How this startup designed an ultra lightweight EV
While most EVs tip the scales at several tons, a new “featherweight” electric sports car weighs half as much—or less—than others on the road.
Longbow, the U.K.-based startup behind the sleek EV, plans to bring its first vehicle to market later this year with a limited run of 150 cars, starting at £84,995, or roughly $110,000. A high-performance version of the design is on display at CES this week.
The company’s aim is to reverse the car industry’s weight problem—something that’s especially an issue for EVs that have large batteries inside. Heavier vehicles have bigger carbon footprints, use more energy, and are more dangerous in a crash for pedestrians. They also wear out roads faster (as well as tires, which spew more microplastic pollution the more weight they carry).
“Everything gets better when you remove weight,” says Mark Tapscott, cofounder and CTO at Longbow. Still, most of the industry has been moving in the opposite direction.
“We really see automotive in general—and EVs specifically—are getting increasingly heavier,” says Longbow CEO Daniel Davey. “When they become heavier, that requires more resources, requires bigger batteries, bigger motors. It’s kind of the opposite of marginal gains.”
The Chevy Silverado, for example, can weigh as much as 8,900 pounds. Even the smaller Nissan Leaf can weigh 4,200 pounds. Longbow’s Speedster weighs around 1,973 pounds.
A lighter car, by design
The car uses lightweight materials, prioritizing options with the lowest environmental impact. “A lot of manufacturers will move towards carbon fiber, but it is the single worst material you can use for the environment,” says Tapscott. “It breaks easily. It’s difficult to maintain. You wear out the car quickly.” Instead, the car uses a custom aluminum chassis designed to maximum stiffness while minimizing weight. It also includes natural fiber composites and thermoplastics.
Each design decision was made with lightness in mind. The handbrake is manual, for example, which makes it weigh less, but also makes it more effective and cheaper and quicker to develop.
The design team kept the car intentionally simple. Instead of chasing unnecessary specs—like a 600-mile battery range when a typical commute might be 30 miles, or a four-second sprint from zero to 60—the design is pared down to the essentials.
It’s similar to the approach that the startup Slate has taken as it works on a low-cost electric truck. “What they’ve done in the truck space I think is kind of revolutionary,” says Davey. “Because they’re saying, ‘You know all those things you pay loads of money that you don’t need? Well, you could not have them and not pay all the money if you’d like.’ And I think people like that idea.”
“The world doesn’t need faster numbers,” says Tapscott. “It needs better experiences. And so that’s why we talk about what the car is, what it does, how it feels, rather than what battery chemistry we have.”
They took time to find the right off-the-shelf components for the vehicle. The car on display at CES has innovative motors built into each wheel. The company hasn’t yet announced whether that feature will be available in the first cars that come out this year, but it’s another way that it can cut weight even further.
A typical drivetrain, with a central motor that connects to each wheel, might have around 100 parts that can weigh a couple of hundred pounds and take up valuable space. By placing motors in the wheels, it eliminates those components and works more efficiently. Donut Labs, the Finnish startup that designed the new motors, says that they can also reduce the cost of making a vehicle by $1,000 to $2,000. Having motors in the wheels also makes cars more responsive.
“It makes the car drive in a way that you cannot experience otherwise,” says Marko Lehtimäki, CEO of Donut Labs.
A more sustainable car that’s longer-lasting
Because of Longbow’s careful approach to sustainability, manufacturing the car has a lower carbon footprint than a typical gas car. When it’s driven, it also uses less electricity per mile than other EVs because it weighs less. (The lower weight also means that it can have a range of up to 280 miles on a charge, even though it uses a smaller battery than a typical EV.)
The company also designed the car to last as long as possible—with an unprecedented pledge to help keep each car on the road for 100 years. The first step: trying to design a classic car that people will want to keep for life rather than replace.
“It has to start with design,” says Tapscott. “No one wants to drive the Fiat Multipla anymore because it was the ugliest car ever built. So a core tenet of being available for a hundred years is that people want the car. Desirability. We looked at design that is timeless, not radically modern. We are drawing more inspiration from cars of the past.”
The materials are also made to last. The aluminum chassis, for example, won’t rust or corrode. The parts are designed for repair. When possible, the engineers chose 3D printing for certain parts, like clips or brackets, so that they can easily be remade later on demand decades from now.
The car is also designed to be fun to drive—another way, obviously, to convince drivers to keep the same car in use longer. The light weight is an important part of the experience.
“I think most people today haven’t actually experienced what a lightweight car is like to drive,” says Tapscott. “Even a lightweight hatchback or economy [sedan] are all well over 3,000 pounds or so. So when you start driving something that’s under 2,000 pounds, everything changes. The way it handles corners, under acceleration, under braking, everything gets better when you get lighter. I think any racing driver will explain that the weight is the most important thing you have.”
Their aim is to design the best sports car in the world, not just the best electric version. “You need to meet people where they are,” says Tapscott. “And you need to meet petrol on an even playing field, and do that with a really aspirational car that’s better. It just happens that it has one full green credential as well.”
That mandate will extend beyond sports cars, though that’s where the company is beginning. “Our mission is to quickly make all cars better and lighter for people and the planet,” says Davey. “That’s really by showing a way to an industry that has lost itself by just adding all this excess weight to everything that they do.”
