Interview with the author of the project MK-17, a three-wheeled covered motorcycle for Russian weather conditions
This summer, the MK-17 project team presented its first public prototype - a motorcycle with three wheels, a bodywork and an automatic cornering system. We decided to interview the Russian inventor, author and mastermind of the project, Alexey Kazartsev.
Q: Hello Alexey. I represent the site Geektimes.ru, we write on technical and popular science topics. I became interested in your project because I myself am also interested in motorcycles ...
')
A: Yes, hello, I know your site, I read with interest, recently I was interested in the topic of the hacker Geohot, who made the autopilot on his own. We downloaded his project, perhaps we will do something similar.
Q: In my memory, rarely some Russian inventors have recently come out with their own idea, moreover in the form of a ready-made prototype. Please tell us in more detail how and when you got the idea for the project.
A: The idea came when I stood in traffic in 2008 on Prospekt Mira in the VDNKh area. Then I was able to drive two kilometers only in 1:30, envying the motorcyclists who were traveling in this traffic jam. And then I decided to buy a motorcycle. I bought it, but it turned out that you can actually ride it in Moscow for two or three months a year. I know brave people who ride for half a year, but it's impossible to ride in a jacket for a meeting on a motorcycle.
Therefore, I thought that you need to make a motorcycle with a cabin. And then I saw an interesting C-1 project from Lit Motors .
There is such a David Kim in California, and this is his project - a two-wheeled vehicle with a cab and power gyrostabilizer. So I wanted to do something like that. At the very beginning I did everything myself, for my money - at that moment I was a co-owner of a company engaged in the development of banking software .
I financed the project and worked as a designer. In the future, a team was recruited that also helped with their work, and the capabilities of their companies, and financially. Now our team consists of 10 people.
Q: What does the name mean?
A: We thought for a long time how to call it. There were different names - "Trickster" ...
Q: A "Corkscrew"?
A: Yes, and Corkscrew.
Q: Really?
A: Seriously. "Rapier" was, well, they say, narrow and fast. But then they decided to call by the principle of AK, a Kalashnikov assault rifle - that is, “Motorcycle Kazartsev”. And the number 17 - when we completed the main development in 2015, it turned out that the domains mk15 and mk16 were occupied. Was free mk17.ru
Q: So you looked at the two-wheeled foreign analog, but decided to make a three-wheeled vehicle? Why? That he fell less?
A: Yes, it does not fall, but at first we still began to design a two-wheeled vehicle. But we ourselves are not gyros specialists - I am an applied mathematician, in a team are programmers. It was only later that mechanics and engineers came to us. And then I met Nurbey Vladimirovich Gulia .
This is one of our most prominent inventors. A few books have been written about, he has his own books. He is one of those who stood at the origins of AvtoVAZ. One of his outstanding inventions is the super - flywheel .
I asked him to calculate the gyrostabilizer for our vehicle. However, even rough estimates showed that the development of this design would have cost 15 million in 2011. But this is not so bad - the system was very complex and energy consuming. Just for the vehicle to stand and not fall on its side, the “pancake” with a weight of 10-15 kg and a speed of more than 5000 r / min must rotate inside it. It turns out that half of the engine is working on the rotation of the flywheel. And we abandoned this idea.
Q: As I understand it, the flywheel, like a gyroscope, tends to maintain its position in space? How to turn with him?
A: Yes, as usual. Watch an interview with Kim on our YouTube channel .
He has an interesting device that drives and turns, but so far there is not much extreme in testing. A flywheel holding a vehicle vertically has a limiting angle of inclination. Strong tilts and vibrations, he may not compensate. But the main problem is energy consumption. The engine of 50 horses 25 spends on the rotation of the flywheel - it is meaningless.
Q: If you pay attention to the road, then there are motorcyclists there in the summer, but there are rarely trikes (three-wheeled). They look unusual, but for some reason they are very small compared to motorcycles.
A: They have no advantages of a motorcycle. They are wide with the car. I went to the Spyder, so his width, in my opinion, is 1 m 30 cm.
Q: That is, it combines all the flaws.
A: Yes, it combines the shortcomings of a motorcycle and a car.
