EDAG Light Car

EDAG presents its powerful innovation “Light Car - Open Source” at the 79th Geneva Motor Show. The EDAG Light Car is a environment-friendly, future-orientated car for everyday and leisure use. The EDAG Light Car represents the first ever use of a new material for building a car - a basalt fiber which is lightweight, stable and 100% recyclable. The company says the car looks like it was made from glass. To power the EDAG Light Car, the developers have used electric drive systems that are placed in the wheels. The EDAG Light Car also showcases a new LED lighting technology that's used as an individually adaptable design and communication element".

For the body concept of the “Light Car - Open Source”, EDAG has broken new ground, and for the first time ever in automotive engineering, used ASA. TEC's innovative basalt fiber, a lightweight, stable and - above all - 100% recyclable material. Propulsion is taken care of by intelligent, electric drive systems in the wheels, which not only feature a high degree of efficiency to get the power of the lithium-ion batteries onto the road, but will also provide considerably greater creative scope for the vehicle package. In addition, with its innovative light concept, the "Light Car - Open Source" will be one of the first vehicles to utilize.

As a design engineering company, the EDAG Group would like to apply its experience to contributing to the development of new vehicle concepts and processes. Rising energy prices, the CO2 discussion and the increase in demands for reasonably priced cars are all pressing questions which now, more than ever, call for innovative concepts. Since 1999, EDAG has, with its concept cars, been producing pragmatic ideas for the evolution of the automobile. Motivated by the current discussions about the cars of tomorrow and future direction of the automotive industry, EDAG has risked taking a visionary and courageous look towards the future. With the "Light Car - Open Source", EDAG gives possible answers to the question of how new materials, new body concepts and alternative drive systems can be implemented in the future, while conserving resources and keeping costs down for the manufacturer and customer alike.

With the choice of materials for EDAG's "Light Car - Open Source", the emphasis is also on innovative solutions. Apart from the glass surfaces or alternatively Makrolon, the material of the future, the structure of the vehicle is predominantly of an innovative, industrially standardized basalt fiber (ASA.TEC fiber). This 100% recyclable and almost infinitely available raw material is not just lighter and less costly than aluminum or carbon, but also has practically the same strength properties as conventional materials.

This new quality of basalt fiber, which is to be utilized in the construction of rotors for large-scale wind power plants in the future, can now be put to systematic use in the automotive industry. This type of basalt fiber therefore has the potential for becoming a main structural element and thus being used as a future lightweight material in cars for the high volume market. The body concept of the "Light Car - Open Source" is based on a rolling chassis - a genuine, universal platform to which the modules for various bodies can be added. This enables vehicle derivatives to be developed more quickly and at lower cost.

© Source: zercustoms
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