not used. In Australia, the automotive industry and press have recently adopted the term SUV in place of four wheel drive in the description of vehicles and market segments. “Utility” or “ute” refers to an automobile with a flatbed rear or pick-up, typically seating two passengers and is often used by tradesmen, and is typically not a 4WD vehicle.

Sport Utility Vehicle Criticism

The explosive growth in SUV ownership has attracted a large amount of criticism, mainly of the risks to other road users and the environment, but also on the basis that the perceived benefits to the vehicle owner are illusory or exaggerated.

Sport Utility Vehicle Safety

A Ford Excursion Sport Utility Vehicle next to a Toyota Camry.

Safety is a common point of criticism. The majority of modern automobiles are constructed by a method called monocoque or unibody construction, whereby a steel body shell absorbs the impacts of collisions in crumple zones. However, many SUVs are constructed in the body-on-frame style of light trucks, which can lead to a lower level of safety when not designed well. Often, their heavier weight, height, and stiffer construction (due to body-on-frame design) hurts other drivers and pedestrians, while their higher center of gravity increases the risk of death for the SUV passengers from rollover.

However, some SUVs have designs based on unibody construction, including the Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute, Lexus RX 330 and RX 400h, Hyundai Santa Fe, Lada Niva, and Acura MDX. The Jeep Cherokee/Liberty (1984 on) and Grand Cherokee (1993 on) have even used unibody construction from their beginning.

Sport Utility Vehicle Risk to Other Drivers

Because of SUVs’ greater height and weight, and often usage of body-on-frame constructions, it is documented that many SUVs hurt public road safety by increasing risk for people both inside and outside the SUV (in other vehicles or on foot). This is due to the SUVs’ weight and height advantage in multi-vehicle accidents (resulting in much fewer deaths in the vehicle, but increasing risks for others) being counterbalanced by their raised center of gravity.

In 2004, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released figures showing that drivers of SUVs were 11% more likely to die in an accident than people in cars. These figures may be confounded by variables other than the vehicles’ inherent safety, for example the documented tendency for SUVs to be driven more recklessly (most sensationally perhaps, the 1996 finding that SUV drivers are more likely to drive drunk). SUV drivers are also statistically less likely to wear their seatbelts.

The considerable weight of full-size SUVs (such as the Chevrolet Suburban and the Ford Excursion) makes collisions with other, smaller cars much less dangerous for the SUV and much more dangerous for the car. The higher ride and other design characteristics of many SUVs may also lead to greater damage to smaller crash partner cars. These mass and design dangers are known as crash incompatibility issues in the crash testing industry, and are a topic of active research. The most notable statistic in SUV design crash incompatibility is an increase in fatalities when an SUV strikes the head of a passenger or driver in a side-impact collision. This is one of the motivations for the development of side-curtain airbags in standard autos.

The high center of gravity of SUVs makes them more prone to rollover accidents (especially if the vehicle leaves the road or in emergency maneuvers) than lower vehicles. In recent years, Consumer Reports has found a few SUVs unacceptable due to their rollover risk. Modern SUVs are usually designed to prevent rollovers on flat surfaces.

Average heights for:

• Family sedans 57.3 inches
• Minivans 70.2 inches
• SUVs 70.7 inches

SUV safety concerns are compounded by a perception among some consumers that SUVs are safer for their drivers than standard autos. According to G. C. Rapaille, a psychological consultant to automakers (as cited in Gladwell, 2004), many consumers feel safer in SUVs simply because their ride height makes “[their passengers] higher and dominate and look down (sic). That you can look down [on other people] is psychologically a very powerful notion.” This and the massive size and weight of SUVs may lead to consumers’ false perception of safety (Gladwell, 2004).

In Europe, effective 2006, the fitting of bull bars, also known as grill guards to vehicles such as 4x4s and SUVs is illegal.

Sport Utility Vehicle Risk to Pedestrians

An SUV hitting a pedestrian is about twice as likely to kill as a car at equal speed. This is in part because the collision of an SUV with a pedestrian tends to impact the chest, while the collision of a car with a pedestrian tends to impact the knees. This data is however primarily for the American market, where SUVs are ladder-framed-chassis vehicles (like the Lincoln Navigator or Chevrolet Tahoe), and should not necessarily be applied to modern crossovers, like the BMW X5, Volkswagen Touareg or even the Range Rover, as these cars (and many other modern crossovers) are monocoques, and have no chassis.

The size and design of the SUVs leads to a restricted driver’s view of the area immediately surrounding the vehicle. The back view is particularly restricted. Quite a few manufacturers try to remedy the problem by offering rear-view cameras or simple sensors that sound the alarm if the car is about to hit something. This is still rather new technology and is not fool-proof. Aftermarket offerings also exist for interested buyers.

