Codename: XV

My progress on creative projects can all too often be described as 'glacial'. As an amateur, I can take my time and create when I feel like it...

Here we have the first images of EXOVAN, from my 'workspace' in Alibre Design 3D CAD -- captured and cropped using Irfanview.

Not much to look at, but at least it's a visual. I'm still teaching myself to use this program, so these images are quite crude -- I might do better with a chunk of wood and a bandsaw. This form represents the beginnings of the body shape:

As you can see, the main body is roughly octagonal. Remember, all glass and body panels are flat. In this next view, I've highlighted the area of the rear portal in red:

There's a lot to add before this starts to look like it does in my head, and a pretty steep learning curve along the way. For now you'll have to imagine the Mattracks and the exoframe, not to mention windows and hatches. Also, many aspects are subject to change...

Updates when available.



Phil Smith
April 29, 2007

UPDATE

I've revised the rear portal, added cuts for the side portals and hollowed out the trackwells -- and for illustration purposes, the image below shows a hint of the interior:



...the side portals don't show up well in this next image, but you can see where I've altered the front for the forward portal. You may be able to see that the lower side panel is highlighted, which gives a sense of where the leading edge of the side portal is:


All these images are clickable for larger versions. Someone please remind me to alter the HTML here for a wider text body...


Phil Smith
April 30, 2007

UPDATE 2

...Altering the HTML for the previous template wasn't producing the results I wanted, so I've switched to a different one and tweaked it. The look of this blog will likely continue to change periodically.


Here we see a new cutout for the forward portal ("extrusion 30", highlighted in red):

The center front portal was causing problems. EXOVAN just isn't wide enough for it -- you either end up with a portal that is unacceptably narrow, or window framing (and an exoframe tube) directly in front of the driver. Moving the portal over to the passenger side solves other issues -- now we can get by with 2 windshield wipers (instead of 3), and there is room on the driver's side for a flush-mounted winch.


Yes, EXOVAN is now asymmetrical, making it just that much more outlandish...

UPDATE 3

Phil Smith
May 2, 2007

UPDATE 4

Now I'm just playing with my Mattracks simulations -- but in the process inching my way up that steep learning curve...


Phil Smith
May 3, 2007


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Introducing EXOVAN

E X O V A N
by Tellurian Motors

At this very early stage, there are no images of this concept to share. As unique as its appearance will be, however, there will still be many features to explain -- so let's begin...


EXOVAN is so named because it is a van with an external frame, or 'exoframe'. An exoframe is a sort of evolution of an external rollcage. If you're building a vehicle that is meant to have such protection, as desert racers and rock crawlers have learned, it makes sense to design and engineer it right in, instead of adding it later.

Now you know -- this concept is a go-anywhere vehicle, one large enough to carry several people and their stuff. EXOVAN will have full bodywork within the frame, intersected by a few crossmembers. The interior bracing will be carefully placed, so as not to interfere with cargo and passengers.

For maximum mobility, EXOVAN will have four rubber tracks instead of conventional wheels and tires. A company called Mattracks makes these. They're designed to provide traction where even the biggest and most aggressively-tread tires will fail. As a side effect of their larger footprint, they don't tear up the soil as much as tires do, which is beneficial to the environment.

Mattracks is gearing up to produce the first vehicle designed specifically to use their track system, a small side-by-side 2-passenger off-roader called the Gladiator. It should be available in 2008. I didn't know about the Gladiator when I conceived EXOVAN, but was excited rather than upset to learn that it also has an exoskeletal frame as well as another feature important for serious off-roading -- four-track steer.

Few details have surfaced about the Gladiator. I don't know whether its four-track steering is constant, with the rears always turning opposite the fronts, but EXOVAN's is not. Just like the systems on monster trucks, EXOVAN's rear steer will be operated by a lever and can be turned in the same direction as the fronts if the driver so chooses. Unlike monster trucks, however, EXOVAN will employ a speed-sensitive lockout for the rear steer to prevent rollovers that could be caused by turning too sharply out on the highway.

Rollovers are something to be expected in off-roading, and they are indeed the main reason for this concept's exoframe. To help keep it from becoming stuck on its side or roof, much of EXOVAN's steel frame tubing will be mandrel-bent into graceful curves. Conversely, its rubber tracks will help put it back on its feet after a full rollover or when set right (with help from winches mounted front and rear, which will also be quite useful for rescuing other vehicles).

To help reduce damage, the exoframe will be covered in a material used for truck bed lining. Since a certain amount of damage can be expected, sections of the frame will be secured with bolts rather than welds, to be more easily removed for repair or replacement. For much the same reason, all body and glass panels on EXOVAN will be flat. Ease of repair can become an important feature in remote locations, after all.

Ground clearance also being very important, EXOVAN will employ a long-travel airbag suspension, adjustable to clear low overhead obstacles.

Since an adjustable airbag suspension requires an on-board air compressor, we might as well put it to other use. With no tires to air up and down, that use will be the pneumatic operation of fold-down steps incorporated into the lower halves of the hatches. The upper (glass) halves are electrically operated, sliding up between the roof and the exoframe, and can be left open while the vehicle is in motion.

In case of electrical and/or pneumatic failure, limited access can still be had through these portals, but one may rather use the conventional manual double doors at the rear. EXOVAN has three step hatches, one on each side and -- this is very unconventional -- one on the front.

The front hatch is in the middle, requiring a gap in the front of the exoframe. I'm quite prepared for this to be received as a controversial feature. If it is deemed necessary, EXOVAN can be redesigned with conventional front-hinged doors for the driver and forward passenger.


