Volvo Electric Powered Concept Sports Car and Volvo Replacement Parts
Posted by admin in Car Parts, Concept Car, Sport Car, Volvo on July 12, 2011
While major U.S. automakers are focusing on hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, Volvo took a different route, unveiling a sports car powered entirely with lithium-ion batteries. Volvo’s 3CC concept car, won “Best Design” and five Gold Standards at the recent Michelin Challenge Bibendum environmental competition in Shanghai, China.
“Not only does the 3CC combine classic Volvo styling cues with exotic gull-wing doors and a tapered, 2+1 seating configuration, but it does so with a highly advanced lithium-ion battery electric drive train. That’s a step apart from the crowd, which these days is largely focused on hybrid and fuel cell concepts,” says Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal.
“Just as the earlier ECC forwarded new thought in hybrid propulsion with its high-speed turbine-generator design,” adds Cogan, “today’s lithium-ion 3CC innovates with its thousands of smallish laptop computer-style batteries, which power this zero emission vehicle to impressive levels of efficiency and performance.”
Advanced research into sustainable mobility and Volvo engineers have placed particular focus on the conditions regulating safety in small cars and their ability to handle incoming forces in a frontal collision.
The unique aerodynamic styling of Volvo’s 3CC concept car allows room for a third seat in back. The unique ducktail design creates room for a third seat in the back, while the batteries are sandwiched into the floor panels. Read the rest of this entry »
Volvo Entertains DNA Evolution
Steve Mattin, Volvo’s new vice president and director for design, has a problem with old Volvos: there are so many of them. “There are millions of boxy ones out there,” said Mattin in an interview. “We want to move beyond the box.”
To step out of the boxy image, the automaker is entertaining a new design DNA. And Mattin intends to recast the visual cues of Volvo cars. “We want to evolve our design DNA,” he said. The Design DNA is a tag for the basic visual elements of cars. The DNA covers the look of a grille, the angle of a roof, and the contour of the taillights. The DNA makes a BMW a BMW. Ford DNA completes a Ford.
The design director aims to reach out to the young generation buyers and to a wider market for Volvo. “We want to pump up the visual volume,” Mattin said. At Volvo, Mattin is not expecting a dramatic change. After all, it was Peter Horbury, the director for North American design at Ford, who penned the automaker’s existing design cues in his earlier job as design director for Volvo. Rather, Mattin sees an evolution.
Mattin’s perspective of post-boxy Volvos is of more complex and sculptural shapes. The designer envisions more expressive and more extroverted cars. The idea is laid out in the XC60 crossover concept which was introduced at the North American International Auto Show. Read the rest of this entry »