Gordon Murray Design And Toray Announce Electric Sportscar

Today Gordon Murray Design Limited and Toray Industries Inc announce a prototype electric sports car named TEEWAVE AR.1

The AR.1 had an internal GMD code number of ' T.32' and the car is the result of a commission from Toray for Gordon Murray Design to design, tool and build a fully functioning prototype vehicle which utilises many of Toray's advanced automotive materials in order to achieve Toray's basic concept of an attractive vehicle for everyone. 

The 2-seater sports car is designed to use the Toray carbon fibre component system with a process time of less than 10 minutes. A carbon monocoque, one of the key technologies of TEEWAVE, can be applied to all types of vehicle other than the 2-seater sports car.

The entire programme from concept discussions to running vehicle took just 9 months and was delivered on target, both in terms of cost and final handover. The power train in the vehicle are the base components used in one of the commercial electric vehicles currently available, but the unique electrical architecture and control units were developed by Gordon Murray Design.

A carbon front crash structure was designed and developed for the car. A Full vehicle Euro Ncap O.D.B test was simulated in addition to a rigid barrier dynamic impact. A correlation process was conducted on the front crash structure for both half energy and full energy using physical tests. Quasi -static bend and torsion analysis was also conducted.

The AR.1 has a remarkably low weight of just 850kg (including the 240kg battery) putting the car firmly in Lotus Elise territory and some 400kg lighter than a Tesla. The ultimate performance is limited by an output figure of 47kw but a torque of 180 Nm available from a standing start results in lively acceleration.

A great deal of attention has been given to the low weight, low centre of gravity and suspension geometry which has resulted in an excellent ride and handling balance.

The concept design team included Barry Lett, Frank Coppuck, Kevin Richards and Gordon Murray. Exterior and interior styling was designed by Zachary Seward, Kevin Richards, Barry Lett and Gordon Murray. The project leader at Gordon Murray Design was Mark Lewis.

The main architecture design team was led by Barry Lett and the engineering, composites and analysis team were led by Frank Coppuck, while the electrical system and power train design was by Dr Ralph Clague.

Gordon Murray Designs' world class prototype build team ensured the vehicle was built to schedule and Gordon Murray Designs exacting standards.

At all stages during design and development Gordon Murray Design and Toray worked very closely on the design, use of materials and Toray's automotive applications. 

The Toray team consisted of Toru Yamanaka, Project Leader, Nobuhiko Shimizu, Project Manager, Yukitane Kimoto, Composite Team Leader, Yoshito Kuroda, Yuki Sakamoto, Kosaku Hashimoto, Composite Team, Alan Riley, UK Composite Handling and Osamu Goto, Project Advisor from Geo Technology. 

Professor Gordon Murray of Gordon Murray Design said:

"It has been a pleasure to work with Toray Industries' team on this challenging project. The resultant vehicle weight of just 850Kg achieved using Toray's carbon fibre once again proves that performance through light weight is the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to achieve power to weight targets." 

Toray Industries said:

"Toray is happy to work with the Gordon Murray Design team to achieve Toray's basic concept of an eco-friendly and highly efficient light weight electric concept vehicle, TEEWAVE. It should be viewed as a flagship for embodying our Green Innovation Project in the automotive field."

Technical Specification

Technical Specification

Length:

3975mm

Width:

1765mm

Height

1154mm

Wheelbase:

2610mm

Weight

850 Kg  

Luggage Volume:

200 litres

(inc battery):

Chassis:

Carbon Fibre Monocoque

Sub frames:

Aluminium Alloy

Crash Structures:

Carbon Fibre

Body:

Carbon Fibre

Aerodynamics:

Full length under tray with ground effect diffuser

Engine:

Permanent Magnet Synchronis Motor

Power:

47 Kw

Torque:

180 Nm

Voltage:

330 V

Engine Position:

Mid - Rear

Transmission:

Single Speed

Battery:

Lithium-Ion

Total Energy:

16 Kwh

Driven Wheels:

Rear

Front Suspension:

Double Wishbone, Coil Spring, Anti Roll Bar

Rear Suspension:

Double Wishbone, Coil spring 

Steering:

Rack and Pinion unassisted

Turning Circle:

9.5 metres

Front Wheels/Tyres:

175/55 R16 on 5.5J Rim

Rear Wheel/Tyres:

225/45 R17 on 7.5J Rim

Brakes:

Discs Front and Rear - Electrically assisted

Parking Brake:

Electrical on Rear Discs

Toray Materials and Products used in the AR.1

1. Toray carbon fibre for the monocoque chassis, crash structures, body, interior and seats.

2. Toray PLA/PET floor mats and luggage mats

3. Toray paint film on steering wheel cover

4. Toray 'Ultra Suede' trim on seats and door cards

5. Toray PLA/Nylon alloy optional floor mats

6. TPO laminated soft touch material with Toray PLA foam and pressure sensitive adhesive on instrument panel, sills and door top trim. 

