Williams And Italdesign Collaborate On EV Platform
Williams Advanced Engineering is working with Italdesign for this new EV platform.
Every brand seems to want to get in on the electric vehicle (EV) action today. Whether we’re talking fresh upstarts, legacy carmakers or even tech giants like Apple or Sony, the EV market is open for business. Earlier this year, Geely and Foxconn partnered up to offer EV contract manufacturing. Now the west responds with EVX modular electric vehicle platform.
This is the product of Williams Advanced Engineering and Italdesign. The EVX platform is completely modular, and can be scaled for low-to-medium production cases. After developing a design, batches of between 500-10,000 units can be ordered. They will be made at Italdesign facilities.
The big ‘selling point’ of this chassis is that the battery casing is completely integrated as part of the body structure, with the front and rear structures mounted to it. This design achieves most of the torsional stiffness required for great dynamics and safety.
What’s more, it allows more design freedom for the ‘top hats’, allowing for a variety of body styles to be quickly developed.
An in-house modular battery system enables up to 1000kW power output and up to 1,000km of range per charge.
Here’s the press release with more.
PRESS RELEASE
Italdesign and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) today announce a unique new partnership that will provide the upper premium automotive sector with a complete high-performance EV production solution.
Combining a state-of-the-art composite electric vehicle rolling chassis from WAE with turn-key vehicle development services from Italy’s world-famous Italdesign, the joint venture will enable both newcomers and established OEMs in the automotive sector to benefit from the expertise of two global leaders in EV engineering and vehicle design, supporting them in the creation of a range of upper premium EVs from high performance GTs, Crossover and Sedans.
The foundation of this new venture is WAE’s innovative EV architecture; the new rolling chassis which distils WAE’s expertise in electrification, light-weighting, innovative chassis structures and vehicle and system integration into one advanced architecture.
Differentiating itself from other EV platforms currently in the market, EVX integrates the battery casing with elements more commonly perceived as part of the body structure. Front and rear chassis structures mount to the carbon composite case and crash loads can be transferred via internal reinforcements to the integral side sills. The resulting higher profiled cross section achieves much of the torsional stiffness needed to deliver the full potential of the platform. These two design philosophies reduce reliance on the upper structure, which then gives greater design freedom for a variety of “top hats”.
Starting from WAE rolling chassis, Italdesign’s Engineering Team then complete the vehicle architecture adding safety systems, structures, UX devices to constitute the modular platform that will be the base to build-up several different high performances vehicles.
The innovative modular platform is ready for customisation by the Italdesign styling team who will shape the final vehicle to match the brand’s requirements in terms of marketing positioning, design direction etc.
Majoring on high performance, reduced time to market, flexibility and affordability at low-to-medium volumes, the new platform is capable of supporting production runs up to 10,000 units, up to 500 of which could be manufactured by Italdesign at its facilities.
Featuring a molded composite structural battery, EVX sets new standards; reducing both investment and part costs. The core pack, designed in-house by WAE using knowledge gained from the world of global motorsport and high performance road car programmes, has the ability to deliver 1000kW of power with 104kWh-120kWh of energy. The flexibility within the module design enables expansion of the pack enabling up to 160kWh for a potential 1000km vehicle range.
WAE was the original supplier of batteries to the entire grid of FIA Formula E World Championship cars in 2014, a relationship that has been revived for the 2022-23 season. WAE also supplies battery systems to ETCR and Extreme-E and has considerable experience in high-performance electrified road car programmes stretching back more than a decade.
As well as being a structural component of EVX, the platform can accommodate wheelbases from 2900mm to 3100mm, with customers able to choose rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive layouts.
Combining recycled composite materials with aluminum, EVX is lightweight and sets new standards for static and torsional stiffness. With class-leading performance and mass targets, EVX will provide the perfect basis for tomorrow’s electric vehicles, supporting a flexible range of powertrain options with outstanding aerodynamics and safety performance.
About the Author
Subhash Nair Written work on dsf.my. @subhashtag on instagram. Autophiles Malaysia on Youtube.
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