Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology - July 2021
Turn-key EV
Paul Bailey 2021-07-20 04:11:20
Making the dream work
Williams Advanced Engineering and ItalDesign have teamed up to provide a ‘turn-key’ total vehicle solution for next-gen luxury EVs
Over the years, there have been some unlikely yet highly successful automotive collaborations. Back in the 1960s, British sportscar maker AC joined forces with Carroll Shelby to launch the mighty V8-engined Cobra, in the 1990s Porsche helped Audi create one of the fast wagons ever, the RS2, and most recently Toyota and Subaru teamed up on the GT86/BRZ coupe.
In the world of high performance EVs, we might be about to see another. But something that’s more far reaching than just one model. Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), the British engineering and technical services provider which has its roots in the famous F1 team, and Italian design house, ItalDesign have created a unique new offering for established car companies and startups who want to get a luxury, high-performance EV on the market quickly without having to spend many years – and millions of dollars – developing their own EV skateboard and associated technology.
The project sees WAE provide the highly sophisticated composite EV platform, called EVX, which sits underneath, with ItalDesign contributing the body design, safety systems and electric architecture.
“Demand for high performance electric vehicles is continuing to show considerable growth but to date, there has not been a complete EV production solution,” said Paul McNamara, technical director at WAE.
“This unique relationship brings together state-of-the-art EV rolling chassis technology with one of the world’s leaders in vehicle body engineering.”
Combining the two firm’s considerable expertise under one virtual roof has major benefits for customers; WAE and ItalDesign claim they can bring a new EV to market in as little as 36 months, about 12 months faster than with a traditional development process, with a prototype ready in less than a year.
What’s more is that it could lead to an exciting potential line-up of cars. WAE’s EVX skateboard is designed to underpin high performance large SUVs, saloons and GT-style coupes and convertibles with a wheelbase between 2900 mm and 3100 mm – about the same as a Jaguar i-Pace – accommodating batteries ranging from 104kWh to 160kWh, enabling up to 1,000kW power output or the ability to travel 1,000km between charges.
Both rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive configurations are possible and thanks to the lightweight composite platform, WAE is targeting a weight of two metric tons for an EVX-based sports saloon with a 120kWh battery pack, making it lighter than current luxury EVs. “We wanted to create a vehicle that performed well not just by adding more and more power and energy, but something that was light and dynamic at the same time,” explains Chris McCaw, chief engineer for the EVX platform at WAE.
Performance and design
Differentiating itself from other EV platforms, EVX combines recycled composite materials with aluminum, and features a structural battery, integrating the battery casing with elements more commonly perceived as part of the body structure. WAE says EVX is lightweight and sets new standards for static and torsional stiffness. Front and rear chassis structures mount to the carbon composite case and crash loads can be transferred via internal reinforcements to integral side sills.
It is a development of the lightweight EV platform WAE revealed in 2017, FW-EVX, with the firm saying it has incorporated lessons learned from that project in the new version.
The battery comes from WAE – who know a thing or two about high-performance cells. As a former supplier to the entire Formula E grid (it will supply Formula E again with Gen3 in 2022-23) and the current supplier of the Extreme E and eTCR electric motorsport series, it’ll leverage its expertise for the new project.
WAE and ItalDesign are understandably proud of this integrated full-service solution. Dyrr Ardash, senior commercial manager at Williams Advanced Engineering said: “Both firms bring significant expertise, providing a platform to deliver an EV with performance and value to customers. The blend of high-end performance capability together with ItalDesign’s design and engineering capability is, I think, unique.”
The two firms add that EVX’s structural battery also gives more freedom in upper-body design, which has to incorporate more of the safety structure. And this flexibility means that while an off-the-shelf, blank sheet of paper approach can certainly be offered – using systems installed by WAE and ItalDesign – customers who may already have been working on a new vehicle can have that realised, integrating their own components and tech.
“One of the key things that we’ve been thinking about is the potential opportunity for different car makers and startups to come to us with their own designs,” Ardash says. “Hence the reason why a lot of the structural strength has been put into the lower structure rather than having it specifically, for example, in the A, B and C pillars.”
In terms of production, ItalDesign says it will look after low volume manufacturing runs of up to 500 vehicles at its base just outside of Turin. If a customer wants to build more, it will do so in its own factory, with maximum annual production around 10,000 units. “Once you get above 10,000, then scale monocoques start to make more commercial sense because of the offset between the tooling and the volume,” Ardash adds.
WAE and ItalDesign are remaining tight-lipped on who their first customer is, but you can bet the fruits of this collaboration will be seen very soon indeed. And with such exciting ingredients, there’s every chance this new tie-up will create the EV legends of tomorrow.
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Turn-key EV
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