Talk:Vehicle engineering

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[edit] Recent merge

To the editor who merged vehicle engineering and automotive engineering, they are two separate things. I challenge said editor to find a significant number of degree courses called vehicle engineering. There are many automotive engineering degrees. User:Greglocock|Greglocock]] 12:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

To amplify - on the automotive engineering article's talk page there were three, distinct, contributions pointing out that this was an unwise merge, and none in favour. So, merge-artiste explain your reasoning.Greglocock 12:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Those comments were left at Talk:Vehicle Engineering (note capital 'E') as a result of a malformed merge template and an orphaned talk page; the comments may have been missed. I have moved them here (below) and fixed the redirect. On inspection, I do not find that there is a consensus either way: two of the comments are the sole edits of anon. IPs. — mholland (talk) 11:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
So, invalid. --HybridBoy 16:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The original merge template was invalid - scarcely the fault of the users who followed the link. Incompetent editors should not use powerful tools if they do not check them. Greglocock 00:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge: disagree

(moved from Talk:Vehicle Engineering — mholland (talk) 11:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC))

Automotive engineering is a formal discipline. It has its own professional socieites, degrees, and technical divisions in professional bodies. Vehicle engineering lacks all of those. Greglocock 21:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the disagree. Two different things.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.41.174.235 (talk • contribs) 03:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Also agree keep them seperate.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.148.85.62 (talk • contribs) 01:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

I agree to the merge and sign with a user name, not using anonymity. --Altermike 16:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fundamental problem with this article

I'd guess this article was written by a vehicle engineer. It does not make clear that this use of the term vehicle engineer is industry specific... there is also a whole field of engineering called vehicle engineering eg [1] which is quite different. So confusingly we have academic discipline automotive eng which is a subset of vehicle eng which is a subset of mech eng, but we also have a job function vehicle eng which is a subset of automotive eng. Greglocock 22:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I developed the Vehicle Engineering article to "describe" how at least one of the major auto companies goes about engineering a vehicle. The "automotive" engineering is split into two basic groups. Product Engineering, and Attributes Engineering. The product engineer designs and tests a part, seeing that it meets all its requirements, i.e. the shock. Does it perform as required, material durability, etc. The Attribute engineer, will provide to the design engineer what spring rate he requires to provide the "ride" characteristics required for the vehicle to perform at the vehicle level.
To say, one is a subset of another (VE to AE), is a matter of opinion in my mind. I agree, there is not alot written, directed at the Veh Eng disipline. This article was mostly a collection of other information, and bring it all together in this article. To be fair, I did spend about 15 minutes, searching thru google, on Automotive Engineering degrees, to see how prevelant, and what the specifics of this degree are. I did not come up with any university degree specific to AE. I am sure there are plenty out there, but I did not find one in my quick search.
To back up the recognized "Vehicle Engineering" nomenclature, the SAE (society of automotive engineers) has sponsored discussions, on this subject, so the term is at least recongnized by the SAE. In reviewing the Automotive Engineer article, I am not sure if I agree with the first paragraph, that AE is a subset of Mech Engineering. There are mechanical eng, chemical eng, electrical eng, manufacturing eng, industrial eng, etc, all qualifying as Automotive Engineers. In my experience at my company, 17 yrs, I have never met a declared Automotive Engineer, although, we are all generically classified as "automotive engineers". We each have our speciality. To cloud things up, there are other generic terms thrown out there, performance engineers, durability engineers, reliability eng, to name a few. Each specializing in a specific area, but not having any formal "Degree" with that title.
Where do we go from here. Maybe we can get some opinion of others directly in the industry. Maybe we are just getting tripped up in nomenclature, and we can work out one page. I am open for continued discussion on this, seeing this is near and dear to my livelyhood. --Drussel3 16:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Funny you should mention the SAE. There is no SVE. ! So far as degrees go, there are exactly 185 real google hits for "Automotive Engineering degree", largely in the UK, USA and Oz, and just 11 for "Vehicle Engineering degree". That's not proof, however it /is/ data. Oh, and I certainly describe myself as an automotive engineer. Well I'll have a think about the split between the two, there may be some common ground between the two points of view. Incidentally I agree that AE grabs knowledge from all engineering disciplines, but where I went to uni mech eng really meant not-specifically-civil, and not-specifically-electrical, more than anything positive! Greglocock 23:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
You made a comment above that the article did not state, VE was industry specific. Read my first submission on the article. Someone changed my wording along the way. '''Vehicle Engineering is a specialized engineering discipline that is unique to the automotive industry. --Drussel3 01:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
All automobiles are vehicles - but not all vehicles are automobiles. So you could consider merging automotive engineering into vehicle engineering - but not the other way around. Airplanes, boats and trains are all vehicles. SteveBaker 20:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Very well put . --Nopetro 20:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Next Steps - proposed

