Ultra Low Energy Vehicle

We have been working since early 2007 on the design of what’s known inside the company as the ULEV. The car is a very compact, light weight, low drag, 4-seat passenger car.

We’ve been right back to basics to remind ourselves of the fundamentals of energy consumption in road cars. Minimising car weight and optimising aerodynamics and mechanical efficiency are second nature to us from the many race car programs we’ve carried out. The innovative approach and range of design and simulation tools we use for our motorsport projects is applicable directly to this project, but the focus on achieving a viable selling price (£20-£25,000) poses a whole new set of challenges.

Building a car that consumes significantly less energy will allow us to consider a wide variety of choices for energy storage, from hydrogen to batteries. We’re not ruling anything out however – we’ll also consider gasoline and diesel in the future if we feel there’s a suitable market. The most important thing is to get the fundamental architecture of the vehicle right, and the rest will follow.

The first cars we build will be plug-in battery electric, offering a range of up to 250 miles. The focus on reducing weight and the great torque characteristics of electric motors will also give a 0-60 time of just over 6 seconds.

We’re racers at heart and just can’t resist a competition, so we’ve also decided to take the car to race for the $10million Automotive X-Prize late in 2009 (http://auto.xprize.org/).

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