Carbon fibre is expensive, so is used solely where its strength or aesthetic qualities are essential. ‘For every engineered product, materials selection is key. We’ve only used carbon fibre where we really need to,’ said Kent, who previously worked for McLaren’s F1 team and on the McLaren P1 road car. The support structures for the Rp1’s lights and parts of its bodywork are made from aluminium, for example, while the wheel arch liners are manufactured from Coats Synergex via UK-based manufacturer Shape Machining’s automated ‘ShapeTex’ hot forming process.
Synergex is a customisable thermoplastic composite recently developed by industrial yarn manufacturers Coats. For the Rp1’s wheel arch liners, which need to be stiff, lightweight and tough, the Synergex fabric consists of carbon fibre commingled with nylon. The ability to tailor the fibre alignment, and also build up thickness locally, means Elemental is investigating other applications for the material. ‘This material is state-of-the-art and there are a lot of possibilities with it,’ explained Kent.
Trickle-down effect
For Apollo Automobil, a German supercar manufacturing company that is developing a new car under the project name ‘Titan’, due to debut in July 2017, carbon fibre is key. Its earlier Apollo N model, which goes from 0–100km/h in three seconds, features carbon fibre body panels but has a tubular chrome molybdenum steel frame. By contrast, the entire chassis – central monocoque and front and rear sub-frames – of the new car will made from carbon fibre, says Norman Choi, CEO of Apollo Automobil. ‘This gives a lot of advantages in terms of rigidity and weight and increased flexibility in the design of the car,’ explained Choi.
‘An all carbon fibre chassis allows us to adopt more organic shapes, and create a tighter package that leads to better aerodynamics,’ adds Ryan Berris, Apollo’s General Manager for North America. In general, reducing the weight of cars is the simplest and most cost-effective way to create efficient automobiles that meet the legal requirements for road use.