Q: Cars have been producing for more than 100 years, motorcycles have started to be made even earlier. And for some reason, there are still no such vehicles on the roads.
A: You have little information. Since the beginning of the 1990s, they have been busy with this idea. There is a Swiss company Peraves , which produces the MonoTracer vehicle.
Here you are, a commercial product, € 52,000 - come, buy, ride. In the 90s it was called "ecomobile." On such vehicles ride around England, Switzerland, Europe. It is narrow, but there are two wheels on the sides, and if they lean back, its width also becomes 1.3 m. There is still a Carver One .
This tricycle with a massive stern, two wheels behind. The stern is motionless, the cabin leans towards the stern. But also the width of 1.3 m - this is bad. Of the really narrow projects we can mention the BMW Simple , launched in 2008.
This is still a project, they have a concept that stands at the exhibition - with a cabin and salon, and there is an experimental model - a frame on wheels. In 2012, the project was completed. I have a source of information in this company, and according to him, they postponed the project until the “end of the crisis”. The crisis will end one way or another by 2020, and then they will begin to introduce new vehicles.
Nissan has a Land Glider project.
Narrow, four-wheel leaning car. They froze it too in about 2012.
The most popular of these projects is the Toyota i-Road .
Everyone started developing projects around the same time - BMW, Toyota, Nissan, we. Toyota began development in 2008, in 2013 it reached mass production, in 2014 they released the vehicle to the streets of Tokyo and Grenoble for rent, in 2015 they were going to produce in Milan. So such vehicles already drive on the roads.
Q: And why all these firms began to conduct similar developments in the XXI century? Was petrol cheaper and wider in the previous century?
A: Or traffic jams were not so serious. This is a vehicle for the city. And we have a good market for such a vehicle, because we are cold. And a cabin means a stove. But when we, for example, made a presentation in India, there, too, we were interested in this vehicle, because there a cabin means air conditioning.
Q: And there you can put air conditioning?
A: No problem. Imagine that you sawed a car in half lengthwise. It turns out MK-17. Put what you want. Trunk, air conditioning.
Q: Windscreen washer, wipers?
Oh yes of course. I had a “fixed idea” with this project - to drive through this “my” traffic jam at the VDNKh. And this fall this dream came true. It was raining, the temperature was close to zero. And everything turned out.
Q: And security? Pillows, abs?
O, sure. All this can be installed. Most of all disputes with skeptics about this project is just going around the issue of security. Since our device is in the middle between the car and the motorcycle, then we have higher security than the motorcycle and lower than the car. This is no different from analogs, for example, from Toyota i-Road.
It is logical that, for example, Ford Explorer has higher safety than Daewoo Matiz. For the simple reason that Ford is more, and from active systems, you can install anything you like and airbags and ABS.
Q: Should a pilot ride in motorcycle gear?
A: Now the vehicle is classified by category L5 , symmetrical tricycle.
Naturally, a helmet is required. But the vehicle from Toyota belongs to the same category, so formally a helmet is also required there. I think that we will sell our unit together with helmets. We are law-abiding citizens.
Q: I understand that your main pride is an intelligent stabilization system developed from scratch.
A: Well, pride is not pride, but without it the device would simply not go, and other manufacturers would not share with us their developments on this topic anyway. Therefore, we did everything ourselves. When we switched from the two-wheeled to the three-wheeled version, we first made it with a free suspension - an analogue of the suspension of the Piaggio MP3 scooter.
This is an Italian scooter with an interesting free suspension. When the scooter starts, the suspension is “clamped” and the scooter does not stoop. When it accelerates, it "relaxes" and can lean in the manner of a motorcycle. We also made the first prototype in this spirit - we ordered a suspension from Piaggio in Europe, dismantled it and made an analog. But it turned out that a large heavy vehicle with a cabin is different in dynamics from a small scooter.
The motorcycle is tilted due to steering, work the front wheel. And when the steering is not enough, the motorcyclist bends down, counteracting the centrifugal force. When the motorcycle weighs more than 500 kg, then you will not do anything with it with your 80 kg inside the cabin. We have to make a forced tilt system. Well, if so, the system should feel the centrifugal force, compensated by the slope - here you and the accelerometer. The roadbed may itself be non-horizontal, there may be holes in it, which means you need a gyroscope, a magnetometer. All this data needs to be processed.
