Gordon Murray's T.25 / T.27 City Cars & Teewave AR.1 Electric Sports Car

[homeforsummer]

Pfft, you linked to the Autoblog article but not the one actually written by my colleague? For shame!

Incidentally, I had a chat with a few of the people restoring it from VW last week. They're getting on well, but struggling to find a few bits and pieces, as you might expect.

Really though, this is probably another subject for another thread... I agree with the sentiment though, I'd quite like to convert one of the cool, boxy 1980s shapes into an EV just for running about town in.

i-Stream isn't really designed with converting existing cars to electric in mind - it's about building scratch-designed platforms as quickly and at as low a cost as possible.

 

[Dennisch]

i-Stream isn't really designed with converting existing cars to electric in mind - it's about building scratch-designed platforms as quickly and at as low a cost as possible.

Key words, right there!

We let other people do the hard word, designing it all, and then we steal their ideas to make it work in an existing car!

 

[SlipZtrEm]

*Slip casts revive, it's successful!*

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/11/21/gordon-murray-yamaha-motive-city-car-tokyo-2013/

Yamaha and the inimitable Gordon Murray have teamed up to make a small but significant splash at the Tokyo Motor Show, showing Murray Design's long-promised small car project in the form of this MOTIV.e City Car electric vehicle.

Following on the development of Murray's T.27 electric car, the MOTIV.e is both a more complete vehicle and far more attractive as an urban runabout. The EV's body is constructed of weight-saving plastic panels and molded to fit around the car's dominating, bubble-like glasshouse. The overall effect, in addition to having quite a lot of Smart ForTwo in the profile, is one of a sort of wheeled escape pod. Cool, if you dig the minimalist and futurist vibes.

According to the company, the electric motor delivers 15 kilowatts continuously with a peak of 25 kW, which makes torque to the rear wheels on the order of 658 Newton meters continuously and 896 Nm at peak. Not up on your metric system? Let's say that another way: the MOTIV.e maxes out at around 660 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels. Yeah, that got our attention, too.

Figuring in an EV-standard single-speed transmission and a overall weight of right around 1,600 pounds, one might expect the initial acceleration of the two-seater to be pretty beastly in its raw state. Still, the Yamaha team has done some substantial work to tame things, clearly, as the stated performance specs for the MOTIV.e include a 0-62 mile per hour sprint just under 15 seconds and a top speed only in excess of about 65 mph. Most importantly, Yamaha figures the 8.8-kWh battery pack should give the EV a range of more than 100 miles "real world" and a three-hour recharging time from a "domestic socket" (with a one-hour quick-charge).

As ever, Murray has our attention, and that's before figuring in his the impact of his novel iStream manufacturing process, which is said to involve Formula One-derived composite technologies. When, where, and for how much the MOTIV.e City Car will be on sale are, as yet, unanswered by the official materials we've seen. Expect more on the developing story as we have it, of course

Neat. Also, are those Ferrari taillights?

 

[homeforsummer]

I imagine it still won't be to all tastes, but it's certainly more palatable than the T25 and T27 concepts Murray came up with.

I'd still rather a Fortwo myself. Looks like there's a lot of wasted space in that design - the steering wheel looks about half way down the car's length. I'm sure it leads to a decent crumple zone safety-wise, but in a car the same length as a Fortwo it must affect luggage space.

 

[Wiegert]

It does look a lot more refined than the T.25-27, not to mention very Renault-esque at the front.

The minimalist interior gives the impression that there's more space inside than a Fortwo, especially without the centre divide. It's hard to tell exactly how much rear space it has over the Smart though. But looking at the only shot I could find that kind of gives you a proper idea of the boot depth, it's probably only got an inch or so less than the Fortwo at worst. Which isn't too bad considering they're the same length.

 

[RocZX]

Motiv city car to start production by 2019 in Europe

Japanese motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor Co Ltd aims to start making and selling two-seater cars in Europe as early as 2019, targeting environmentally-conscious drivers, a person familiar with the plan told Reuters on Friday.

Yamaha will spend "tens of billions of yen" to build a manufacturing plant in Europe, though the location and scale of the investment amount remain undecided. The cars will come in both 1-litre petrol and electric versions, the person said.

The person wasn't authorised to discuss the plan publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The news was first reported by the Nikkei business daily.

Yamaha unveiled its Motiv concept microcar at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show and said it wanted to bring the car to the mass market by 2020, but has not announced any launches since then.

The person familiar with the company's plans said on Friday Yamaha would begin with the two-seater cars in Europe, and is also considering sales in Japan and other Asian countries, particularly emerging markets.

The vehicle will be the first car made by Yamaha since the late 1960s, when it manufactured the 2000GT for Toyota Motor Corp .

A spokesman for Shizuoka-based Yamaha declined to comment.

Reuters

 

[homeforsummer]

I'd be interested to see how it does, but that design will look awfully outdated in another four years and competition is a lot tougher now the Smart Fortwo is actually a pretty decent car.

 

[The Vanishing Boy]

-> I wonder what happened to the Murray T-series...I really like that project of his.

 

[homeforsummer]

-> I wonder what happened to the Murray T-series...I really like that project of his.

This is one variation of the several that Murray and his team conceptualised, albeit not a direct alternative to the T25/T27. I believe Murray said he was working on about ten 'T' projects, and Yamaha bought one of them.