Recent Sport Utility Vehicle Improvements

Manufacturers have added car-level bumpers to reduce the possibility of the other vehicle(s) sliding under the SUV in a collision. SUV’s have therefore become somewhat safer for other road users in recent years.

Sport Utility Vehicle Fuel Economy

The recent popularity of SUVs is one reason the U.S. population consumes more gasoline than in previous years. SUVs are as a class much less fuel efficient than comparable passenger vehicles. The main reason is that SUVs are classified by the U.S. government as light trucks, and thus are subject to the less strict light truck standard under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations. The CAFE requirement for light trucks is an average of 20.7 mpg (US), versus 27.5 mpg (US) for passenger cars (8.6 and 11.4 km/L, respectively).

As there is little incentive to change the design, SUVs have numerous fuel-inefficient features. The high profile of SUVs increases wind resistance. Heavier suspensions and larger engines increase vehicle weight. Some SUVs also often come with tires designed for off-road traction rather than low rolling resistance.

Addressing fuel efficiency, several manufacturers now offer hybrid gas/electric models of SUVs, offering improved fuel economy over conventionally powered SUVs. With some hybrid SUV models, the added power generated from the hybrid systems is used some times to give vehicles added performance (increased power).

A point which is not covered in most fuel calculations is the air conditioning. The increased wind screen surface for the larger vehicles leads to much higher energy demand for cooling in summer or in hot climates. So fuel consumption in real time operation will be much higher than specified.

Sport Utility Vehicle Pollution

Because SUVs typically use much more fuel than cars, they generate much higher volumes of pollutants (particularly carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere, thus leading to higher levels of global warming. In the U.S., light trucks and SUVs are held to a less-strict pollution control standard than are passenger cars. Intense political lobbying from the auto industry has served to maintain the relatively poor SUV mileage and pollution control standards.

However, compact SUVs like the Toyota Rav-4 and Honda CR-V are offered with diesel engines in Europe, and with these fitted can have considerably lower emissions than many cars. An example would be the Toyota Rav-4 2.2d (140 bhp) that has carbon dioxide emissions of 173g/km, compared to a Mercedes A-class 2.0T, with carbon dioxide emissions of 192g/km. These figures contrast with many people’s view that SUVs are worse for the environment, as the A-class (a definitive city car) has higher emissions (and therefore contributes more to climate change) than the Rav-4, a supposedly polluting SUV.

Sport Utility Vehicle Slang

In southern England, SUVs are often referred to in derogatory terms as “soft roaders” or “Chelsea tractors”, due to their popularity among affluent people living in central London areas such as Chelsea. In the UK they are occasionally known as jeeps or Land Rovers no matter what make they actually are, although the increasing prevalence of these vehicles in recent years has decreased this colloquial usage. In New Zealand they are occasionally called “Fendalton tractors” or “Remuera tractors” after the higher priced suburbs in Christchurch and Auckland respectively. In Australia, Victoria, they are sometimes referred to as “Toorak Tractors”, though this is rare. In Norway, they are known as ‘bourse tractors’ due to yuppie stereotypes. In The Netherlands they are often called “PC Hooft-tractoren” after Amsterdam’s most exclusive shopping street. SUVs are also criticized in the Netherlands for similar reasons, and some environmentalists are pushing local governments to deny SUV users parking spaces.

The Automobile Information Disclosure Act of 1958 was passed in June of 1958 by Congress. It was sponsored by Oklahoma Senator Almer Stillwell “Mike” Monroney.

The law requires that all new automobiles carry a sticker on a window containing important information about the vehicle, including:

• The manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP)
• Engine and transmission specifications
• Standard equipment and warranty details
• Optional equipment and pricing
• City and highway fuel economy ratings, as determined by the EPA

A child restraint system, also commonly referred to as a child safety seat, or a car seat is a restraint which is secured to the seat of an automobile equipped with safety harnesses to hold children in the event of a crash.

The car seat was invented in the late 18th century, by Calvin VonBonding, the CEO of a horse and buggy company.

Safety Concerns and Requirements

All child restraints have a recommended life span of 10 years. However, some car seats have an earlier expiry date. Always obey manufacturer’s instructions, because if the car seat does not protect your child when the need arises, the manufacturer will not be liable if you went against their recommendations.

Also, child restraints are only ‘1 crash tested’. This means that if your vehicle is comprimised in any way (with or without the child in it), it is highly recommended that you purchase a new car seat. This is due to the fact that no one is sure how a comprimsed child restraint will perform in subsequent crashes.

