Electrification for the niche-car market
Background
Watt Electric Vehicle Company (Watt-EV Ltd) has become a technology leader through its highly adaptable electric vehicle skateboard – the PACES platform.
Niche car designer Neil Yates, owner of Watt-EV, had been concerned for many years that investment for electrification would make life difficult for the UK’s unique low-volume car manufacturers. Yates decided that the sector would benefit from access to a highly flexible chassis concept that could be used for almost any kind of electric or hybrid vehicle from a quadricycle to a bus. This ‘EV skateboard’ needed to be tough and rigid to meet all safety regulations but also very lightweight.
“It’s easy to build a fast electric car, but if you use traditional materials and methods, everything gets heavy and you disappear down a two-tonne wormhole. Heavy battery, big motor, wide wheels and tyres, and huge brakes.”
The Powderbond Solution
Yates’ involvement in the Niche Vehicle Network (link) PACES (Passenger and Commercial EV Skateboard) project showed the way to developing a lightweight aluminium and thermoplastic composite EV platform with a fully integrated structural battery case. Working with composites would provide lighter, tougher parts at low cost, and combining with aluminium would produce high strength structural parts.
The challenge was how to strongly bond the aluminium and GF-PP composite together. PowderBond offered a method for joining metal to polypropylene with unrivalled, highly reliable bond strength. Our quick, clean adhesive free system is essential to the structural success of the PACES platform, as well as its affordability. Adhesives could not offer the same bonding strength or the lean manufacturing advantages.
The first production car to use PACES platform is the Watt Electric Vehicle Company’s own Coupe, a car with that classic Porsche outline, powered by a rear-mounted electric motor. This combines retro looks with the very latest in lightweight, sophisticated architecture that conforms to modern safety standards.
Benefits
More affordable polypropylene-based composite can be used.
PowderBond makes possible a light but tough composite-metal laminate for the baseplate with high puncture resistance at a lower plate thickness.
Find out more
If you would like further information on the benefits that PowderBond could bring to your design please call us for a chat. We will work closely with you through evaluation for your own particular application.
