Electric three-wheeler by Konstantin Grcic, Hydro, Polestar, Corum and Cake
Engineered by Hydro, Polestar and Corum, and powered by Cake, Konstantin Grcic’s electric three-wheeler is ready to deliver
At the beginning of last year, we teamed the German designer Konstantin Grcic with the Norwegian aluminium giant Hydro. Grcic promptly went away and drew up plans for a utilitarian, electric-powered aluminium trailer and trike – a calmer, kinder solution for ‘last mile’ deliveries and more. As the year progressed (if progressed is the right word), his proposition seemed to gather momentum.
The pandemic was making less impactful delivery an ever more pressing problem and opportunity. With much of the population working at home, and all but essential retail closed, doorbells were constantly chiming to announce fresh deliveries. At the same time, city governments across the world were determined that streets suddenly almost devoid of traffic would remain free of fossilfuelled vehicles once the pandemic was over. Side roads were closed to four-wheeled traffic and new cycle lanes were laid out.
As an idea, Grcic’s trailer trike had legs.
It was clear though that putting the design in motion would require experts in electric mobility. We identified Polestar, the high-end sustainable electric vehicle brand spun off from Volvo, and Cake, the Swedish electric motorcycle maker, as perfect partners. Calls were made to Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath and Cake founder Stefan Ytterborn, and they were quick to sign on; the Zooming and Teaming could begin.
A simple observation from Ytterborn quickly prompted a radical redesign. ‘Stefan just asked why we needed pedals,’ says Grcic. ‘The Cake bike battery would be more than enough to pull the loads we were imagining. And that was a key moment. Suddenly I was free of the bicycle typology and could try and create an entirely new typology.’
Grcic reimagined the trike and trailer as a single unit, a dynamic, three-wheeled electric sled. The job now was to create a mock-up or ‘mule’ in steel, and then a fully working prototype in extruded aluminium. Ingenlath brought on board Polestar director of design engineering Chris Staunton, who pulled together his team and then enlisted specialist engineers Corum Technology to join forces with Hydro’s Barnaby Struthers. With Europe now firmly locked down, twice weekly video conferences were set up. As Staunton says, this virtual model of collaboration was its own kind of sustainability win, but it also added a clarity and focus to proceedings. ‘I’m sure we would normally have all been on a plane to meet each other, but I think we are more efficient this way. One of the reasons I love this project is because I get to shut out lots of the noise and get down to the real work of collaborative product development.’
For Grcic, the considered efficiency of the collaboration was a revelation. ‘Everything
was taken step-by-step, and in quite tiny steps, which really seemed to be part of their thinking,’ he says. ‘It was organised like a Swiss watch. Nobody brought any preconceptions, everyone shared ideas and it was really transparent. It was just a really beautiful way of developing solutions.’
And Grcic suggests his part of the design industry might learn a lot from their automotive counterparts. ‘It was a unique experience for me. Everyone has their responsibilities, and everyone delivers their part. It seems quite common in their industry, but unheard of in mine. I wish we could transfer some of this way of working into the furniture industry.’
Nor, says Grcic, was there any suspicion that the hastily enlisted engineering team weren’t giving his ‘prototype three-wheel thing’ their total focus and the full measure of their considerable ingenuity. Indeed, says Grcic, the time limitations (the original plan, scuppered by Covid, was to show the prototype during Salone in Milan this spring) and restricted budget seemed to fire them up. ‘Some of the engineering problems were quite complex, but the solutions had to be really simple. They are used to developing cars over five years with a lot of investment and time and all the manpower you need. This is a different challenge.’ Staunton says simply, ‘inspirational products inspire people’.
It was important to Grcic that his design stay simple, legible and largely naked. No hiding behind aerodynamic covers. ‘There is beauty in the simplicity, in the way that it is very pared down and essential.’ And it left a lot of room for functional manoeuvring. ‘It’s an open system, an open platform. This is a bare structure and you can adapt that to your needs.’ As Staunton says, this nakedness was its own kind of engineering challenge. ‘There are fewer places to hide stuff than in a car.’