Child restraints are often the subject of manufacturing recalls. Check regularily to make sure your seat is not recalled. Recalls vary in severity; sometimes the manufacturer will send you an additional part for the seat, other times they will provide a new seat entirly. Always contact the manufacturer.

The purchase of a second hand seat is not recommended. Due to the previous concerns discussed about expiry dates, crash tesing, and recalls, it is often impossible to determine the history of the child retraint if it is purchased second hand. Therefore, there is no way to tell if it is 100% safe for your child.

Infant Carriers

For young infants, the car seat used is an infant carrier with typical weight recommendations of 5-20 lbs. Infant carriers are often also called “bucket seats” as they resemble a bucket with a handle. These seats can be used with the base secured, or with the carrier straped in alone. Always refer to your car seat’s manufacturer’s booket for any questions about installation.

Infant carriers are mounted rear-facing, and are designed to “cocoon” against the back of the vehicle seat in the event of a collision, with the impact being absorbed in the outer shell of the restraint. Rear facing seats are the safest for your child, and they must remain in this position until the child is at least 1 year of age and at least 20 lbs.

Infant carriers should be placed at a 45 degree angle, allowing appropriate neck and head support for your child. The harness straps should come from below their shoulders, coming up and over as they push down to restrain your child. Only one finger should fit between the harness straps and the collar bone. The chest clip should be placed at the under-arm level.

As previously mentioned, most bucket seats accommodate children up to 20 or 22 lbs. (depending on the car seat). However, many children outgrow this weight before reaching 1 year of age. Therefore, they must remain rear facing in another seat.

Convertible Seats

Convertible seats can be used throughout many stages. Many convertible seats will transition from a rear facing seat, to a forward facing seat, and then serve as a booster seat. Many convertible seats allow for 5-35 lbs. rear-facing, allowing you to keep your child rear-facing up to 1 year of age without disobeying manufacturers’ recommendations.

Front Facing Restraints

After reaching 1 year of age and 20 lbs, children can now travel in a forward facing seats. The reason your child must be 1 year of age and 20 lbs. is closely related to how the forward facing seat is desinged to work. In the event of a collision, the harness straps retrain the child, and the impact of the crash is absorbed on the back and chest of the child. If the child is not 1 year old, however, they will not have the muscle and bone development to retain such force.

Again, only one finger should fit between the harness straps and the collar bone. Straps should come from beside or above your child’s shoulders, which is the opposite of the rear-facing position.

Forward facing seats must be in the upright position, secured tightly into your vehicle’s seat. The seat must also be tethered by law (in Canada). The purpose of the tether is to restrain the top portion of the child restraint, keeping it in place in the event of a collision. A tether should not run more than 30 degrees from the seat to the anchor. The location of the tether anchor is determined by the manufacturer of your vehicle, and you should not attempt to install it yourself as you do not know the pressure points of the vehicle.

When installing a forward facing seat, do not be afraid to put your weight in it in order to get it secured tightly. Seats are meant to withstand the force of a collision, which is a lot more weight then we are placing on it with our knee(s). Ideally, the seat should not be able to move once it is installed properly and tethered tightly.

By law (in Canada), children need to be restrained until they are 40 lbs. After 40 lbs, they can move into a booster seat.

Booster Seats

Booster seats are recommended for children until they are big enough to properly fit a seat belt. Seat belts are engineered for adult males, and therefore, seat belts are too big for small children.

Booster seats “boost” the child and allow the seat belt to sit firmly across the collar bone and chest, with the lap portion fitted to the hips. If the seat belt is not across the collar bone and the hips, it will ride across the neck and the stomach, causing internal damage in the event of a collision. The seat belt will tighten up and travel to a hard location to restain its occupant. So if the seat belt is on the stomach, the sought hard location is the spine, resulting in internal damage as the seat belt slices through the organs to reach it.

People often make the mistake of claiming that children should be out of a booster at a certain age. As every vehicle is different, children will fit each seat differently. Some children need a booster in one vehicle, but fit the seat in a different vehicle. It is all individual.

To test whether your child is big enough to be out of the booster in your vehicle, have them sit in the seat. Make sure the seat belt fits across their hips and collar bone, with their legs bending at the end of the seat. If their legs do not bend at the end of the seat, they will inch ahead to sit comfortably. As they do this, the seatbelt moves across their stomach and neck. Therefore, the seat belt does not fit them properly. If they fit these criteria, they are ready for the seat. This can occur at any age, as some children still need a booster seat at 10 or more years.