For a long time, I've wanted a Steyr-Daimler-Puch Pinzgauer 710K. When I learned about Mattracks, well of course my dream was updated to include them. As an automotive designer, I began to think about doing a rebody -- but since I'm quite fond of the way the Pinzgauer looks I didn't spend much time on sketches.

Better to design something new anyway, starting with Mattracks. What got me more interested in developing this concept was the idea of an exoframe. Somewhere in the back of my mind was my intention to make this an electric vehicle, and suddenly things started coming together...


There is one company in particular, Tesla Motors, that is at the forefront of electric vehicle technology. Their Tesla Roadster, to be released later this year, is a highly impressive showcase of performance, efficiency, reliability and range.

The Tesla Roadster is mid-engined, with a single drive motor supplying power to the rear wheels. EXOVAN could use one of these motors for the rear tracks and one for the fronts. A lithium-ion battery pack twice the size of the Roadster's positioned low in the chassis would give EXOVAN as low a center of gravity as possible for such a vehicle, allowing it to tackle steeper grades.

Independent control of the long-travel adjustable suspension at each track would increase mobility that much further, providing more traction and preserving an acceptable body angle -- to prevent (or at least stave off) that seemingly inevitable rollover. This independent control would also allow one corner to be lifted for track maintenance, obviating the need for a jack.

Its interior space could be used for any number of configurations and purposes. It could be a cargo van, luxurious passenger vehicle, television remote production unit, small camper, or ambulance. The possibilities are only limited by its dimensions. How big is it? On the outside, about as big as a full-size SUV. Inside, with driver and forward passenger positioned over the front tracks, EXOVAN will have more room than a minivan.

Mattracks has a Trail-R-Mate series -- a tracked trailer could be towed behind EXOVAN. Perhaps I will design an exoframe camping trailer to match, with a fold-out solar array on board capable of recharging its tow vehicle's battery pack...


As far as concept vehicles go, EXOVAN would not be terribly difficult to construct, especially for Tesla Motors. Other companies could be brought in on the project, at different levels of involvement, specifically Mattracks, Rhino Linings, and possibly Airbag Man (or some other suspension specialist).

All companies involved would benefit from the attention EXOVAN will generate when it hits the show circuit -- that is, if it ever gets built.

My hope is that someone at Tesla Motors reads this and takes interest; I'll be inserting the URL to this post in a comment or two on their blogs. In my opinion they are the only ones who could build EXOVAN. Without their technology... Well, it would just be an empty shell waiting for essential componentry.

Sure, something similar could be built on a Pinzgauer chassis and still be sensational, but built around Tesla Motors' technology it would be nothing short of spectacular.

As a self-taught amateur I really have nothing to lose by publishing my idea in this space. If they do become interested in EXOVAN, I'll have no answer for them when they ask what I want as compensation...

Okay, maybe a Tesla Roadster in Jet Black and a position as a design consultant? Wouldn't that be nice...


To anyone reading this: Feel free to posts comments, and I can be contacted privately here. I will gladly answer any questions.


I won't say that the next post will feature images of EXOVAN. I'm currently teaching myself to use a CAD program, hoping to do better justice to the concept than I could with a scanned pencil sketch. However I may get impatient with that process and proceed with a lower-tech approach. Meanwhile I may become inspired to use this space to write about other things...


Phil Smith
April 25th, 2007

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Welcome to the Factory Floor

Hello and welcome to the Tellurian Motors blog.

You have likely not heard of Tellurian Motors before, and that is because the company exists only within my own mind. However I would very much like to make it a reality, and this blog is one step toward that goal.

All my life, I've been an automotive designer. As a small child, when I first began to draw, I made up my own cars and trucks. Later on I tried to draw existing vehicles, but always found it more interesting to try my hand at a new design. There was a time when I would fill several pages a day, not because anyone asked me to, but just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Art teachers and guidance counselors in public school didn't pick up on this and push me to apply to a college with a decent Industrial Design program, but I myself didn't realize it was something I could turn into a career back then. Had someone suggested it, it might have changed my life...

No sense dwelling on the past. I wouldn't change a thing. Here I am at the age of 40, no longer able to deny what I am -- a self-taught, amateur automotive designer. When I close my eyes I see wheels and tires and fenders, windshields and doors and roofs. I see cohesive forms, expressions of an alternative definition of Performance Art.

I love to drive, feel more at home behind the wheel than anywhere else. I understand how things work, but am not much of a mechanic. I'm an artist, and my preferred medium is automotive design. Period. That's what and who I am, and I realized recently that my main goal should be getting at least ONE of my designs built.

A while back I figured, since furniture was something I could actually build myself, I should shift my focus a bit and work on that. I came up with some original ideas and learned woodworking, and the results were pretty cool -- but this was me plying the wrong trade.


In this space I'll be describing some of my original concepts, and supplying images when they're available. I also have ideas for customizing old cars, trucks and vans (tweaking other people's designs) and I hope my descriptions of those will have you picturing them nearly as well as I do. And, there are at least two vehicles that have gone out of production, that I feel should be brought back to life... They are both timeless and nearly perfect. One is iconic, the other almost unknown...


What you won't see are wildly impractical dream cars with features almost no one would appreciate. An automotive designer has to be part artist and part engineer, and I've been at this for decades.


My next post will be about a recent newcomer to my mental stable of concepts. This one is unique in several ways, not least of which in that I consider it to be worthy of the attention of a couple of innovative corporations -- yes, I think if I can get their attention, this is something that might actually get built. My feelings about this one are so strong that it is indeed the main reason for the creation of this blog. My URL can be slipped into any message I send them, and then they can navigate here to see and read about the sensational vehicle that will help promote both companies even if only one example is ever constructed.

Wish me luck.



Phil Smith
April 20, 2007

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