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Originally Posted by '72 Bullet I would also like to raise a point. Samurai's diatribe about how engineering actually works is enlightening, but also disheartening. His example of his friend designing FFRA while being least interested in cars is more 'number-crunching' and less 'engineering'. The term engineer supposedly comes from the Latin, French, German term meaning ingenius and implying ingenuity. |
His passion is designing cars, not driving them. He has also designed parts for submarines in his early days, but he has never driven one.
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Originally Posted by '72 Bullet IMHO a mechanic adapting a part or making up something from scratch to fulfill a requirement holds more 'ingenuity' than someone optimising a design using CAD to optimise production and cost. Of course this is an important part of designing and manufacturing but is it 'engineering'? |
It is part of product engineering. People who design concept cars have lot more leeway.
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Originally Posted by '72 Bullet True engineering requires passion, true engineering requires 'empirical knowledge', true engineering requires experience, true engineering requires interest, true engineering requires RESPONSIBILITY. |
Vehicle development is no more a simple thing. Every part of it has become highly specialized. The guy who designs suspension won't have anything do with the engine design.
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Originally Posted by '72 Bullet No matter what the marketing guys and accountants are harping about, basic safety measures have to be insisted and ensured. The designing of a vehicle may require a large number of compromises, but then there are some things you just can't compromise on. |
In a large company, marketing guys rule. The only exception is when the company is lead by a visionary techie (usually the founder), these are very rare. In smaller companies you can see more examples of engineers making final decisions. My company is like that.
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Originally Posted by headers Sir, You have stated a lot about your experience - Does that mean the other person knows nothing? |
I don't know, you tell me. If you have worked in large product/manufacturing company, you would already know why compromises are made in any product. I explained it for the benefit of people who don't know. If you already knew it, good for you.
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Originally Posted by headers A COMPROMISE ON SAFETY cannot be neglected whether it be JT crowd or M800 crowd or THAR crowd. Life is NOT cheap.
Having been abroad and worked there, YOU should know this better |
Actually I know. Safety standards are mandated by the law of the land. When government said every car should have seat-belts, every car maker added it. In future, if government says every car should have ABS and air-bags, every car maker will add that too. If you think SFRA is a compromise of safety in Thar, why stop there? It doesn't have ABS and air-bags for a Jeep that can go that fast. These days even hatches come with those basic safety features. What is more dangerous? Not having air-bags in a head-on collision or having a SFRA breaking while offroading? More than 90% of the Thar customers will never get into a situation where SFRA can break. However, 100% of the Thar customers will be ripping at high speeds on higway, where air-bags and ABS will be very very useful.
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Originally Posted by headers Sir, some of us wanted BD sir to explain why SFRA is put in the THAR and NOT FFRA when FFRA is available off the shelf at M&M. |
Since he has maintained his silence on that, one can only assume that the decision process can't be reveal in an open forum. He is bound by NDA like any employee, we have to respect that.
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Originally Posted by headers In s/w lingo, when a API is available, why use another more resource intensive one that would work, but a little slower ?.. get the drift? |
There can be numerous reasons. It could be bureaucratic, cost related, or something else. Behram can't reveal that info if it is confidential.
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Originally Posted by headers CORRECT - people are moving with time - Now why should unsafe vehicles be sold? |
Again, who decides what is unsafe? Mahindra thinks SFRA is safe enough for 99% of usage, so they give SFRA. One doesn't design a vehicle for extreme conditions unless the primary target customers use it in extreme conditions.
Is Mahindra Thar unsafe? Yeah, I think so. It is unsafe because there is no ABS or air-bags for a vehicle that can be so easily pushed beyond 100-120-140+ kmph. But I don't see you complaining about that.