Placing a Car Seat in Your Car

For all children, the child safety seat is typically placed in the back seat. Not only is it safer (i.e. further away from a potential front impact), airbags in the front seat are too powerful for the relatively meager weight of a child, which can cause serious injury or death in the event of airbag deployment.

Traction control systems on current production vehicles are typically, but not necessarily, electro-hydraulic systems designed to prevent loss of traction and the control of the vehicle when excessive throttle or steering is applied by the driver. Although similar to the Electronic Stability Control systems, the traction control systems don’t have the same goal.

The intervention can consist of any, or all, of the following:

• Retard or suppress the spark to one or more cylinders
• Reduce fuel supply to one or more cylinders
• Brake one or more wheels
• Close the throttle, if the vehicle is fitted with drive by wire throttle

The brake actuator, and the wheel speed sensors, are the same as that used for anti-lock braking systems.

Use of Traction Control

In road cars, traction control is used mainly as a safety feature in high-performance cars, which would otherwise need very sensitive throttle input to keep them from spinning when accelerating, especially in wet or snowy conditions. It is also used in off-road vehicles to enhance traction on loose surfaces.

In race cars, traction control is used as a performance enhancement, allowing maximum traction under acceleration without wheel spin. When accelerating out of turn, it keeps the tires at the optimum slip angle.

It is widely believed that traction control removes some skill and control from the driver. As such, it is unpopular with many motorsports fans. Some motorsports series have given up trying to outlaw traction control. The current state of technology makes it possible to implement traction control as a part of software in ECU, and as such, it is very hard to detect by scrutineers. In Formula One, an effort to ban traction control has lead to the change of rules for 2008 – every car must have a standard ECU, issued by FIA, which is relatively basic and does not have traction control capabilities.

Crash compatibility, crash incompatibility, vehicle compatibility, and vehicle incompatibility are terms in the automobile crash testing industry. They refer to the tendency of some vehicles to inflict more damage on another vehicle (the “crash partner vehicle”) in two-car crashes. Vehicle incompatibility is said to lead to more dangerous, fatal crashes, while compatibility can prevent injury in otherwise comparable crashes. The effect can be summed up in the fact that 80% of the fatalities in light truck and car collisions occur in the car. However structural compatibility would help the survival of the occupants of the heavier or less flexible vehicle also.

The most obvious source of crash incompatibility is mass; a high mass vehicle such as a van or SUV will tend to cause much more serious damage in a crash with a lighter vehicle such as a typical sedan or compact car. Another incompatibility is in the specific shape, stiffness, or other design aspects of the impacting vehicles. For example, SUVs and pickup trucks ride higher than cars and lack crumple zones, which leads to greater crash partner damage. Body on rail frame design tends to defeat the crumple zone of the other car by concentrating the force.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has done studies of the aggressiveness of vehicle designs. Aggressiveness corresponds to the risk for the driver of the struck vehicle. A 2003 NHTSA study that eliminates weight as a factor found that car design is the least aggressive, minivans are 1.16 times as deadly, pickups are 1.39 times as deadly, and SUVs are 1.71 times as deadly. When weight is included in the analysis, light trucks (including SUVs) are 20.8 times as deadly in side impact crashes and 3.3 times as deadly in head on crashes. In 1999 there were 12,242 people in the US killed in vehicle on vehicle collisions, so improving vehicle compatibility would prevent several thousand vehicular homicides each year.

These studies have been controversial as they affect public perception and policy decisions on CAFE standards and light truck regulatory loopholes. American motor companies have tended to emphasize increased safety to the occupants of heavier vehicles, while Japanese motor companies have paid some attention to vehicle compatibility. In the deregulatory environment of recent years, no governmental steps have been taken to improve vehicle compatibility. Individual car makers such as Honda and Ford Motor Company have claimed improvements to vehicle compatibility, but the lack of an objective voice on the matter makes evaluation difficult.

Although much of the crash incompatibility debate in recent years has centered around SUVs, the concept has been around far longer. When subcompact cars were introduced in the 1970s, there was a fear that incompatibilities of mass and design could lead to more serious injuries for drivers of these smaller, lighter vehicles. Crash incompatibility is an area of active study, although to date only a small fraction of crash tests focus on two-car crashes, and an even smaller proportion are properly designed to address incompatibility issues.

Oversteer is a phenomenon that can occur in an automobile which is attempting to turn. The car is said to oversteer when the rear wheels do not track behind the front wheels but instead slide out toward the outside of the turn. Oversteer can throw the car into a spin.

The tendency of a car to oversteer is affected by several factors such as mechanical traction, aerodynamics, suspension, and driver control. The driving technique called opposite lock is meant to cope in this circumstance.