We set all this, supplied it with an industrial computer, and after debugging and long tests the system started working. The computer is, of course, not like the serial samples, not just a black box with a wired program. Required access for programmers, interfaces.
Q: What do programmers write on?
A: If you are about languages, then this is C and Assembler. If about algorithms, then it would be possible, of course, to build a mathematical model by which to calculate the slope. But the system has too many degrees of freedom to calculate each time, and there is little time to react. Therefore, based on the tests, a three-dimensional tensor matrix was constructed, and now we run the information from the sensors through the matrix and obtain the necessary set of parameters.
Thus, the desired speed is achieved. The slope of the vertical MK-17 - 15 °. Approximately like analogs. Only Carver One leans on 45 °, but in it there is no special sense - so extremely go only on motorcycle races. We need to make this tilt in a second, and a full “fan”, from -15 ° to + 15 °, in a half second. Here is the speed should be at the electronics and power actuator to work out external influences at about as fast as a motorcyclist does on a regular motorcycle. And this dictates the work of the mathematical model.
Now we are planning to finish and debug the software, and we will register the copyright. For patents, we already have three applications - an industrial design, a vehicle, and a front suspension. The software will be the fourth, and then later, upon entering the series, we will patent some more interesting things. Not like Apple's pro bag package , but more interesting.
Q: But still this vehicle can fall? And can it be lifted like a motorcycle?
A: You can drop anything. As a motorcycle MK-17 to lift hard, it weighs 600 kg, and it will have to do together. As a 300-pound Harley raise - you need to sit down, rest your back and straighten your legs.
But on the other hand, MK-17 and harder to drop. This, as already mentioned, is a cross between a car and a motorcycle. It is even more difficult to drop a car to the side, but it will also be necessary for three or four of us to lift it. We have several patented ideas. Our vehicle is called a “narrow vehicle with cab, active and passive stabilization systems”. At the presentations, I showed a trick - the MK-17 stood completely tilted in one direction, I opened the door, and jumped on its threshold, swaying. It behaves like a roly-poly and does not fall - this is how a passive stabilization system works.
Q: Now your project is in the concept stage of a platform on which you can hang anything?
A: Yes, it is an experimental exhibition sample. The main thing is that we worked on it - the width and stabilization system. Until recently, it was a frame on wheels. But since the first stage of R & D is completed, we have given it a beautiful appearance to show the “goods face”. Now funds are required for further development.
Q: Found such funds already?
A: There is no particular problem to find the means for R & D and finishing the sample before mass production. But the bottom line is that for the manufacture of serial samples, you need to decide on the nomenclature of the components. If we, for example, agree on the production of a vehicle on the AvtoVAZ conveyor, then we need to adjust to their nomenclature.
We are in the process of searching and developing an agreement with manufacturers. Nothing is known yet, but there is cautious optimism.
There is another option - stacker assembly, small series. We can develop all the components ourselves and order from Indians and Chinese.
Q: Collect in the garage?
A: Well, in the hangar, in fact. Take containers with components, some ready, some to order - and collect yourself. But it will turn out a small series, and the price of the product will not be as low as that of a conveyor. It will cost 600-800 thousand apiece. And on the conveyor - 300 thousand.
The problem is also that if we first start making a small series, “sending”, and then we decide to switch to large-scale mass production with the components of the automaker, we will have to redesign all vehicles, spend a lot of money and time. Therefore it is necessary to decide. I believe that it should be released in large series.
If we formally assess the market, then the entry point to it is from 1% to 20% of buyers. That is, at best, every fifth resident of a big city would prefer to take such a device instead of a new or used car. If we take the average value, between pessimists and optimists, 10% - then for our country we will have a market of 300,000 devices per year. This level AvtoVAZ.