I think we have 2 options. first option: Restore this VE article to something similar to its original structure. Change the first paragraph back, and bring back the refrence to attribute characteristics info. Second option: change structure of Automotive engineering to include detailed section of a vehicle engineer (merge).

I vote for the first option. There are plenty of engineering articles that fall outside the standard formal degree'd categories: Sanitary engineering, Tissue engineering, Genetic engineering, Fire protection engineering, etc. We may want to re-write with a flavor similar to: Safety engineering, with refernce to it being a sub set of the Automotive Engineer, etc.

As to the Automotive Engineering article, may I suggest a minor restructure. I view the AE split into 3 distinct areas: product engineer, attribute (or vehicle ) engineer, and manufacturing engineer. The product engineer would design components/systems (brake engineer), the VE engineers the attributes of the vehicle, the manufacturing engineer determines how to make it, etc. There are also minor engineering disciplines that could also be categorized as an automotive engineer: quality engineer, logistics/transportation engineer, environmental engineer, etc.

AE can collectively bring many disciplines togethers. I would suggest though, we restore the VE article to where it was, and reference it properly to the AE. PLEASE COMMENT--Drussel3 10:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, so you are using the term vehicle engineering in a slightly different way to what I'm used to. You are using VE to describe what I'd call a Development/Test engineer, and product engineer to describe what I would call a design engineer. Inside Development we have a small group called Vehicle Engineering, who don't really do any engineering as such (!). I am happy to accept your terminology, as I realise that these things are pretty arbitrary. SO, we have AE as the field, and then product/design, vehicle/development and manufacturing/assembly as the three main AE streams in a car company. I think that is a sensible split, and I think it is what you are proposing. Greglocock 22:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vehicle and automobile. Vehicle engineering and automotive engineering

About the relation between vehicle engineering and automotive engineering, we have to go to the concept of vehicle (wider) and automobile (from where derives automotive; an automobile is a class of vehicle).

So vehicle engineering is engineering about vehicles (about all vehicles) and automotive engineering is a engineering derived from vehicle engineering and studies automobiles, a type of vehicles (so, as grelocock said, it´s a subset of vehicle engineering).

In automotive engineering ther are mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, electrical engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial engineers and others.

Within automotive, there are 3 main engineer areas:

  • Product engineer (also called design engineer), that would design components/systems (i.e brake engineer and "battery engineer?"). This engineer designs and test a part, seeing that it meets all ist requeriments (i.e. the shock), does it perform as required, material durability and so on.
  • Development engineer (also called test engineer, but preferly don´t used it, to advoid confusion with the test work of a product engineer), that engineers the attributes of the automobile. This engineer provides to the design engineer what spring rate he requires to privide the "ride" characteristics required for the automobile to perform at the automotive level.
  • Manufacturing engineer, determines how to make it.

(in this way, one try to advoid the name vehicle engineer as synonym of development engineer, that is confusing).

There are also minor engineering disciplines that could also be categorized as an automotive engineer: quality engineer, logistics/transportation engineer, environmental engineer, performance engineer, durability engineer, reliability engineer, etc...

This is mainly from what has been written this days.I hope this helps. Regards. --Altermike 06:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)