McLaren's radical EV draws closer to reality

Former McLaren designer Gordon Murray's radical T.27 urban EV concept has moved another step closer to reality with the announcement of concrete performance targets and engineering specs.

With a £4.5 million (AUS$8 million) input from the UK government's Technology Strategy Board, the T.27 (pictured) is the work of a consortium led by Gordon Murray Design and drivetrain engineering company Zytek Automotive. The grant was part of a total £9 million R&D project to come up with four prototypes of a new all-electric city car designed not just for zero emissions at the exhaust but for sustainable manufacture. To that end, Murray and partners have come up with a manufacturing process called iStream which they claim "represents a complete rethink and redesign of the traditional manufacturing process".

Its underlying principle involves simplifying assembly processes in ways that also allow reduction of up to 80 per cent in manufacturing plant size compared to conventional counterparts, with proportional savings in energy consumption and in capital investment. iStream's flexibility, Murray claims in a statement, allows the use of the assembly line for the production of multiple variants.

The three-seat T.27 borrows heavily in layout and geometry from Murray's petrol powered T.25 city car, an MPV designed for maximum flexibility in interior layouts. It's the aim of the iStream system to allow the manufacture of both vehicles on the same compact assembly line.

The Zytek powertrain comprises a 25 kW motor powered by a 12 kWh Li-ion battery pack. Using an unusually small and light transmission unit from consortium partner Vocis, its top speed is around 105 km/h, with 0-100 km/h coming up in "less than 15 seconds". Weighing just 680kg including battery, it's expected to be good for 130 to 160 km on a single charge.

Important to the project is that the vehicle is capable of four-star or better NCAP safety levels -- remarkable for a car smaller than a smart fortwo.

iStream is integral to this for the way it dispenses with conventional stamped steel construction methods. It's also the reason behind the consortium's clean-sheet drivetrain design -- the partners claim it couldn't be achieved using existing gearboxes, motors or batteries.

Unusually, in a situation where most EV manufacturers would simply claim zero emissions, the consortium has released projected emissions figures taking into account manufacture and total lifecycle. The aim is to highlight the efficiency of the iStream process. Based on a UK energy mix, it claims 48g/km CO2 combined cycle and 28g/km CO2 urban cycle, mitigated by zero emissions at the point of use (read: at the exhaust outlet). In full lifecycle terms, this means about 42 per cent less CO2 damage than the average car (this claim, notably, has been scaled down from the original 63 per cent at the project's announcement in November 2009).

The group expects to have an operational prototype ready by April 2011.

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