At the 5th of May 2015 AtTrack MD Dr. Ulrich W. Schiefer has given a speech at the Lightweight Innovation Day of the “Leichtbauagentur BW” at the Messe Stuttgart. The title was “Pack Donkey or Donkey’s Pack?”
The Key Messages have been:
- Typical automobiles can carry about 30-50 % of their empty weight as payload (to be seen in the appending payload/empty weight portfolio)
- Therefore automobiles behave significantly worse on that behalf than any other man/load bearing vehicles (truck, helicopter, motorcycle …)
- In particular single-track vehicles such as motorcycles and a new species of light vehicles (i.e. AtTrack TG 700 …) perform on a significantly higher level, in bearing between 80-90% of their empty weight as payload.
- Interestingly there is neither customer preference nor attention for the payload, even though it is a basically important quality factor for any means of transportation.
- Probably this is also the key reason for OEMs not to put so much emphasis on this aspect of vehicle quality.
Schiefer has no doubt, that automotive engineers should pay significantly more attention onto payload beyond just focusing on empty weight.
He sees this to be a fundamental requirement for lifting lightweight design of vehicles onto a new level of quality.
Dr. Ulrich W. Schiefer, MBA, 26.5.2015
