Abstract
Keywords: electric vehicle, ultralight
The last few decades have seen the development of a variety of electrical vehicles for urban use. Up to now however, none of them has enjoyed lasting success in the marketplace. The chief reason was that the price was too high, but there were also technical shortcomings that impaired the vehicles´ suitability for everyday use.
The conceptual design of a completely novel ultralight electrical vehicle has been developed at the Technical University of Applied Sciences of Rapperswil. The four-wheeled vehicle can carry two adults and either two children or luggage. Several semester studies and degree theses have been dedicated to working out the conceptual design, leading subsequently to a simple, functional design that is ready to be put into production. Care was taken to ensure that the vehicle could be produced cost-efficiently even in short production runs. Decisive in this connection is the integrated design of the chassis with the bodywork, which was developed and designed specifically for this vehicle. The structure is reduced to the bare essentials without in any way impairing its functionality. Furthermore, attention was paid to making sure that individual components and assemblies and indeed the whole vehicle can be manufactured without expensive tooling. A preprototype was built and tested in order to check the vehicle´s driving behaviour and other characteristics.