Trexa platform lets you develop your own damn electric vehicle!

"Are you one of those people who believes that, when it comes to developing an electric vehicle, you could out-think Th!nk, have keener karma than Fisker or more focus than Ford's EV effort? Perhaps you're just tired of waiting for a product that keeps getting re-designed and re-delayed. Well, now you can build your own damn vision of automotive perfection starting with the new lithium-powered all-wheel-drive platform from Trexa. Heck, given the scalable nature of this substructure, you can develop a whole range of vehicles! The team that brought us the EDrive plug-in Prius has taken that whole skateboard thing, combined it with the iPhone app concept and voila!, a blank mobile canvas awaiting your imagination."


http://green.autoblog.com/2010/01/20/trexa-platform-lets-you-develop-your-own-damn-electric-vehicle/

Imagine third-party designers creating hundreds of different fiberglas shells, from conservative to concept. Buy a few shells for your Trexa, and swap them out when you feel like it.

It is an inevitable consequence of advanced EV technology. Expect to be able to have a car assembled-to-order at the local dealer - it results in a dramatic reduction in shipping costs.


Thank you for the post.

All of the parts for assembly would have to be delivered to multiple outlets instead of a few central assembly facilities. I don't see any savings there.

That's why most things are built in factories.


The ad hominem comments aside, how do you see what is basically a decentralized custom assembly process costing less than factory production?

The drive platform is eventually going to be nearly universal - even between makers. You just ship a bunch of *stackable* drive platforms to the dealers and they order the *stackable* shells and *stackable* interior modules (picture a stack of bowls for example) to suit local demand - each element coming from a different factory.

Customer goes into the dealer (who has a showroom and a warehouse, no lot required) and selects exactly what they want. It is snapped together out back and rolled out.

I don't think anyone knows the actual numbers since the components don't exist, but designing around the concept is expected to result in significant increases in distribution efficiency.

Also recall that demand for ICE mechanics will decline significantly over the next generation as EVs penetrate the market. EV's will require far fewer repairs, and much less servicing and when they do break it is going to be much easier to diagnose the problem.

I'm asking how shipping parts to thousands of different facilities instead of dozens results in "lower shipping costs".

There's also a bit more to auto assembly than "snapping together" a bunch of parts. For example, I don't even know it it's possible to get crash test certification in your scenario...and I still don't see how decentralized assembly would be cheaper than centralized assembly. Whether in terms of equipment investment or man-hours, it's still cheaper to do a in a factory than at a multitude of different dealerships.

"I don't even know it it's possible to get crash test certification in your scenario" you wrote.

You *are* kidding, right? Do you know how a car or truck is built today? If you did, you wouldn't say that.

To put it simply just for you: modular construction doesn't require a large factory for final assembly. The only reason it isn't already being done is the complexity of the ICE compounded by the complexity of integrating the drive, steering and suspension systems. Once those are all in a single package such as you see in the photo; there is little more left to do; the rest just "snaps together" (for a visible example look at the bed of any pickup truck).

The EV drive train and systems are assembled in one factory in a flat compact package (see OP photo). The interior/comfort/convenience module is from a separate factory. The exterior shell is from yet another factory. The ICE can never be assembled in a way that allows for easier shipping than the final product.

When a large facility isn't required for final assembly, it is wasteful to create one just for that purpose.

I really don't care if you accept it or not, but the OP was predicted by the same line of thinking and it is here.

This is really interesting. We can have a car that is as unique as the owner.

By manufacturing a complete power system like this, they will enable small car manufacturers. A guy in Los Angeles, for example, could set up a company and build cars based on this platform. He doesn't have to build the powertrain or chassis...just the body and interior, etc. Now, that's a heckuva lot easier, and small production quantities could be profitable.

It's not a dealer thing...it's a small manufacturer thing. Although it's not completely applicable, the short-lived market for VW Bug-based vehicles was a minor industry in California. With the Bug, you just unbolted the body, tossed it, and you had a platform for your rebody design. Today, there would be safety-testing things, but that's all doable. No emissions requirements for an electric vehicle, so that cost is gone.

Could be a big deal that might start a new automotive industry in this country. A small, diversified industry, but an industry all the same.

Do you think there is a lot of body/interior design space that hasn't been explored, that people would love if somebody explored it? If I understand what you are saying, there is a sort of market size between "totally custom" and "traditional mass market" that might be profitably explored by smaller companies.

If that is true, what it means is there are unexplored body/interior designs that are both different enough from what you can buy currently, and popular enough for mid-sized production runs that a smaller company could produce and still make a profit.

(think iPod) and can get certification accommodated in some manner, there are many possibilities here. For the "range anxious" the idea could even be applied to internal combustion models.

You touched on a key point, MM, with jumpstarting the American automotive industry. A critical consideration is how intellectual property would apply - can just the specific platform be patented, or the entire concept of a modular automobile?

In the software world, people occasionally try to patent preposterously generic concepts. Occasionally these have been granted due to ignorance of computer science. It's better now than it was a couple decades ago, although google just received a patent on the map/reduce formalism for parallelization. I do not approve.

I assume it happens with other patents too. To the extent that I understand patent law, "modular auto" is not a valid patent.

The whole idea of building interesting cars on common platforms is an old one. People have been doing it for a long, long time. The Italians and British probably lead the way, with all those low-production cars built on Fiat, BMC, Rolls-Royce, and Triumph platforms back in the 60s and 70s. Those platforms all had frames with bolted-on bodies, so it was a no-brainer to do custom designs on them.

Unit construction ended that, pretty much, but platforms like the VW bug had so many custom body builders that it was sort of a joke for a while. There were other platforms, too that got the custom body treatment.

I really like this idea. I noticed, too that steering and braking on this Trexa platform are electronic, allowing for maximum flexibility.

It's the biggest obstacle to small manufacturers.

I don't see how you could crash test just the skateboard, you have to crash test the whole car, which gets very expensive.

crash protection is built into the chassis. You'd still have to design the air bag stuff and the rollover and side impact issues, but that's all pretty well understood these days. The chassis, though, is a huge part of all of it.

I used to have a kid's toy like that. They used C-batteries for power, had interchangeable bodies with a common chassis, and used plastic tracks with a slot car-style groove for steering. I bet you could still find some for sale on E-bay.

:dunce:

But seriously, I'm not slamming the idea. Sometimes the real deal follows what we used to take out of the toybox.

... the first thing I thought of when I saw the OP photo was
one of those toys that race along the carpet until they get
to a wall or other obstacle then they climb up it, topple
over backwards and set off again in the other direction!
:-)

Be that as it may, I think the concept of this vehicle base
is a great move and wish them the best of luck. Hope we get
them over here sometime!

:hi: