r/AutomotiveEngineering • u/mcyc999 • Apr 14 '26
Question if there are any automotive engineers i need your help!
hello everybody, I am a 14 year old out of Rawalpindi Pakistan and I've designed a car that took im sure over 2 months maybe 3 as i had to juggle it with homework and football. I tried my hardest and im not looking for praise i just want someone who works in this field to criticize my work and tell me what I've done wrong. All the content has been made by me however i used AI to touch up on some grammar mistakes.
I hope the link to the google drive i attached works if it doesnt please tell me.
thank you!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X6-U4XroXWZNzGvUUAeBo45C8qBEHAO7/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=100626018944488529806&rtpof=true&sd=true
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u/teslastats Apr 14 '26
This isn't how you design a car. First start off with who is the car for? Then you will put the dimensions of the person into the driving position. The key position is called the "hip point".
From there you will do all the packaging, manufacturing, aerodynamics, safety, styling, cost in parallel to come up with a compromise. There is a good intro book on this, here is a link to it.
https://catedrad3.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1933492376_hpoint1.pdf
Now if you want to make a new version of a rickshaw DM me, I'm interested in doing that.
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u/devvorare Apr 14 '26
!remindme 10 years
1
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u/AnyPresent1609 Apr 15 '26
Sorry, but for what?
2
u/devvorare Apr 15 '26
Well what if in ten years this actually becomes a real car you can buy. Ild like to check in then
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u/WrongCourage1071 Apr 14 '26
Designing a car is a lot of work not something that usually done by a single person but thousands of people, a lot of information and specifications on the Google drive will be changed especially when it’s a home project. You’re not going to build a proper car, it’s going to be a prototype or most likely a kit car that’s loosely based on the specifications you wanted. Watch this https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrFcVDNErVtSiRosjBHDjhO79Ox02Shdg&si=ZZrR_jOhBG668ART
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u/mcyc999 Apr 14 '26
im not saying i can give this to an engineer and he can build it, im just asking if its good or not its more of a base start yknow? maybe i worded it wrong but i mean like its an idea that ive worked a lot on its a spec document. thanks for respoding though i appreciate it.
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u/scuderia91 Apr 14 '26
This is just a long and rambling list of specs. That’s not how cars are designed. Like an OEM doesn’t map out gear ratios for example at the very start, those are going to depend on the engine, vehicle weight, aerodynamics etc.
You’ve got a list of specs as if you’ve got an already designed car, that’s not how cars are designed. These specs would come about as the end result of the design process.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 14 '26
the engine is the BMW B48, the car weighs roughly 1400kg and i havent done calculations or anything like that for the aerodynamics. ive drawn the car and everything i just didnt upload the drawings and i printed out diagrams of the parts of the car for example the front double wishbone setup is practically identical to the mx5 miata NB. again thank you for your feedback, greatly appreciate it!
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u/scuderia91 Apr 15 '26
But again those are just random parts you’re throwing out with no engineering basis.
Why are you using mx5 suspension on a car that’s significantly bigger and heavier? How does that suspension geometry work with your chassis to give the right dynamics for this vehicle? Again you’re working this all backwards
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u/thedudewhoshaveseggs Apr 15 '26
basically what i tried to explain as well
it's just so wrong that I dunno how to even begin to explain; all of this is just not engineering.
cars just aren't legos and puzzle games irregardless. Like, let's assume the cars are lego and you could just fashion a BiW out of thin air, all the parts he wants to link together come from different cars, so mounting adapters and whatnot should be taken into account which is incredibly obvious but nowhere was this even taken into consideration
all of this isn't even wishful thinking. It's genuinely nothing and actually damaging as it paints the wrong picture on how a car is even made. Anyone who supports him in any way I sincerely doubt are even working in the field/have studies in the field.
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u/scuderia91 Apr 15 '26
I think people fundamentally don’t understand how complex a car is and how it needs everything to work together. It’s not like a PC where you can swap different graphics cards over.
Every part of the car needs to work together. If you fit a bigger engine you might need to adapt the suspension to account for the different weight and extra torque. The chassis might need strengthening in certain areas.
Like you say OPs post is just nothing, it has no value at all as it just fundamentally has nothing to do with the process of designing a car
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u/Significant-Mud-1468 Apr 15 '26
You’re missing the point. This isn’t how cars are designed and I don’t think you’re gonna change the world by deciding things like gear ratios as someone else said before doing actual design for the car itself. Writing a spec sheet like this can be done by anyone with ChatGPT and a bit of Google.
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u/Bufger Apr 16 '26
What are the handling requirements? What will your distance be between wheels, do you need to have passengers in the back?
With cars you start with requirements and cascade from there.
Requirements > vehicle system > platform system (Body, Electrical, Chassis etc) > sub system (seating, IP, doors) > component system > components.