Design takes time. Our R & D, with the failure of the first prototype, took 5 years. Now we are planning to design a serial sample for 4 years. It would seem a long time - but the development is unique, not just another car. Even in Toyota and BMW it takes about the same time for such development. In the same BMW, several designers took this project, gave design tools, equipment, facilities, components, operating time, finance, and commissioned to make a new vehicle. And why are we worse than BMW? Our brains are not worse, our software is not worse. So in our project the question is no longer whether it will be released, but how exactly it will be produced, and whether it will be necessary to do R & D twice: first into a small series, and a slipway assembly, and then into a conveyor.
Q: So crowdfunding will not interest you?
A: It will be interesting if we make a small series. If we do not find a good conveyor, a large manufacturer, then we will focus on small-scale production.
Q: Why not turn to India in the same way, with a proposal to make their production?
A: We just in LJ have a post with a TASS report that the MK-17 project caused a sensation at the BRICS exhibition in India.
If we make the MK-17 abroad, then a large series will be sold abroad, and import will already go here. But if we communicate with foreign manufacturers, they will cheat their market and their needs.
When we were developing a prototype, I set the task for designers to use domestic components. MK-17 is 85% of our components. Therefore, I would like it to be our manufacturers, our project, our device. Although redoing it on components from other manufacturers, after all that we have already passed - there are no problems.
Q: What about the power plant and gearbox? What about the trendy theme of electric motors?
A: I was not a big electric car enthusiast, for one reason: battery problems. I have friends in Russia who have Tesla. None of Tesla in a mixed mode of more than 200 km passes. In our climate, in the cold, you can't go to your mother-in-law in Nizhny Novgorod - you have to stop for the night in Vladimir.
There are no instant electric stations. I correspond with one scientist from the University of Tokyo. They are developing a project in which an approaching car quickly exchanges a battery with a special crane. But for this to be special infrastructure. If you release something now, you have to rely on the existing infrastructure.
Q: So ICE?
A: Why? While there are no normal batteries, you can make a hybrid. Do you know about the inventor Dmitry Alexandrovich Duyunov ?
This is one of the eminent inventors in Russia.
He developed the winding " Slavyanka " for his asynchronous "Kolobok" electric motor. He has more than 40 licensees in the country, for 4 years they have been making such engines. In the St. Petersburg metro rewind engines for winding "Slavyanka".
I rode on his scooter, in the rear wheel of which the engine fits. The main problem with the installation of electric motors in the wheel is a large unsprung mass, which is provided by rare-earth magnets. With the winding of Duyunov, if you make the MK-17 motor-wheel of the rear wheel, it will weigh only 40 kg.
So now we are planning to use Duyun's electric motors in a production model. Instead of batteries - ICE with a generator (also Duyunova).
Q: Isn't there too much innovation for a new project? In E-mobility, they also wanted to cram a lot of things.
A: Not too much. In fact, we now have one innovation: we have achieved that our vehicle with a width of 92 centimeters goes and does not fall. This is the meaning of our R & D. Electric motors are not our innovation.
Q: During the interview I learned about inventors that I hadn’t even heard about before. I think the problem with our inventors is that they do not know how to advertise themselves, sell themselves.
A: I would not like to go into politics now, but the situation with our inventiveness really leaves much to be desired. This point of view is shared by other inventors who are familiar to me - those who have something to really show. I used to work on the development of mobile software for banks, and I understand the gadgets. And I feel sad when “rounded corners” or new “mobile applications for advanced Pokémon search” are shown as innovations - these are not the inventions that cost something in the future, but they are easy to popularize and you can make quick money on them .
I was hoping for the start of a “new industrialization”, a transition from the “economy of unrestrained consumption due to the sale of oil” to a producing economy. So far, everything does not look very optimistic, and this is due to the fact that with the end of the “glamor era”, those who had previously engaged in the resale of something foreign quickly moved into state, industrial and scientific structures (it was not difficult for them, they had money) and wrap it up ... As a result, we see the dominance of "effective managers," "economists," and other traders where engineers and scientists must be. The purpose of these managers is to make quick money as it was in their past life, on resale. They don't think differently. As a result, there appear such solutions, for example, as limiting the payback period of investment projects to one year. What can be developed, implemented,sell and get an economic effect? The simplest knot? Nut? A program for catching pokemon?
