Nerd’s Eye View: LA Auto Show 2023

The Accord uses a similar intake concept to the Civic Type R with cold air getting shoved into the snorkel going to the airbox.

On the Accord, the rubber seal to block out hot air from the intake is on the hood.

Luxury cars are not really my thing. But this Genesis G90 seems nice.

Many cars come with flush door handles that extend to open the door. One purpose of the flush-mounted door handles would be to reduce aero drag for improved fuel economy. But I half think it has become like a stylish design feature. I am boring, just give me a regular simple door handle. One less thing to break too.

This Genesis does have something unique under the hood; to add a bit more pep and response to the twin-turbo 3.5L V6 is a 48V electric supercharger. What looks familiar are the braces going from the shock tower to the front of the engine bay ala BMW.

Lucid made a big splash at the show with its Gravity SUV. The guys from TFL were giving it a close look. Personally, I think it looks like a chopped top minivan. Apparently, people internal to Lucid started calling it a R-class.

10 comments

    1. I’m curious to see if/when more e-turbo makes it onto cars. Mercedes has a Garrett e-turbo on one of their AMG cars. Genesis has a 48V electric supercharger and e-turbo uses the same 48V. With more cars coming hybrid like all the new super cars from Ferrari and McLaren, one logical step is e-turbo. Conversely, they could just say the electric motor does the torque filling.

      1. Yeah, we have probably hit ‘Peak Turbo’ in our civilization, but I was kind of hoping to see the development of these turbos stretched out a bit more.

        “The amount of turbocharger lag plays a key role in the driver’s perceived quality of a passenger vehicle’s engine response. This paper investigates an alternative method to the conventional design of a turbocharger turbine to improve the transient response of a passenger vehicle. The investigation utilises the Ford Eco-Boost 1.6 L petrol engine, an established production engine, equipped with a turbocharger of similar performance to the GT1548 produced by Honeywell. The commercially available Ricardo WAVE was used to model the engine. Comparing the steady-state performance showed that the axial turbine provides higher efficiencies at all operating conditions of an engine. The transient case demonstrated an improved transient response at all operating conditions of the engine. The study concluded that, by designing a similar sized axial turbine, the mass moment of inertia can be reduced by 12.64% and transient response can be improved on average by 11.76%, with a maximum of 21.05% improvement. This study provides encouragement for the wider application of this turbine type to vehicles operating on dynamic driving cycles such as passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and certain off-road applications.”

        https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/21/7452

          1. Yeah, that’s the turbo!

            “The amount of turbocharger lag plays a key role in the driver’s perceived quality of a passenger vehicle’s engine response. This paper investigates an alternative method to the conventional design of a turbocharger turbine to improve the transient response of a passenger vehicle. The investigation utilises the Ford Eco-Boost 1.6 L petrol engine, an established production engine, equipped with a turbocharger of similar performance to the GT1548 produced by Honeywell. The commercially available Ricardo WAVE was used to model the engine. Comparing the steady-state performance showed that the axial turbine provides higher efficiencies at all operating conditions of an engine. The transient case demonstrated an improved transient response at all operating conditions of the engine. The study concluded that, by designing a similar sized axial turbine, the mass moment of inertia can be reduced by 12.64% and transient response can be improved on average by 11.76%, with a maximum of 21.05% improvement. This study provides encouragement for the wider application of this turbine type to vehicles operating on dynamic driving cycles such as passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and certain off-road applications.”

            https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/21/7452

          2. So true…there’s a snail shell design for maximum vortex compound combustion…but, that’s kinda secret, for now.

  1. 1. The GTD rear suspension looks to be based on the GT500 rear. Probably tweaked a bit and converted to inbound dampers. Lower arm looks very chunky, probably just a prototype still.
    The front is very interesting. Based on other photos i have found online, the vertical height difference between the multilink lower “arm” pivot points looks to be over 2 inches.
    The exhaust tips are probably very thin wall titanium, as they are made by Akrapovic.
    2. The LT6 is impressive, the bore/stroke ratio is even greater than that of the 458.
    And the design of the Z06 is what the C8 should have been from the start.
    3. That WRX thing is hideous, oh my god.

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