The mule had a number of things to prove, but how Re:move – as it was now tagged – actually moved was the key test. To turn corners in a usefully tight way, Grcic’s design combines tilting and steering. This meant designing an entirely new steering system, and the Polestar and Corum team had no real way of effectively modelling how this would perform without building it.
Even the most complex computer modelling will only get you so far, says Staunton.
‘To learn the stuff you feel or the complex interactions,’ you have to get real.
Lessons learned, a working prototype of Re:move – essentially the same design as the mule but built out of sections of extruded aluminium and fitted with a power train supplied by Cake – is now up and running. And up and running at some speed. Where it ends up is still to be decided.
As Grcic says, the point of the project was never to create a production vehicle but to simply prove that this kind of vehicle could do a job, do it well and that you could make it in numbers. And it means that the prototype is nearer to a production vehicle than usual.
For now, Polestar and Hydro are planning to use the Re:move as a platform for discussing new urban mobility solutions, as a challenge to cities to rethink how people and things are moved around and what new or redesigned infrastructure, regulations, tax incentives or other devices are needed to start and finish that revolution.
There are, though, the first signs that Grcic’s design may go beyond the prototype stage. The industrial production of any vehicle, even one as seemingly simple and largely analogue as this one, is a huge commitment. But tentative discussions are happening. One significant order for multiple units could compel the project to the next stage. And, says Staunton, serious thought is already being given to what would happen if orders did come in, and what improvements could be made. Corum is already thinking about refining the dynamics and handling. And there are other practicalities, such as adding a reverse gear and indicators. And, of course, there would need to be all kinds of safety testing and then the long, tortuous path to some kind of legal status.
‘There is a lot of stuff going on in the engineers’ brains about how this could be developed,’ says Staunton. ‘And I think a production model, if there was suddenly a demand for one, would still be 18 months off, maybe 12 at a push. It could be an amazing production vehicle, but even if that doesn’t happen, it’s still one of those projects that will stay with us forever.’
And while Polestar has made sure that certain aspects of Re:move’s design and engineering are patented, everyone accepts that lookalikes may quickly appear. For Grcic, that would be something to celebrate, a mark of the project’s success. He wanted to create a new typology, a new altogether quieter, cleaner, more appealing way of moving things around. So the more, the better.
The Re:move project points towards the range of possible futures for the automotive industry, the need to think about mobility in all kinds of new ways, says Grcic. ‘The move from combustion engines to electric really changes the way cars are being built. Cars will now have to be lighter, simpler, cheaper. There will be all kinds of vehicles that are really closer to rickshaws,’ he says. ‘And with our little vehicle, we are trying that out.’
He adds that the switch to battery power has removed a lot of barriers to entry and invited all kinds of smaller players to move into electric mobility in all kinds of interesting and sometimes strange ways. ‘In Berlin, you now see the weirdest things on the road, three-wheelers, two-wheelers. It’s all part of this redefinition of what mobility is.’
Ingenlath emphasised that point in a video, produced by Hydro to talk about the Re:move project, shown at this year’s SXSW online conference. ‘That’s the beauty of electrification, it’s a very simple technology in a way. It enables transportation that was not possible before,’ he said. ‘The combustion engine always needed quite a lot of vehicle around it. And now suddenly, you can strip it down to the bare necessities.’
The Re:move project puts Polestar and Hydro at the centre of the conversation around this new era of simpler, cleaner vehicles. Ingenlath was also keen to point out that this is just part of the ongoing push to reduce emissions at every stage of vehicle production. Cars and trucks are huge consumers of resources and energy, before they ever hit the road.
Re:move then has a way to travel, as an inspirational concept or more. ‘I really think it’s not finished,’ says Staunton. ‘There’s a long way to go’.∂
‘It was organised like a Swiss watch. Nobody brought any preconceptions. It was just a really beautiful way of developing solutions’