But I still look to the future with a certain optimism. If, in the end, we break through this resistance, then invention will be developed in our country. We have the potential, as you see.
Q: Hello Alexey. I represent the site Geektimes.ru, we write on technical and popular science topics. I became interested in your project because I myself am also interested in motorcycles ...
')
A: Yes, hello, I know your site, I read with interest, recently I was interested in the topic of the hacker Geohot, who made the autopilot on his own. We downloaded his project, perhaps we will do something similar.
Q: In my memory, rarely some Russian inventors have recently come out with their own idea, moreover in the form of a ready-made prototype. Please tell us in more detail how and when you got the idea for the project.
A: The idea came when I stood in traffic in 2008 on Prospekt Mira in the VDNKh area. Then I was able to drive two kilometers only in 1:30, envying the motorcyclists who were traveling in this traffic jam. And then I decided to buy a motorcycle. I bought it, but it turned out that you can actually ride it in Moscow for two or three months a year. I know brave people who ride for half a year, but it's impossible to ride in a jacket for a meeting on a motorcycle.
Therefore, I thought that you need to make a motorcycle with a cabin. And then I saw an interesting C-1 project from Lit Motors .
There is such a David Kim in California, and this is his project - a two-wheeled vehicle with a cab and power gyrostabilizer. So I wanted to do something like that. At the very beginning I did everything myself, for my money - at that moment I was a co-owner of a company engaged in the development of banking software .
I financed the project and worked as a designer. In the future, a team was recruited that also helped with their work, and the capabilities of their companies, and financially. Now our team consists of 10 people.
Q: What does the name mean?
A: We thought for a long time how to call it. There were different names - "Trickster" ...
Q: A "Corkscrew"?
A: Yes, and Corkscrew.
Q: Really?
A: Seriously. "Rapier" was, well, they say, narrow and fast. But then they decided to call by the principle of AK, a Kalashnikov assault rifle - that is, “Motorcycle Kazartsev”. And the number 17 - when we completed the main development in 2015, it turned out that the domains mk15 and mk16 were occupied. Was free mk17.ru
Q: So you looked at the two-wheeled foreign analog, but decided to make a three-wheeled vehicle? Why? That he fell less?
A: Yes, it does not fall, but at first we still began to design a two-wheeled vehicle. But we ourselves are not gyros specialists - I am an applied mathematician, in a team are programmers. It was only later that mechanics and engineers came to us. And then I met Nurbey Vladimirovich Gulia .
This is one of our most prominent inventors. A few books have been written about, he has his own books. He is one of those who stood at the origins of AvtoVAZ. One of his outstanding inventions is the super - flywheel .
I asked him to calculate the gyrostabilizer for our vehicle. However, even rough estimates showed that the development of this design would have cost 15 million in 2011. But this is not so bad - the system was very complex and energy consuming. Just for the vehicle to stand and not fall on its side, the “pancake” with a weight of 10-15 kg and a speed of more than 5000 r / min must rotate inside it. It turns out that half of the engine is working on the rotation of the flywheel. And we abandoned this idea.
Q: As I understand it, the flywheel, like a gyroscope, tends to maintain its position in space? How to turn with him?
A: Yes, as usual. Watch an interview with Kim on our YouTube channel .
He has an interesting device that drives and turns, but so far there is not much extreme in testing. A flywheel holding a vehicle vertically has a limiting angle of inclination. Strong tilts and vibrations, he may not compensate. But the main problem is energy consumption. The engine of 50 horses 25 spends on the rotation of the flywheel - it is meaningless.
Q: If you pay attention to the road, then there are motorcyclists there in the summer, but there are rarely trikes (three-wheeled). They look unusual, but for some reason they are very small compared to motorcycles.
A: They have no advantages of a motorcycle. They are wide with the car. I went to the Spyder, so his width, in my opinion, is 1 m 30 cm.
Q: That is, it combines all the flaws.
A: Yes, it combines the shortcomings of a motorcycle and a car.
Q: Cars have been producing for more than 100 years, motorcycles have started to be made even earlier. And for some reason, there are still no such vehicles on the roads.