Oversteer happens when the rear tires exceed the limits of their lateral traction during a cornering situation before the front tires do, thus causing the rear of the vehicle to head towards the outside of the corner. A more technical definition is that oversteer is the condition when the slip angle of the rear tires exceed that of the front tires.

Rear wheel drive cars are generally more prone to oversteer, in particular when applying power in a tight corner. This occurs because the rear tires must handle both the lateral cornering force and engine torque.

In modern race cars, especially open-wheel race cars, oversteering in high speed turns is caused mainly by aerodynamic configuration. In this respect, a heavier aerodynamic load on the front of the car relative to the rear causes it to oversteer. Oversteer in low speed turns is often reduced or eliminated electronically through traction control (if the sanctioning body allows their use). Nevertheless, the required front/rear balance to make the cars fast through corners is obtained by setting up the aerodynamics and balancing the suspension. The car’s tendency toward oversteer is generally increased by softening the front suspension or stiffening the rear suspension. Camber angles, ride height, and tire pressures can also be used to tune the balance of the car.

An oversteering car is alternatively referred to as ‘loose’ or ‘tail happy’.

Oversteer – Road Cars

Contrary to popular opinion, modern rear-wheel-drive cars are much more user-friendly in regard to oversteer. Their suspensions are balanced heavily toward understeer so that they are largely incapable of oversteering even if the driver attempts it on purpose. More powerful cars typically have on-board computer systems which can automatically brake the wheels or override the driver’s throttle inputs to prevent an oversteer condition (whether the driver wants it or not). This is because understeer is generally much safer for novice drivers, whereas oversteer is much more difficult to correct when one is not prepared for it. Many sports cars allow these systems to operate in more liberal modes or turned off completely by experienced drivers. Often this is performed by a special key sequence or other little known means so that inexperienced drivers will hopefully never try it.

The natural reaction of most drivers to the perception of loss of control during oversteer is to immediately lift their foot off the gas pedal. Unfortunately, this is exactly the wrong thing to do. Releasing the throttle pitches the car forward, causing a weight transfer towards the front of the car, thus reducing rear traction even further. The nose of the car rotates sharply toward the inside of the turn as it pitches into a spin.

Braking may or may not improve the situation. Most modern cars have a brake bias which tends to straighten out the car. However, there are two factors working against this. Most drivers must lift their foot from the gas pedal in order to press the brake, inducing the spin as described above. The second is that braking transfers more of the vehicle’s weight forward which tends to worsen oversteer. Even so, the brake bias may be enough to help, or at least not make it worse.

The correct reaction to oversteer is to gently steer into the slide and take the power away as needed without pitching the car forward. Indeed, cutting the power mid-corner can induce oversteer even in a front wheel drive vehicle. This is known as lift-off oversteer. “Trail braking,” or continuing to apply brake pressure after turning into a curve, can induce oversteer by transferring weight off of the rear tires, regardless of whether the car is front, rear or all-wheel drive. Note that in a front wheel drive car it is often better to simply accelerate hard to correct an oversteer slide.

Oversteer – Race Cars

A car that tends neither to oversteer nor understeer when pushed to the limit is said to have neutral handling. It seems intuitive that race drivers would prefer a slight oversteer condition to rotate the car around a corner, but this isn’t usually the case for two reasons. Accelerating early as the car passes the apex of a corner allows it to gain extra speed down the following straight. The driver who accelerates sooner and/or harder has a large advantage. The rear tires need some excess traction to accelerate the car in this critical phase of the corner, while the front tires can devote all their traction to turning. So the car must be set up with a slight understeer. Also, an oversteering car tends to be twitchy and ill tempered, making a race car driver more likely to lose control during a long race or when reacting to sudden situations in traffic.

Carroll Smith, in his book “Drive to Win”, provides a detailed explanation of why a fast race car must have a bit of understeer. Note that this applies only to pavement racing. Dirt racing is a different matter.

Even so, some successful race car drivers do prefer a bit of oversteer in their cars, preferring a car which is less sedate and more willing to turn into corners (or inside their opponents). It should be noted that the judgement of a car’s handling balance is not an objective one. Driving style is a major factor in the apparent balance of a car. This is why two drivers with identical cars on the same race team often run with rather different balance settings from each other. And both may call the balance of their cars ‘neutral’.

Drifting

The act of deliberately sending a car sideways through a series of corners is actually a popular form of motorsport that originated in Japan known as drifting.

A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment will be given in the plaintiff’s favour, and a range of court orders may be issued to enforce a right, impose a penalty, award damages, impose an injunction to prevent an act or compel an act, or to obtain a declaratory judgment to prevent future legal disputes.

