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Canadian electric car made from hemp biocomposites to significantly reduce tooling costs

By Rain Noe - October 27, 2010

in Tech

One of the reasons cars cost what they do is because they're made with a lot of stamped steel and aluminum, and those materials, not to mention the tooling they require, ain't cheap. So Canadian designer Darren McKeage and his company, Motive Industries Inc., are attempting to skirt those manufacturing costs by building a car from biocomposite materials derived from hemb fiber. Called the Kestrel, the car was unveiled to the public last month.

The car's design features bio-composite materials and innovative tooling and part-molding techniques that Motive says will permit profitable manufacture of the Kestrel at smaller initial volumes than traditional stamped-steel or aluminum vehicles. "The cost to tool a traditional vehicle is in the hundreds of millions [of dollars]," explains company president Nathan Armstrong. "The techniques we are using will allow us to scale up the tooling and manufacturing process as demand increases, with ramp-up costs affordable for a new company...."

...Composites also will increase impact absorption and rust resistance. "Composite materials have been used in advanced applications for many years because of [their] relative light weight and ability to absorb impact loads," says Armstrong.

Designed to run on a lithium-ion battery, the lightweight car (under 2,000 lbs) is slated to see production in 2012.

via composites world

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John Schubert

14 years ago

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Phil, I was thinking the same thing, but I didn't know the Trabant's composite was cotton based. If you go to YouTube and type in Trabant, you can see a really funny movie of the things being 'manufactured.' Which means, actually, the parts were made to awful tolerances and then hammered and bent in to place so that the doors and hood would open and close.
Presumably the Canadian car will be more advanced!
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Phil

14 years ago

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Hemp based biocomposite - Remind anyone of the cotton based Duraplast they used to make Trabants with behind the iron curtin?
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Franxou

14 years ago

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I've never heard of this electric Audi A2 hsr0601 is talking about, but it seems downright amazing! Now if every manufacturer was to pool their technology together we would be able to get great electric cars! But now it's a war between them and I hope to see the little Kestrel on the street if it can pass collision tests...
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Gina

14 years ago

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Amazingly awesome!!!
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hsr0601

14 years ago

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The yellow and purple Audi A2 car took around seven hours to complete the 600-kilometre (372-mile) stretch, even had the heating on.

Driver Mirko Hannemann, the chief of DBM Energy, drove the distance at 90 km/h (55 miles per hour) on average, had the heat on and was able to whisk around a few more miles in the city. When the A2 electric finished, it still had 18% of the initial electric charge in the battery.
　
It has a lithium-metal-polymer battery. DBM Energy, the company that built the battery and electric motors into the Audi A2, said the battery would function for 500,000 kilometres.
　
A representative of the car said the Audi still featured all the usual creature comforts such as power steering, air-conditioning and even heated seats as well, so it was not like the car was especially made for long distance record attempts
　
The German engineers said their car was special because the battery was not installed inside the luggage area, but under the luggage area, meaning the full interior space of the car was still available
　
The battery, based on what DBM Energy calls the KOLIBRI AlphaPolymer Technology, comes with 97 percent efficiency and can be charged at virtually every socket. Plugged into a high-voltage direct-current source, the battery can be fully loaded within 6 minutes
　
What's more important, the technology which made the trip possible is available today.
　
German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle, who subsidized the drive, said it showed electric cars are not utopian but really work.

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