North Pole Motor Show, Arctic: \u201cThis is a true breakthrough for us!\u201d says a broadly smiling Santa Claus, CEO of Santa Claus Customs (SCC) as he lifts the hood of his brand new hybrid sleigh in front of selected journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While in the 1920s Santa was still dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh the parcel delivery vehicle had to accommodate for ever-increasing speed demands resulting from human population growth. This finally led to the sleigh being powered by nine reindeers arranged in a V-shape (classical V9) for the last decades. But the times they are changing and not even Santa Claus can any longer neglect the challenges of today\u2019s mobility industry to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. \u201cSo this is Christmas and what have we done?\u201d Santa asks and pauses, \u201cIt was obvious we had to start reducing our Methane footprint and kick off a corresponding sleigh efficiency project\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first stage of the efficiency project was focused on the vehicle: \u201cLast Christmas we introduced CFD to improve the sleighs aerodynamics<\/a>. I was skeptical about this whole CFD and Design Exploration thing, I am an analog man, you know\u201d says Santa, CEO and Chief Sleigh Test Driver, \u201dBut I trusted the engineering elves and had them apply Simcenter STAR-CCM+<\/a> and Design Manager to optimize the sleighs aero. And – guess what – when I saw the first virtually optimized prototype thanks to the advanced reinderring and the VR capabilities<\/a> I immediately realized: Those guys had done something great!\u201d So the very next day SCC had that thing built. \u201cAnd as the digital twin had promised, the test ride with the new sleigh blew my mind, it even exceeded our expectation!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that was just the beginning of the SCC success story! \u201cWe had to do more, we had to roll out the simulation technology not only to the vehicle but also to the powertrain!\u201d says CTO Wrapping Layer and continues in excitement: \u201cSo we decided was to right-size the sleighs powertrain. We ran the sleigh on nine reindeers for ages: You probably know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen \u2013 and maybe you even recall Rudolph. But we understood running on nine methane-blasters is no longer acceptable if we take our mission seriously. On the contrary we have to meet speed targets. The whole present delivery has to be done in one night, covering the whole globe, kids expect that from us and there is NO compromise on that constraint. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo meet the targets we needed an efficient, long-range yet \u2013 for the last bit of the journey – locally low emissions solution, we needed a hybrid sleigh!\u201d With rapid system simulation using Amesim they figured out to ideally do the long runs between citie<\/a>s on only four reindeers and then switch over to an alternative propulsion system once they reach the local hotspots of present delivery. And \u2013 again – simulation was the key to develop this key component:<\/p>\n\n\n\n