It usually involves dispute resolution of private law issues between individuals, business entities or non-profit organizations. However, it may involve public law issues in those jurisdictions that enable the government to be treated as if it were a private party in a lawsuit (as plaintiff or defendant regarding an injury), or that provide the government with a civil cause of action to enforce certain laws rather than criminal prosecution. The conduct of a lawsuit is called litigation.

History of the Term “Lawsuit”

Today, lawyers in common law jurisdictions, particularly in the U.S., use the terms “lawsuit” and “civil action” synonymously, but this was not always the case. During the 18th and 19th centuries, it was common for lawyers to speak of bringing an “action” at law and a “suit” in equity. The unification of law and equity during the early 20th century led to the collapse of that distinction, so it became possible to speak of a “lawsuit.”

In England and Wales the term “claim” is far more common; the person initiating proceedings is called the claimant.

American terminology is slightly different, in that the term “claim” refers only to a particular count (or cause of action) in a lawsuit. Americans also use “claim” to describe a demand filed with an insurer or administrative agency. If the claim is denied, then the claimant (or policyholder or applicant) files a lawsuit with the courts and becomes a plaintiff.

In medieval times, both “action” and “suit” had the approximate meaning of some kind of legal proceeding, but an action terminated when a judgment was rendered, while a suit also included the execution of the judgment.

Torque steering is an effect in front wheel drive cars caused by large amounts of torque affecting steering in such a way as to make the front wheels “squirm” (oscillate) from side to side under heavy acceleration.

This effect is noticeable to the driver by the steering wheel being tugged back and forth by the wheels.

This effect can be engineered out of front wheel drive cars, using techniques such as advanced multi-link suspension systems.

Torque steer is mainly caused by uneven half-shafts between the transaxle and wheels. When excessive torque is applied, one shaft flexes more than the other, thus causing one wheel to momentarily spin slower than the other. This causes a steering effect. Ford engineered a simple method of eliminating (or at least reducing) torque steer by expanding the transaxle a little further to equalize the lengths of the halfshafts found on front wheel drive cars.

Any car with a high output (especially turbocharged) engine and front wheel drive is likely to exhibit some degree of torque steer.

A plaintiff, also known as a claimant or complainant, is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an action) before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy, and if successful, the court will issue judgment in favour of the plaintiff and make the appropriate court order (eg. an order for damages).

In some jurisdictions the commencement of a lawsuit is done by filing a summons, claim form and/or a complaint – these documents are known as pleadings – that set forth the alleged wrongs committed by the defendant or defendants with a demand for relief. In other jurisdictions the action is commenced by service of legal process by delivery of these documents on the defendant by a process server; they are only filed with the court subsequently with an affidavit from the process server that they had been given to the defendant(s) according to the rules of civil procedure.

Not all lawsuits are plenary actions, involving a full trial on the merits of the case. There are also simplified procedures, often called proceedings, in which the parties are termed petitioner instead of plaintiff, and respondent instead of defendant. There are also cases that do not technically involve two sides, such as petitions for specific statutory relief that require judicial approval; in those cases there are no respondents, just a petitioner.

The party to whom the complaint is against is the defendant; or in the case of a petition, a respondent. Case names are usually given with the plaintiff first, as in Plaintiff v. Respondent.

An automobile is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. Different types of automobiles include cars, buses, trucks, and vans. Some include motorcycles in the category, but cars are the most typical automobiles. The term automobile is derived from Greek auto (“self”) and Latin mobilis (“movable”), referring to the fact that it “moves by itself”. Earlier terms for automobile include motorwagen, and horseless carriage. Although the term “car” is presumed to be derived through the shortening of the term “carriage”, the word has its origin before 1300 A.D. in English as, “carr”—derived from similar words in French and much earlier Greek words—for a vehicle that moves, especially on wheels, that was applied to chariots, small carts, and later to carriages that carried more people and larger loads. As of 2005 there were 600 million cars worldwide (93 cars per 1,000 persons).

The automobile was hailed as an environmental improvement over horses when it was first introduced in the 1880s. Before its introduction, in New York City alone, more than 1,800 tons of manure had to be removed from the streets daily, although the manure was used as natural fertilizer for crops and to build top soil. In 2006, the automobile is recognized as one of the primary sources of world-wide air pollution and a cause of substantial noise pollution and adverse health effects.

Automobile History

Replica of the Benz Patent Motorwagen built in 1885.

The automobile powered by the Otto gasoline engine was invented in Germany by Karl Benz in 1885. Benz was granted a patent dated 29 January 1886 in Mannheim for that automobile. Even though Benz is credited with the invention of the modern automobile, several other German engineers worked on building automobiles at the same time. In 1886, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart patented the first motor bike, built and tested in 1885, and in 1886 they built a converted horse-drawn stagecoach. In 1870, German-Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus assembled a motorized handcart, though Marcus’s vehicle didn’t go beyond the experimental stage.

