At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Edison2 unveiled a model of our next generation Very Light Car. Here’s a picture. We’d like to take a minute to explain what’s different and where and how we’re moving forwards from our X Prize cars.
First, a little bit of history. Richard Petty was once asked when the first car race took place and he famously answered, “shortly after the second car was built”. The X Prize was not exactly a race but it was in the end a competition between cars and the teams who built them. Competitions need rules and over the years race rules have been tested by circumstances and have evolved to cover all that has been learned. Being a different kind of competition, the X Prize rules were written without the benefit of years of accumulated experience and this created a lot of problems as the difference between teams’ interpretations and officials’ intent emerged.
For the most part, the differences were resolved in a fair way by reasonable adults: teams had to do some rework and a few rules got re-written and in some cases softened. Sometimes the rules softening worked against us. For example, we initially faced a requirement for “safety glass” windows and, since time prevented us from designing the complex tooling required to make compound curved glass, we designed the VLC to have a flat wrap windscreen. By the time we learned the X Prize Foundation would accept “stuff you can see thorough that won’t shatter” for “safety glass”, meaning we could run a polycarbonate screen, it was too late to change and refine our body shape.
Now that we are no longer constrained by well-intentioned but sometimes counterproductive rules, we are making a number of design advances, such as:
- Moving to compound curvature windows and exterior body panels has enabled us to subtly but substantially reprofile the central fuselage for even more interior space. Our early cars could, and often did, carry 4 full sized adults and their gear. The next generation VLC can carry even more.
- The new, smoother lines promise even better wind cheating performance. With half the drag of a Prius, our early cars are the most aerodynamically efficient 4 seat cars yet built. We expect to exceed that with a better optimized shape.
- New, raised and reprofiled “wings” are designed to meet FMVSS bumper standards. Edison2 learned about crash-worthy design the hard way, through more than a century of combined professional auto racing experience. Now we have more design freedom, we’re applying that experience.
- Larger diameter tires permit more travel from our patent pending in-wheel suspension, giving a smoother ride and also reducing rolling resistance.
- A new rear window gives better rear vision than the camera it replaces, and the hatch it mounts to gives access to luggage space now available above our rear-mounted driveline.
- It takes a lot of work to get from proof of concept to production capable. The path involves redesigning almost every component and system of the Very Light Car. So under the skin are all the advances you can’t see.
Of course, some things stay the same. Not just Very Light Car Principles – light weight, low drag, breakthrough efficiency – but also the orderly, thorough way we do things. Not much happens by chance at Edison2, and that includes working towards what is really an all-new car.