A: You have little information. Since the beginning of the 1990s, they have been busy with this idea. There is a Swiss company Peraves , which produces the MonoTracer vehicle.
Here you are, a commercial product, € 52,000 - come, buy, ride. In the 90s it was called "ecomobile." On such vehicles ride around England, Switzerland, Europe. It is narrow, but there are two wheels on the sides, and if they lean back, its width also becomes 1.3 m. There is still a Carver One .
This tricycle with a massive stern, two wheels behind. The stern is motionless, the cabin leans towards the stern. But also the width of 1.3 m - this is bad. Of the really narrow projects we can mention the BMW Simple , launched in 2008.
This is still a project, they have a concept that stands at the exhibition - with a cabin and salon, and there is an experimental model - a frame on wheels. In 2012, the project was completed. I have a source of information in this company, and according to him, they postponed the project until the “end of the crisis”. The crisis will end one way or another by 2020, and then they will begin to introduce new vehicles.
Nissan has a Land Glider project.
Narrow, four-wheel leaning car. They froze it too in about 2012.
The most popular of these projects is the Toyota i-Road .
Everyone started developing projects around the same time - BMW, Toyota, Nissan, we. Toyota began development in 2008, in 2013 it reached mass production, in 2014 they released the vehicle to the streets of Tokyo and Grenoble for rent, in 2015 they were going to produce in Milan. So such vehicles already drive on the roads.
Q: And why all these firms began to conduct similar developments in the XXI century? Was petrol cheaper and wider in the previous century?
A: Or traffic jams were not so serious. This is a vehicle for the city. And we have a good market for such a vehicle, because we are cold. And a cabin means a stove. But when we, for example, made a presentation in India, there, too, we were interested in this vehicle, because there a cabin means air conditioning.
Q: And there you can put air conditioning?
A: No problem. Imagine that you sawed a car in half lengthwise. It turns out MK-17. Put what you want. Trunk, air conditioning.
Q: Windscreen washer, wipers?
Oh yes of course. I had a “fixed idea” with this project - to drive through this “my” traffic jam at the VDNKh. And this fall this dream came true. It was raining, the temperature was close to zero. And everything turned out.
Q: And security? Pillows, abs?
O, sure. All this can be installed. Most of all disputes with skeptics about this project is just going around the issue of security. Since our device is in the middle between the car and the motorcycle, then we have higher security than the motorcycle and lower than the car. This is no different from analogs, for example, from Toyota i-Road.
It is logical that, for example, Ford Explorer has higher safety than Daewoo Matiz. For the simple reason that Ford is more, and from active systems, you can install anything you like and airbags and ABS.
Q: Should a pilot ride in motorcycle gear?
A: Now the vehicle is classified by category L5 , symmetrical tricycle.
Naturally, a helmet is required. But the vehicle from Toyota belongs to the same category, so formally a helmet is also required there. I think that we will sell our unit together with helmets. We are law-abiding citizens.
Q: I understand that your main pride is an intelligent stabilization system developed from scratch.
A: Well, pride is not pride, but without it the device would simply not go, and other manufacturers would not share with us their developments on this topic anyway. Therefore, we did everything ourselves. When we switched from the two-wheeled to the three-wheeled version, we first made it with a free suspension - an analogue of the suspension of the Piaggio MP3 scooter.
This is an Italian scooter with an interesting free suspension. When the scooter starts, the suspension is “clamped” and the scooter does not stoop. When it accelerates, it "relaxes" and can lean in the manner of a motorcycle. We also made the first prototype in this spirit - we ordered a suspension from Piaggio in Europe, dismantled it and made an analog. But it turned out that a large heavy vehicle with a cabin is different in dynamics from a small scooter.
The motorcycle is tilted due to steering, work the front wheel. And when the steering is not enough, the motorcyclist bends down, counteracting the centrifugal force. When the motorcycle weighs more than 500 kg, then you will not do anything with it with your 80 kg inside the cabin. We have to make a forced tilt system. Well, if so, the system should feel the centrifugal force, compensated by the slope - here you and the accelerometer. The roadbed may itself be non-horizontal, there may be holes in it, which means you need a gyroscope, a magnetometer. All this data needs to be processed.