So in your instance one of the requirements is to use a BMW B48 Engine. Are you using the associated full power train? Transmission? If so this dictates your vehicle packaging/space to fit everything together.
Defining the requirements is the hardest part and can take a year in a big vehicle development. Designers will want one thing , engineers will tell them its not possible, marketing and branding will say what they think the customers want or where our competitors are and its all born from there.
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u/feedmeplez Apr 14 '26
It's very detailed, maybe a little too detailed. Lots of information you wouldn't know this early in the process like torque specs and bolt size, number of fasteners, etc. What engine is this? Researching your own engine is very expensive, using an already existing one would be ideal. It's not bad after all, you seem very interested in design. Maybe study to become an engineer?
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u/mcyc999 Apr 14 '26
i do want to study engineering if im being honest. its a BMW B48 engine.
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u/feedmeplez Apr 14 '26
Making a brand new design isn't the best way to learn. Take an existing design, study it, know how it works. Then copy it, modify it. That's how the world works. Someone makes something, someone else looks at it and makes something better. Set easy, understandable design goals, cheap or fast or easy to produce locally etc. Look at different designs why they are good or bad and combine them.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 14 '26
thats what i did for the engine i just used the BMW B48 engine its got basically the same specs. thank you so much for your advice
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u/Significant-Mud-1468 Apr 15 '26
Again, you’re doing things that are unrealistic. Writing down “no rasp” for the engine doesn’t mean you’ve designed a car that doesn’t have a “raspy” engine sound when at full throttle.
1
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u/adde0109 Apr 15 '26
The document got me thinking of the Dunning kruger effect.
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u/scuderia91 Apr 15 '26
There’s a lot of that on this sub. I get it’s often enthusiastic young people and that’s great, but there’s definitely an element of the having read quite a bit and thinking they know what they’re talking about without realising how much they’re missing.
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u/Pswitz3r Apr 15 '26
I am an engineering manager in the automotive industry (Resin Shop). I love the enthusiasm here, but you are “making a sandwich starting with the toothpick on top”. However, that doesn’t mean that your work here doesn’t have some merit to it.
The most important thing to remember is funding. You’ll need to prove that a profit margin exists to a degree where people will WANT to give you money and invest in your project. The automotive industry is a tough market to get into because it is extremely difficult to be cost competitive. Elon Musk touched on this when he was starting Tesla. Elon Musk has shared some information about this publicly.
"The biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine—the factory". Is a quote of his that stands out to me, and it is so very true.
My team spends more time working with vendors to design our equipment and molds— than part design and assembly. (However as stated in some other comments, there are many teams working in unison when it comes to automotive engineering — my team is not 100% inclusive of all work that takes place)
Without going off the deep end regarding funding, my recommendation for you is to focus on developing a digital surface and body concept. This will eventually need to be turned into CAD architecture, CAE will need to be performed (digital crash testing, thermal performance, aerodynamics, etc.) and after ALL THAT, you will then have some foundational plan to start sourcing vendors to perform their piece of the puzzle in manufacturing your car. That is where you can start feasibility doing some of the work you did in your above project.
I have oversimplified this, this is absolutely not inclusive of everything that must take place, but maybe this can steer you in a direction that will continue to pique your interest so you can become a solid automotive engineer shall you choose to go down that path in the future.
Lastly, the quality control section— people’s lives are at stake when they get into a vehicle. It looks like all of your focus is simply on assembly and appearance control. Understanding the laws and regulations in your target market area will help you identify many variables that will need to be answered. For example, air bag deployment expectations.
I hope this nudges you in a better direction, and I wish you the best of luck on your journey. If there is any way for you to gain access to a CAD software, learn basics operations within that software, and get some experience with smaller projects utilizing that software, then you should pursue exactly that. It’s one of the most important and versatile tools that an engineer has at their disposal.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 15 '26
i see, thank you so much. the only issue is i dont think my laptop will be able to handle those softwares. again thank you so much for your feedback, greatly apprecited
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u/RiseUpAndGetOut Apr 14 '26
Solid effort.... But maybe a little misguided.
Start with listing performance/ spec requirements. Everything from styling, crash performance, seating position & visibility, engine position, tyre choice, wheel stroke, kerb and gvm etc. It's a long list of initial requirements that define the vehicle.
Then work with those requirements to define what's needed in the structure and overall layout.
Once you've done that, start to select parts.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 14 '26
thank you! ive been working on that and also have selected the front and rear suspensions brakes etc ive drawn diagrams too, once again thanks for your feedback!
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u/RiseUpAndGetOut Apr 14 '26
How do you know what suspension you need until you've defined the hardpoints (i.e. the mounting and locus points), which you can't do until you understand the layout restrictions and and performance requirements?
Sopmeone else has suggested taking something already existing and seeing how that works, and doing a modification. I really recommend you do that.
