Automotive Design


4 There is a strong argument against continuing to build and use fossil-fuelled cars, though, to be fair, automotive manufacturers are improving the sustainability of their products. But are the mainstream automakers inherently the wrong organisations to make step changes in how we fulfil our need for personal mobility? Paul Stevens looks at what independent designers and consultancies are proposing.


Radically different approaches to car design and manufacture


H


ugo Spowers of Riversimple. Spowers made his name as a designer of race cars but left the industry because of concerns about its environmental impact. He subsequently started


Riversimple to enable a fresh start to be made, with new attitudes to automotive design, manufacture and, equally importantly, commercial interests. His design for an urban car is based around a hydrogen fuel cell, which enables the car to be compact, lightweight and very fuel-efficient (Fig. 1). Moreover, the car is designed for a life of 15-20 years and customers will lease, rather than buy them. The lease (or ‘sale of service’) business model also extends to Riversimple’s suppliers - even those of consumables such as tyres. This approach


encourages suppliers to continually develop better components (more efficient fuel cells or wheel motors, or longer-lasting tyres, for example) that can be retrofitted to the cars during their lifetime so that both the car users and the suppliers benefit. Another important element of Riversimple’s


philosophy is that the car’s design will be released on an open source licence so that small, local companies can start building cars and/or developing the design. By removing the barriers to entry, the market will be far more dynamic than the conventional automotive industry, resulting in improvements reaching customers more quickly - and benefitting the environment sooner. Riversimple’s urban car uses a carbon fibre composite monocoque to provide an optimal


Fig. 1. Riversimple’s urban car features a hydrogen fuel cell, an innovative manufacturing philosophy and a sale-of-service business model.


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