We set all this, supplied it with an industrial computer, and after debugging and long tests the system started working. The computer is, of course, not like the serial samples, not just a black box with a wired program. Required access for programmers, interfaces.
Q: What do programmers write on?
A: If you are about languages, then this is C and Assembler. If about algorithms, then it would be possible, of course, to build a mathematical model by which to calculate the slope. But the system has too many degrees of freedom to calculate each time, and there is little time to react. Therefore, based on the tests, a three-dimensional tensor matrix was constructed, and now we run the information from the sensors through the matrix and obtain the necessary set of parameters.
Thus, the desired speed is achieved. The slope of the vertical MK-17 - 15 °. Approximately like analogs. Only Carver One leans on 45 °, but in it there is no special sense - so extremely go only on motorcycle races. We need to make this tilt in a second, and a full “fan”, from -15 ° to + 15 °, in a half second. Here is the speed should be at the electronics and power actuator to work out external influences at about as fast as a motorcyclist does on a regular motorcycle. And this dictates the work of the mathematical model.
Now we are planning to finish and debug the software, and we will register the copyright. For patents, we already have three applications - an industrial design, a vehicle, and a front suspension. The software will be the fourth, and then later, upon entering the series, we will patent some more interesting things. Not like Apple's pro bag package , but more interesting.
Q: But still this vehicle can fall? And can it be lifted like a motorcycle?
A: You can drop anything. As a motorcycle MK-17 to lift hard, it weighs 600 kg, and it will have to do together. As a 300-pound Harley raise - you need to sit down, rest your back and straighten your legs.
But on the other hand, MK-17 and harder to drop. This, as already mentioned, is a cross between a car and a motorcycle. It is even more difficult to drop a car to the side, but it will also be necessary for three or four of us to lift it. We have several patented ideas. Our vehicle is called a “narrow vehicle with cab, active and passive stabilization systems”. At the presentations, I showed a trick - the MK-17 stood completely tilted in one direction, I opened the door, and jumped on its threshold, swaying. It behaves like a roly-poly and does not fall - this is how a passive stabilization system works.
Q: Now your project is in the concept stage of a platform on which you can hang anything?
A: Yes, it is an experimental exhibition sample. The main thing is that we worked on it - the width and stabilization system. Until recently, it was a frame on wheels. But since the first stage of R & D is completed, we have given it a beautiful appearance to show the “goods face”. Now funds are required for further development.
Q: Found such funds already?
A: There is no particular problem to find the means for R & D and finishing the sample before mass production. But the bottom line is that for the manufacture of serial samples, you need to decide on the nomenclature of the components. If we, for example, agree on the production of a vehicle on the AvtoVAZ conveyor, then we need to adjust to their nomenclature.
We are in the process of searching and developing an agreement with manufacturers. Nothing is known yet, but there is cautious optimism.
There is another option - stacker assembly, small series. We can develop all the components ourselves and order from Indians and Chinese.
Q: Collect in the garage?
A: Well, in the hangar, in fact. Take containers with components, some ready, some to order - and collect yourself. But it will turn out a small series, and the price of the product will not be as low as that of a conveyor. It will cost 600-800 thousand apiece. And on the conveyor - 300 thousand.
The problem is also that if we first start making a small series, “sending”, and then we decide to switch to large-scale mass production with the components of the automaker, we will have to redesign all vehicles, spend a lot of money and time. Therefore it is necessary to decide. I believe that it should be released in large series.
If we formally assess the market, then the entry point to it is from 1% to 20% of buyers. That is, at best, every fifth resident of a big city would prefer to take such a device instead of a new or used car. If we take the average value, between pessimists and optimists, 10% - then for our country we will have a market of 300,000 devices per year. This level AvtoVAZ.
Design takes time. Our R & D, with the failure of the first prototype, took 5 years. Now we are planning to design a serial sample for 4 years. It would seem a long time - but the development is unique, not just another car. Even in Toyota and BMW it takes about the same time for such development. In the same BMW, several designers took this project, gave design tools, equipment, facilities, components, operating time, finance, and commissioned to make a new vehicle. And why are we worse than BMW? Our brains are not worse, our software is not worse. So in our project the question is no longer whether it will be released, but how exactly it will be produced, and whether it will be necessary to do R & D twice: first into a small series, and a slipway assembly, and then into a conveyor.