Production of Automobiles Begins

The internal-combustion-engine automobile really can be said to have begun in Germany with Karl Benz in 1885-1886, and Gottlieb Daimler between 1886-1889, for their vehicles were successful, they went into series-production (albeit in modified form), and they inspired others.

Karl Benz began to work on new engine patents in 1878. First, he concentrated all his efforts on creating a reliable two-stroke gas engine, based on Nikolaus Otto’s design of the four-stroke engine. A patent on the design by Otto had been declared void. Karl Benz finished his engine on New Year’s Eve and was granted a patent for it in 1879. Karl Benz built his first three-wheeled automobile in 1885 and it was granted a patent in Mannheim, dated January of 1886. This was the first automobile designed and built as such, rather than a converted carriage, boat, or cart. Among other items Karl Benz invented for the automobile are the carburetor, the speed regulation system known also as an accelerator, ignition using sparks from a battery, the spark plug, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator. He built improved versions in 1886 and 1887 and—went into production in 1888—the world’s first automobile put into production. His wife, Bertha, made significant suggestions for innovation that he included in that model. Approximately twenty-five were built before 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced. They were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early automobiles, in general, more were built and sold in France through Roger, than Benz sold initially from his own factory in Germany.

Gottlieb Daimler, in 1886, fitted a horse carriage with his four-stroke engine in Stuttgart. In 1889, he built two vehicles from scratch as automobiles, with several innovations. From 1890 to 1895 about thirty vehicles were built by Daimler and his innovative assistant, Wilhelm Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after having a falling out with their backers. These two Germans, Benz and Daimler, seem to have been unaware of the early work of each other and worked independently. Daimler died in 1900. During the First World War, Benz suggested a co-operative effort between the companies the two founded, but it was not until 1926 that the companies united under the name of Daimler-Benz with a commitment to remain together under that name until the year 2000.

In 1890, Emile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began series-producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the motor industry in France. They were inspired by Daimler’s Stahlradwagen of 1889, which was exhibited in Paris in 1889.

The first American automobile with gasoline-powered internal combustion engines supposedly was designed in 1877 by George Baldwin Selden of Rochester, New York, who applied for a patent on an automobile in 1879. Selden didn’t build a single automobile until 1905, when he was forced to do so, due to a lawsuit threatening the legality of his patent because the subject had never been built. Construction is required to demonstrate the feasibility of the design and validate the patent, otherwise the patent may be voided. After building the 1877 design in 1905, Selden received his patent and later sued the Ford Motor Company for infringing upon his patent. Henry Ford was notorious for opposing the American patent system and Selden’s case against Ford went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Ford, and anyone else, was free to build automobiles without paying royalties to Selden, since automobile technology had improved so significantly since the design of Selden’s patent, that no one was building according to his early designs.

Meanwhile, notable advances in steam power evolved in Birmingham, England by the Lunar Society. It was here that the term horsepower was first used. It also was in Birmingham that the first British four-wheel petrol-driven automobiles were built in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester. Lanchester also patented the disc brake in that city.

Automobile Safety

Automobile accidents are almost as old as automobiles themselves. Joseph Cugnot crashed his steam-powered “Fardier” against a wall in 1771. One of the earliest recorded automobile fatalities was Mary Ward, on 1869-08-31 in Parsonstown, Ireland, an early victim in the United States was Henry Bliss on 1899-09-13 in New York City, NY.

Cars have two basic safety problems: They have human drivers who make mistakes, and the wheels lose traction near a half gravity of deceleration. Automated control has been seriously proposed and successfully prototyped. Shoulder-belted passengers could tolerate a 32G emergency stop (reducing the safe intervehicle gap 64-fold) if high-speed roads incorporated a steel rail for emergency braking. Both safety modifications of the roadway are thought to be too expensive by most funding authorities, although these modifications could dramatically increase the number of vehicles that could safely use a high-speed highway.

Early safety research focused on increasing the reliability of brakes and reducing the flammability of fuel systems. For example, modern engine compartments are open at the bottom so that fuel vapors, which are heavier than air, vent to the open air. Brakes are hydraulic so that failures are slow leaks, rather than abrupt cable breaks. Systematic research on crash safety started in 1958 at Ford Motor Company. Since then, most research has focused on absorbing external crash energy with crushable panels and reducing the motion of human bodies in the passenger compartment.

