LIGHTER SPEED
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One of the greatest challenges facing engineers in the high-performance electric-vehicledevelopment process is the ability to produce lightweight components cost-effectively. To this end, Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) – an offshoot of the Williams F1 team – has undertaken a number of projects channelling its Formula E technical know-how into the mainstream automotive industry. Its most exciting venture is the creation of a new manufacturing process that will allow the manufacture of superlightweight carbon-fibre composite automotive parts in a quick and economical pressing method.
The yet-to-be-named system would replace the labour-intensive component-production process of hand-wrapping pre-impregnated composites sheet by sheet with a process that utilises a customisable resin solution for pressing. Instead of producing a component with a uniform composite-fibre construction, this process allows engineers to tune the structural strength of any given part. They can place the stronger, long-strand fibres, or the higher-grade fibres, into the areas of a component where it’s most needed and less expensive fibres elsewhere on the part where mechanical stresses aren’t as great. Once refined, the process will essentially allow automakers to produce composite parts as strong as aluminium alloy; but at half the weight and in half the time at the equivalent cost. The process could be used on Lotus’s 1 470 kw Evija EV hypercar, a project in which WAE’S battery technology is already set to be showcased.
Integrating oddment spaces into a car’s interior usually involves placing numerous bins, trays and plinths about the cabin in an arrangement that does few favours for dashboard design. Now, auto parts manufacturer Brose Fahrzeugteile has developed a storage tray that seemingly melts away into the dash-top when not required. It comprises a flexible plastic square, interwoven with shape-memory alloy wires, that contracts to a predetermined shape when heated. Linked to an integrated motion sensor, a hand gesture sees the system channel an electrical current through the wires connecting the four corners of the square; pulling the corners inward and the tray centre downward to form a handy storage bin. When no longer needed, the system relaxes the memory alloy wire and the tray flattens into the dash. The adaptive technology could also find use in other features, such as personalised seatpositioning systems and self-activating sun blinds.
The latest developments in automotive component development appear to be cutting the human element out of the equation; albeit with frighteningly organic consequences. As part of his involvement in developing what’s soon to be the most powerful roadworthy production car, the 1 500 kw Project Chaos, Greek automotive tuner Spyros Panapoulos has ushered in the latest iteration of highperformance automotive-component designs. A generative high-performance componentdesign concept called loads fixed points, stress loadings and other performance desirables into a CAD model that randomly mutates the structural characteristics of a standard component over several million generations, weeding out weaker designs while allowing stronger versions to continue evolving. The almost skeletal nature of Panapoulos’s 3Dprinted parts does away with solid blocks of structural material in favour of a honeycomb-like structure placing metal only where it’s needed; making it as light and strong as it is cool looking.
Volvo has announced LIDAR technology from Silicon Valley tech start-up Luminar will be available in its next-generation production vehicles from 2022. LIDAR works by emitting pulses of laser light millions of times per second, building a live 3D map of the environment based on reflected light. Volvo has already dabbled in LIDAR technology, working with ride-sharing giant Uber to equip a fleet of its autonomous XC90 SUVS with the hazard-detecting system. The setup will be integrated into upcoming models spun off the firm’s next-gen SPA 2 modular architecture, but will not be used in fully autonomous applications until a later date. In the interim, the Highway Pilot system that takes over driving duties on prior mapped-out sections of the motorway when certain safety requirements are met, will be implemented as a stepping stone in a phased approach to greater vehicle automation.