The T25 - First Project
The first project for Gordon Murray Design is a radical, innovative design for a new type and class of personal transport vehicle which applies a “fit for purpose” approach to lightweight material usage in its construction to achieve an ultra low vehicle weight.
The vehicle has innovative architecture and packaging which will facilitate low cost manufacturing and drastically reduce running costs.
When this new class of vehicle is adopted by one or more manufacturers a quantifiable reduction in fuel usage emissions and road congestion will be achieved within 2 years of start up.
Today car design, marketing and sales trends are all heading in the wrong direction to support our shrinking reserves of fossil fuels, the damage to our global climate and the congestion on our roads.
There is a worrying trend towards larger, heavier and 4WD vehicles with only lip-service being paid to lightweight materials and efficient design.
Powertrain solutions such as hybrids and electric cars are costly, heavy and not anywhere near as “green” as they appear on the surface.
Today we have more than 500 million cars on our roads and this figure is predicted to double in the next 20 years. New engine concepts that have some credibility such as fuel cells are decades away and even then they will first appear in high-end products.
The energy consumed to produce a car is multiples of what that car will use in one year and this energy is approximately equivalent to the size and weight of the vehicle.
Lightweight is the only tool we have available now that can make a significant difference to our energy usage and the current pollution figures. Vehicle size is all we have to combat congestion and parking problems. Congestion alone currently costs the world’s business community billions of pounds each year.
The MCC Smart has paved the way for the Type 25 project as an ever increasing number of people have understood the benefits of running a smaller car and have had proof that small cars can be relatively safe.
Although the Smart has bravely enabled its makers to exploit a growing environmental consciousness in the market, it is still somewhat constrained by conventional automotive design and construction practises. It is effectively, a smaller more compact version of an existing concept. With a similar part count and production cost as a conventional small car controlling size, cost and weight reduction opportunities, the overall lifecycle energy reduction contribution remains capped.
Several new city cars aimed at the “tax break” market segment and following Smarts lead but as “small big cars” they suffer from the same limitations. The Type 25 is designed to be different – lower parts count – faster assembly – low weight for efficiency and above all a size and shape to open up many innovative traffic and parking opportunities.
The Micro Cars of the 60’s and 70’s, although fun, did not sell in any great numbers as most of them were not “cool”, not safe and had such a low drivers eye line that they were terrifying to drive in traffic.
For a small car to be commercially successful it must achieve four things:
It must be less costly to buy and run than other cars.
It must be "cool", something to be seen in such as the original Mini, the Fiat Cinquecento and the Smart
The Car must be proven to be as safe as a small hatchback.
It should not be daunting to drive in traffic.
The Type 25 will offer all of the above with a low sales price, drastically lower running costs, cult styling, a good standard of safety and a driver’s eye line equivalent to a normal saloon car.
No new car can be designed to appeal to all market segments in all Countries. The base model of Type 25 is designed to appeal to certain markets and specific market segments. Initially the main markets will be:
UK – Europe – Japan
The base model for UK, Europe and Japan is designed to appeal to the following segment.
First time buyers
Householders – second or third vehicle for shopping,
school and airport drops etc
Commuters
Inner city dwellers
Hire car fleets
The Type 25 achieves its light weight by design with innovative use of materials. These materials have been selected for piece cost and manufacturing cost in combination with a “fit for purpose” approach. A small, efficient company is far more capable of selecting and applying new material application and manufacturing selections to a product than a large corporation.
The Type 25 further benefits from its lack of bulk. All three factors – design, material selection and size combine to help achieve a vehicle weight 400kg lighter than most small cars.
Gordon Murray Design will produce running prototypes of the base vehicle which will be developed for production intent. The management, design and engineering team will be in a position to offer ongoing engineering input and support for a manufacturer including work on variants, powertrain options and fuels.
The vehicle is designed to enable many low-cost variants to be derived from the same platform and it is the intention of the company to choose manufacturing partners during the 24 month prototype programme.
Most of the work towards CO2 reduction and other environmental benefits comes from the radical design and architecture of the car. The chosen power unit for the first version will be a lightweight, ultra efficient petrol engine but the same vehicle concept will accept almost any future powertrain and thereby further reduce the CO2 damage.
This vehicle concept will be the first of its type which concentrates on Full Lifecycle damage rather than just running damage. It also addresses congestion and parking issues alongside manufacturing, running and recycling damage.
In the short term Gordon Murray Design will be looking to work with Government bodies to introduce a pilot scheme using the full environmental package to prove out the real benefits for drivers and communities.
The ultimate target is to create a new class of vehicle on a worldwide basis. The layout of the vehicle by design will allow very different versions to be developed for specific markets from the same basic platform.
To summarise – T25 will be a new start in small vehicle design. It will be fully engineered from a construction and a safety point of view with no concessions applied for new vehicle type. It will have a dramatic, positive effect on environmental damage, congestion and parking problems when produced in volume but most importantly the size, weight and vehicle dynamics will ensure that the driving fun remains alongside protecting our personal mobility for many years to come.
The T25 City Car is the first project for Gordon Murray Design. Waiting in the wings is another project which will take a similarly radical approach to high performance sports cars. Some four years of work have gone into car design for a new breed of Super Car. A car which absolutely reverses the trend towards larger, heavier and more powerful super cars. This car will give the driver all the driving feedback and pleasure that a good power to weight ratio and vehicle dynamics can deliver but from lightweight and modest power. The result will be more affordable and a more environmental friendly super car. The Company is also gearing up during the next twelve months to undertake a race programme.
The vast experience of the team, the ‘state of the art’ facilities and creative processes gives Gordon Murray Design the opportunities to undertake any future boundary breaking design and prototyping programme.
