DCAWD.com

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/seven-ne ... to-4858449

Maybe the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Can't wait until it's made affordable.

I do say!
That is interesting and geeky, but I have my initial reservations and questions.

Care to share your reservations or what you can see as potential problems?

failure mode is one. I guess with steel, it loses it spring and at worst, cracks. wonder what the path is on that? shatter?

Yeah, composites are strong in tensile strength, but have a very low headroom for yield strength. This results in rapid and energetic disassociation. Worst thing with steel blend springs is that they can pancake when their compression values are exceeded and no longer support a load, but at least keep things together.

Also, what about impact resistance? I would hazard a guess that when you run over some road debris and it kicks up into the wheel well, the plastic/fiberglass that is already under torsional load would not fare as well as half inch coil of steel.

Last thing that comes to mind would be material properties with temperature changes and what of heat cycling on durability?

I'm sure all of these things are addressed in the engineering of the things, but none of that was in the article.

Very cool idea.

People probably said the same thing about aluminum and carbon fiber, but both can be found in today's cars in abundance. Like Zak and Dan said, though, I bet there is a TON of R&D that when in to finding the right formula. With that being said, I wouldn't be the first to try it either, but I'll look at it in 2-3 years

That is very neat technology, but I'd be afraid of how well it ages with use and abuse, and what happens when it fails.