Q: So crowdfunding will not interest you?
A: It will be interesting if we make a small series. If we do not find a good conveyor, a large manufacturer, then we will focus on small-scale production.
Q: Why not turn to India in the same way, with a proposal to make their production?
A: We just in LJ have a post with a TASS report that the MK-17 project caused a sensation at the BRICS exhibition in India.
If we make the MK-17 abroad, then a large series will be sold abroad, and import will already go here. But if we communicate with foreign manufacturers, they will cheat their market and their needs.
When we were developing a prototype, I set the task for designers to use domestic components. MK-17 is 85% of our components. Therefore, I would like it to be our manufacturers, our project, our device. Although redoing it on components from other manufacturers, after all that we have already passed - there are no problems.
Q: What about the power plant and gearbox? What about the trendy theme of electric motors?
A: I was not a big electric car enthusiast, for one reason: battery problems. I have friends in Russia who have Tesla. None of Tesla in a mixed mode of more than 200 km passes. In our climate, in the cold, you can't go to your mother-in-law in Nizhny Novgorod - you have to stop for the night in Vladimir.
There are no instant electric stations. I correspond with one scientist from the University of Tokyo. They are developing a project in which an approaching car quickly exchanges a battery with a special crane. But for this to be special infrastructure. If you release something now, you have to rely on the existing infrastructure.
Q: So ICE?
A: Why? While there are no normal batteries, you can make a hybrid. Do you know about the inventor Dmitry Alexandrovich Duyunov ?
This is one of the eminent inventors in Russia.
He developed the winding " Slavyanka " for his asynchronous "Kolobok" electric motor. He has more than 40 licensees in the country, for 4 years they have been making such engines. In the St. Petersburg metro rewind engines for winding "Slavyanka".
I rode on his scooter, in the rear wheel of which the engine fits. The main problem with the installation of electric motors in the wheel is a large unsprung mass, which is provided by rare-earth magnets. With the winding of Duyunov, if you make the MK-17 motor-wheel of the rear wheel, it will weigh only 40 kg.
So now we are planning to use Duyun's electric motors in a production model. Instead of batteries - ICE with a generator (also Duyunova).
Q: Isn't there too much innovation for a new project? In E-mobility, they also wanted to cram a lot of things.
A: Not too much. In fact, we now have one innovation: we have achieved that our vehicle with a width of 92 centimeters goes and does not fall. This is the meaning of our R & D. Electric motors are not our innovation.
Q: During the interview I learned about inventors that I hadn’t even heard about before. I think the problem with our inventors is that they do not know how to advertise themselves, sell themselves.
A: I would not like to go into politics now, but the situation with our inventiveness really leaves much to be desired. This point of view is shared by other inventors who are familiar to me - those who have something to really show. I used to work on the development of mobile software for banks, and I understand the gadgets. And I feel sad when “rounded corners” or new “mobile applications for advanced Pokémon search” are shown as innovations - these are not the inventions that cost something in the future, but they are easy to popularize and you can make quick money on them .
I was hoping for the start of a “new industrialization”, a transition from the “economy of unrestrained consumption due to the sale of oil” to a producing economy. So far, everything does not look very optimistic, and this is due to the fact that with the end of the “glamor era”, those who had previously engaged in the resale of something foreign quickly moved into state, industrial and scientific structures (it was not difficult for them, they had money) and wrap it up ... As a result, we see the dominance of "effective managers," "economists," and other traders where engineers and scientists must be. The purpose of these managers is to make quick money as it was in their past life, on resale. They don't think differently. As a result, there appear such solutions, for example, as limiting the payback period of investment projects to one year. What can be developed, implemented,sell and get an economic effect? The simplest knot? Nut? A program for catching pokemon?
But I still look to the future with a certain optimism. If, in the end, we break through this resistance, then invention will be developed in our country. We have the potential, as you see.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399967/
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