Super Light Architectures for Safe and Affordable Urban Electric Vehicles

URBAN-EV will apply innovative manufacturing technologies and materials to produce prototypes of a 2-seat urban electric vehicle with considerably enhanced autonomy vs. the SoTA EV of its kind, and a similar occupant safety level than normal passenger cars. Specifically, a purely electric range (in urban conditions) of 150 Km is targeted as well as a compelling acceleration time of 10 s for 0-100 Km/h. The platform where these innovations will be introduced is the Casple-EV with an overall target weight of about 720 Kg including the battery.

In order to achieve the goals, a new lighter architecture will be designed, manufactured and demonstrated with enhanced engineering reliability for the principal systems of the vehicle such as chassis and body in white as well as several interior parts. Main construction materials will be light alloys and low cost polymeric composites, which will be combined using an advanced multi-material design approach. Complementary to the innovations in vehicle’s architecture, a braking system with enhanced energy recuperation capacity will be developed and demonstrated. Furthermore, cost efficient, high integrity manufacturing processes will be applied liable to execute more functions without increasing cost.