At this year’s Detroit Motor Show in early January, a quirky small car caught the attention of many visitors. Not a car from a global OEM, but it was the eMO (electric mobility) study project developed by a team of around 25 engineers of Tata Technologies from their bases in Pune and Detroit. The electric car project took six to eight months to be developed.
“We produced a benchmark product based on the market analysis and then decided what we wanted the car to do from a functionality standpoint – how did we want the car to perform from a consumer aspect?,” Kevin Fisher, president, Vehicle Programs & Development (VPD) group, Tata Technologies, told Autocar Professional.
Tata Technologies’ engineers also toyed with the idea of making it a conventional car running on fossil fuel. “We had lots of discussions. There was never going to be a pure internal combustion car. Was it going to be a range extender, do we do a hybrid, how do you position it? That was a big debate within our team,” reveals Fisher.
The eMO is the first independent project of the VPD, which was formed in 2010. The team’s target was to create an electric vehicle (EV) that could be purchased for an estimated retail price of $20,000 (Rs 9.9 lakh), “without any government or state incentives”.
“We believe that most vehicles on the market are actually oversized and over-specified for the majority of consumers’ daily use,” says Fisher. “Our objective was to find the right size for this type of electric vehicle with the appropriate range and speed, without reducing safety and daily usability.”
The front-wheel-drive car has a unique liquid-cooled powertrain with dual-motor, front-wheel-drive system coupled with an air-cooled, 18.4-kilowatt, high-energy/density battery. The eMO offers a driving range of 160 kilometres on a single charge and has a top speed of 105kph. Tata Technologies claims the 900kg eMO accelerates from 0-32kph in 3.4 seconds. Additional features include nine airbags, a full steel safety cage, a dashboard touchscreen interface, and easy-access rear suicide doors, combined with forward-opening front doors.
Finding the right balance
Fisher and his team worked to ‘find the right’ balance’ in vehicle cost of ownership and usage, innovation and technology, consumer features and usable interior space. In terms of technology, the VPD used components and production methods that added to the ‘green’ quotient of the car. “In line with our low-cost emphasis, we questioned traditional vehicle construction. We looked at a non-traditional weld body,” says Fisher.
The eMO’s overall structure incorporates a steel safety cage. The front and rear fascias and exterior doors are recycled panels with mould-in colour, which did not necessitate setting up a paint shop. The glazing is a mix of required safety glass and low-mass polycarbonates.
“This eMO study also used our extensive CAE global knowledge and has been engineered, and CAE simulations performed, to meet the current safety standards and regulations in all major markets,” he reveals.
Fisher feels the production version of the eMO will be a compelling buy for those who are in the market for a small car for city runabouts. “We wanted to offer the general customer who walks into a showroom and sees this car and realises it’s the same price (of a conventional fuel-run car) but this is an EV, and he/she can, save perhaps 10,000 dollars (Rs 4.96 lakh) in five years versus petrol,” explains Fisher, talking about the project’s tight cost target. It was “very very difficult” for Fisher and his team as nearly 60 percent of the car’s cost is in the batteries. “There’s a lot of money in the batteries, so what we did was to avoid using exotic parts,” adds Fisher. Tata Technologies consulted around 150 vendors for the eMO project. While they had to sign non-disclosure agreements, not all were part of the project. Only a few like Bosch and Visteon participated.
Business case
There’s a significant business case behind developing the eMO. Tata Technologies says that as the automobile industry emerges from a global recession, the demand for new, highly differentiated products is increasing, placing an unprecedented burden on the automakers’ limited product and manufacturing engineering resources. Automakers now are seeking experienced, proven engineering partners to meet these demands.
So, has any OEM expressed interest in the eMO project? Fisher won’t divulge details, but says “People came to see it. We’re talking to people right now. We believe that we have progressed the concept. We believe we have CAD data, CAE data, test plans and all of those things that you normally have for an OEM.”
The VPD group serves a wide range of customers with more than 300 engineers operating from four automotive centres of excellence worldwide — Detroit, Coventry, Pune and Stuttgart, Germany.
Tata Technologies has unveiled the eMO when after India announced the current decade as the ‘decade of innovation’. Fisher shares with Autocar Professional that there a few more projects that will follow the eMO. “We want to do this in a few other areas, to showcase what we are capable of a project in the compact car area. There might be one for an SUV, one for a commercial truck, there even could be one where we are looking at a mass transport one, so any of those things can be done. We’re just trying to pick where we are going next,” reveals Fisher.
“Whatever the segment, how far are we from seeing the next full vehicle project from Tata Technologies?” I ask. “We’re hoping to have something in the next 12 months,” is what Fisher says. So stay tuned.
SUMANTRA BAROOAH
Emo FACTFILE
Length 2995mm
Width 1540mm
Height 1579mm
Track (front/rear) 1370/1370mm
Wheelbase 2180mm
Weight 900kg
Ground clearance 140mm
Headroom (front/rear) 913/1011mm
Legroom (front/rear) 991/926mm
Top speed 105kph
Acceleration (0-32kph) 3.4sec
Battery range 160km
Turning circle 8.2m