There are standard tests for safety in new automobiles, like the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests. There are also tests run by organizations backed by the insurance industry such as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Despite technological advances, there is still significant loss of life from car accidents: About 40,000 people die every year in the U.S., with similar figures in Europe. This figure increases annually in step with rising population and increasing travel if no measures are taken, but the rate per capita and per mile travelled decreases steadily. The death toll is expected to nearly double worldwide by 2020. A much higher number of accidents result in injury or permanent disability. The highest accident figures are reported in China and India. The European Union has a rigid program to cut the death toll in the EU in half by 2010 and member states have started implementing measures.

Future of the Car

Toyota FCHV (Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle). A fuel cell hybrid car which runs from the hydrogen which Toyota developed, 2005.

In order to limit deaths, there has been a push for self-driving automobiles. There have been many notable efforts funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), including the many efforts by the NavLabgroup at Carnegie Mellon University. Recent efforts include the highly publicized DARPA Grand Challenge race.

A current invention is ESP by Bosch that is claimed to reduce deaths by about 30% and is recommended by many lawmakers and carmakers to be a standard feature in all cars sold in the EU. ESP recognizes dangerous situations and corrects the drivers input for a short moment to stabilize the car.

Relatively high transportation fuel prices do not completely stop car usage but makes it significantly more expensive. One environmental benefit of high fuel prices is that it incentivises the production of more efficient (and hence less polluting) car engines and designs and the development of alternative fuels. In the beginning of 2006, 1 liter of gas costs approximately $1.60 in Germany and other European countries, and one U.S. gallon of gas costs nearly $3.00. With fuel prices at these levels there is a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Nevertheless, individual mobility is highly prized in modern societies so the demand for automobiles is inelastic. Alternative individual modes of transport, such as Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), could make the automobile obsolete if they prove to be cheaper and more energy efficient.

Hydrogen cars, driven either by a combination of fuel cells and an electric motor, or alternatively, a conventional combustion engine, are widely mooted to replace fossil fuel powered cars in a few decades. Some obstacles to a mass market of hydrogen cars include: the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis, which is inefficient and requires an inexpensive source of electrical energy to be economical, the difficulty of storing hydrogen either in its gaseous or liquid (cryogenic) form, and the lack of a hydrogen transport infrastructure such as pipelines and filling stations. Hydrogen has a much higher energy density than gasoline or diesel. It is thought to become cheaper with mass production, but because its production is overall energy inefficient and requires other sources of energy, including fossil, it is unlikely to be a cheaper fuel than gasoline or diesel today. Also, its combustion produces only water vapour (a greenhouse gas) and virtually no local pollutants such as NOx, SOx, benzene and soot. BMW’s engineering team promises a high horsepower hydrogen fuel engine in it’s 7-series sedan before the next generation of the car makes its debut.

The electric car in general appears to be a way forward in principle; electric motors are far more efficient than internal combustion engines and have a much greater power to weight ratio. They also operate efficiently across the full speed range of the vehicle and develop a lot of torque at zero speed, so are ideal for cars. A complex drivetrain and transmission would not be needed. However, despite this the electric car is held back by battery technology – so far a cell with comparable energy density to a tank of liquid fuel is a long way off, and there is no infrastructure in place to support it. A more practical approach may be to use a smaller internal combustion (IC) engine to drive a generator- this approach can be much more efficient since the IC engine can be run at a single speed, use cheaper fuel such as diesel, and drop the heavy, power wasting drivetrain. Such an approach has worked very well for railway locomotives, but so far has not been scaled down for car use.

Recently the automobile industry has determined that the biggest potential growth market (in terms of both revenue and profit), is software. Cars are now equipped with a stunning array of software; from voice recognition and vehicle navigation systems, vehicle tracking system like ESITrack to in-vehicle distributed entertainment systems (DVD/Games), to telematics systems such as GMs Onstar not to mention the control subsystems. Software now accounts for 35% of a cars value, and this percentage is only going to get larger. The theory behind this is that the mechanical systems of automobiles are now essentially a commodity, and the real product differentiation occurs in the software systems. Many cars are equipped with full blown 32bit real-time memory protected operating systems such as QNX.

A new invention by Carmelo Scuderi, the Scuderi Split Cycle Engine claims to improve the efficiency of an engine from 33.2% to 42.6%. In addition, toxic emissions are claimed to be reduced by as much as 80%.

Hypothetical driverless cars and flying cars have been proposed for decades, but for now the costs would outweigh the benefits (traffic overhaul and control, fuel and operating costs, the development of widely available driverless and flying cars itself, and the technology required for such vehicles which is currently out of reach). Thus driverless and especially flying cars still are an idea widely associated with science fiction.