What happens when Lotus takes a Toyota Venza and plays around with it for a little while? Let’s just say their "playtime" turns into an impressive discovery on how to decrease fuel consumption with minimal cost increase. That’s the short side of it anyway. The longer, more detailed story goes a little something like these next few sentences.
Lotus Engineering has just finished a study for a 2020 passenger car and the conclusion to that study is this: a 38% reduction in vehicle mass, excluding powertrain, can be achieved for only a 3% increase in component costs using engineering techniques and technologies viable for mainstream production programs by 2020. The study investigated scenarios for two distinct vehicle architectures appropriate for production in 2017 and 2020. The near-term scenario is based on applying industry leading mass reducing technologies, improved materials, and component integration and would be assembled using existing facilities.
A benchmark Toyota Venza was disassembled, analyzed, and weighed to develop a bill of materials and understand component masses. In developing the two low mass concepts, Lotus Engineering employed a total vehicle mass reduction strategy utilizing efficient design, component integration, materials selection, manufacturing and assembly. All key interior and exterior dimensions and volumes were retained for both models and the vehicles were packaged to accommodate key safety and structural dimension and quality targets. The new vehicles retain the vision, sight line, comfort and occupant package of the benchmarked Toyota Venza.
We said it was going to be a long version. Now, Lotus can just hope that other automakers adopt this philosophy of performance through lightweight.
Dr Robert Hentschel, Director of Lotus Engineering said: “Lighter vehicles are cleaner and more efficient. That philosophy has always been core to Lotus’ approach to vehicle engineering and is now more relevant than ever."
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