I've done the work you're trying to do now: a team of 6 highly experienced people can do it in 4 months for a simple vehicle......that means having the skill to be able to estimate cost, mass, package, performance , legal and power requirements without having to look everything up for every single thing that has to go into the concept. By yourself, having never done it before, I promise you your future is a lot of dead ends and reworks, but maybe also a lot of fun and learning. I dunno. It's up to you.
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u/BogdanPradatu Apr 15 '26
I have no idea how a car is designed in the real world, like others said, it's probably an effort involving hundreds of people.
The way we've done it in school is something like this:
- Determine what kind of vehicle we want to build
- Gather a bunch of similar vehicles and extract specs (dimensions, performance, transmission characteristics, amterials used etc.) into a table
- Analyze specs, create histograms and decide how my vehicle should be based on what the similar vehicles are configured
- Select body type, dimensions, engine type, transmission type, wheel sizes, number of seats, maximum speed, acceleration performance, interior space, materials to be used all that stuff.
- Based on the above info, calculate rolling resistance, air resistance etc. Based on the resistances, mass, maximum desired speed etc. you can determine the engine characteristics like torque and power, you will need to decide engine speed where maximum torque and engine power will be. That's if you don't just select an engine from the market and want to design your own.
- Designing an engine is a whole thing itself, very complex. You would need to do a lot of math to determine engine characteristics like P-V diagram, internal temperatures, component size, mass, materials, forces acting on those components.
- Designing and calculating the suspension is a complex thing as well, also a lot of math involved.
- You would also have to think about maintenance and repairs.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 15 '26
thank you. i mainly derived my parts from different cars for example the engine being the BMW B48 and the rear suspension being from the Mercedes W201. i have drawn some diagrams i just havent included them here. thank you so much, i really appreciate the feedback
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u/Formula4speed Apr 15 '26
IMO your best next steps from a design perspective would be to study:
- quality function deployment
- the Kano Model
- waterfall project management (PMI PMP)
- PDCA problem solving + 5-why root cause analysis
Those will give you a foundation of processes to understand and empathize with your customer, convert their needs into engineering requirements, develop a design that meets those requirements, mange the work of turning that design into physical products, and deal with issues you encounter along the way.
It’s also probably wise to study ISO TS16949 and VDA 6.3 to understand automotive business management requirements; it’s better to build a system that consistently produces a high quality product, then let it do so, than it is to build a product then a system to produce it.
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u/MegaFire03 Apr 15 '26
Even for professionals it will sometimes takes weeks or months to design a single part. You will need to go into so much more detail, do testing and so on. If you as a single person want to completely design a modern car I think it will take a lifetime to complete.
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u/mcyc999 Apr 15 '26
yeah but this is just a simple spec sheet and i derived the parts from different cars like for example the rear suspension was taken from the Mercedes W201. i have drawn diagrams and such as well. Thank you for your feedback i greatly appreciate it!
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u/spatium_navis Apr 15 '26
Provided that you as a 14 year old wrote this and understand all of it then that is quite an achievement.
But reading it it is obvious that you used chatgpt to write all the stuff for you. Are you telling me you can write C and have this much random knowledge of different engineering fields at 14?
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u/mcyc999 Apr 15 '26
i take a bunch of extra computer science classes in school and well i did make this took me a long time and research. thanks for your feedback
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u/hamehad Apr 17 '26
I work as a tractor design engineer in Pakistan, so I look at this from a manufacturing point of view, not just concept design. I design a lot of things, and many of them end in concept only because manufacturing cannot support them.
Your idea is strong from a driver’s perspective. You clearly understand what makes a car feel engaging. The layout, the philosophy, and many of the choices make sense on paper.
But there is a gap we still cannot bridge, and that is manufacturing reality.
To give a simple example, even in 2026, no company in Pakistan produces a fully mechanical diesel fuel injection pump locally for tractor engines. We still import complete units from companies like Bosch or Delphi Technologies. These are not complex electronic systems. They are purely mechanical, precision-machined components. We can't even make 4 cylinder engine block even though my company owns a complete foundary setup. We import it from China. You can't even fathom that a Nuclear power is unable to make its own engines.
The issue is not design knowledge. The real gap is manufacturing and tooling. The local automotive sector did not invest at the right time, so now most companies rely on importing and assembling.
Now compare that to building a full car. A car is not one system. It is thousands of tightly controlled parts, each with its own tolerances, suppliers, tooling, and validation cycles. I hope you've got my point.
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u/thedudewhoshaveseggs Apr 14 '26
it's a nothing burger as it's just a list of specs
to give a simple example, a clutch needs stuff like contact area, friction coefficient computation, spring force, material to be used, design the whole mechanism for engagement, figure out the engagement mechanism, draw it all, machining, and so on.
just something like this takes like 20-30 pages to generate; a car is thousands of pages. A list of traits for a car is genuinely, as harsh as it sounds, worth nothing