7. Toray Picasus film on instrument screen

8. Toray 3GT/PET polyester knit on A pillar trim panels

SOURCE: Gordon Murray Design

Toray Unveils TEEWAVE AR1, the Next-Generation Concept EV

Vehicle Embodies Toray's Green Innovation Strategy for Automobiles

Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as “Toray”) announced today that it has developed a next-generation concept electric vehicle (EV), which utilizes Toray's green innovation (GR) product including advanced environment friendly materials and technologies.

Toray has named it TEEWAVE AR1 (short for Toray Eco Efficient Wave Advanced Roadster 1). It is the flagship item that embodies Toray Group's green innovation strategy in the automotive field, offering concepts tailored for the automobile industry, the users and the environment.

TEEWAVE's goal is to offer concepts that are enabled by Toray's advanced materials and technologies and attractive to one and all. More specifically, it embodies (1) “an environment-friendly light-weight electric vehicle with low CO2 emissions from an life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective” for the global environment, (2) “a compact car with high crash safety features that is also economical from the life cycle cost (LCC) perspective” for the user, and (3) “a high productivity vehicle through the use of thermoplastics resin, integral parts and alternative painting technologies” for the automobile industry.

For the concept vehicle, Toray optimized the parts so as to maximize the features of the various materials. For the vehicle's basic structure, it adopted resin transfer molding (RTM) monocoque made of thermosetting CFRP and CFRP shock absorbers to achieve superior stiffness as well as crash safety. At the same time, it adopted thermoplastic CFRP, which can be high-cycle molded in about one minute, for the bonnet hatch and roof. Toray also incorporated cutting-edge materials and technologies for the interior, including Ultrasuede*, an artificial fabric made using recycled polyester fibers, various biomass fibers, and foam, as well as alternative painting technologies such as Picasus*, a metallic-luster film and film decorating techniques.

Toray used Gordon Murray Design Ltd. of the U.K. (CEO: Gordon Murray, former F1 designer) for the vehicle's body and structural design as well as manufacture, and its specifications enable it to be registered for running on public roads.

Furthermore, by using CFRP monocoques, Toray was able to achieve lightweight, high stiffness body and superior crash safety even for a two-seater open car, and the basic design provides the added benefit of easy migration to other models. To test the ability of the concept vehicle, the TEEWAVE team calculated the performance of a four-seater vehicle based on the two-seater open car model developed this time and compared that against a commercially available electric vehicle made of existing materials and structure. The result revealed that, when mileage per charge of the both vehicles is set at a certain distance, the newly developed concept vehicle achieves weight saving of about one thirds from 1,520 kg to 975 kg compared with the existing electric vehicle and CO2 emissions were reduced by about 9% to 13.6 t from 14.9 t.

In addition, the CFRP energy absorber absorbs about 2.5 times the energy, giving the vehicle significantly high crash safety.

Moving forward, Toray shall further deepen the knowledge acquired in the process of developing TEEWAVE to accelerate the technological development related to materials, molding and designing in the automotive field and firmly drive forward joint development projects with automobile manufacturers and parts manufacturers.

Under the medium-term management program “Project AP-G 2013” launched in April 2011, Toray is pursuing expansion in growth regions and growth business fields, and the program sets forth the automotive as one of the most important business fields along with aircraft. In the Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project, one of the group-wide projects, Toray Group aims to contribute to solutions to intensifying global environmental issues, as well as energy and resource issues and the realization of a sustainable low-carbon society.

Development of the concept vehicle is precisely a step towards realizing the fundamental strategy of the medium-term management program. Toray is determined to continue pursuing dynamic expansion of the advanced materials business in growing markets in an effort to achieve its management philosophy of “Contributing to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies and products.”

The details of TEEWAVE AR1 are as follows:

1. Technical specification

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2. Applied materials and technologies

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SOURCE: Toray