Swedish electric car company Uniti has named KW Special Projects (KWSP) as the official engineering partner for its new electric vehicle program, Uniti One. The agreement will see KWSP’s unique carbon composite vehicle platform exploited for the vehicle build. The TopCat carbon composite chassis vehicle platform was chosen for its lightweighting, thermal management and structural advantages.
TopCat can be developed at a lower cost than traditional methods, and offers an alternative to more conventional carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) thermosets, traditionally seen in motorsport programs. TopCat is fully recyclable and has been proved to shorten engineering cycle times by 83%. Independent tests have also demonstrated financial savings in tooling and unit costs when TopCat has been used as an alternative to other methods.
Built through modular construction, utilizing a repeatable manufacturing process, TopCat uses thermoplastic materials and innovative manufacturing processes to meet the need for reduced vehicle mass and increased modularity of manufacture, driven by a rapid rise in adoption of new-energy vehicles. The Uniti One will be produced at the UK’s first fully digitized electric vehicle production site at Silverstone Park.
“Uniti One is a really exciting project that will demonstrate the lightweight and structural advantages of TopCat when compared with alternative methods of chassis design and manufacture,” says Kieron Salter, managing director at KWSP. “Made possible by co-funding from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, TopCat was key to attracting Uniti to the UK, where the company hopes to take advantage of Britain’s expertise in materials development and lightweighting.”
