XponentialWorks teams up with Arcimoto to lightweight the suspension of its Fun Utility Vehicle, boosting performance and overall ride quality
Beverly Hills, CA, Tuesday, January 21, 2020 – XponentialWorks, a venture, innovation and advisory company reinventing additive manufacturing, today announced a project with Arcimoto, Inc.®, (NASDAQ: FUV) to design and fabricate lightweighted components for Arcimoto’s Fun Utility Vehicle® (FUV®), with the goal of reducing cost, improving performance, efficiency, and making the vehicle even more environmentally friendly.
If successful, the new parts may take the place of heavier, regularly manufactured parts and may enable Arcimoto’s electric vehicles to drive farther distances on a single charge, improve acceleration, and deliver better handling – all while parts costs are reduced during production. The lightweighted designs were made using artificial intelligence and computer generated design by ParaMatters.
ParaMatters’ unique technology was used to redesign and fabricate new parts with geometries that mimic natural structure, patented by nature, to add a level of performance and sustainability that is unparalleled – from energy savings to material usage and beyond.
Lightweighted parts include:
Rear swing arm: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 34%
Knuckle: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 36%
Upper control arm: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 52%
Brake pedal: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 49%
“We are very excited to work with Arcimoto to leverage our technological know-how to make this incredible vehicle even more outstanding,” said XponentialWorks founder Avi Reichental. “The entire redesign, from concept to parts, took only four weeks, further demonstrating how 3D printing technology is completely changing how we design and manufacture products.”
“We are thrilled to open Arcimoto’s ultra-efficient vehicle platform to XponentialWorks’ team of lightweighting and additive manufacturing experts,” said Arcimoto CEO Mark Frohnmayer. “Our mission to rightsize the footprint of daily mobility means a continued commitment to optimizing not just the vehicle platform architecture, but all of its constituent parts as well. The speed at which the XponentialWorks team has made meaningful weight improvements to core components of the Fun Utility Vehicle is truly impressive.”
“With the powerful combination of AI-generated designs and ultra-fast 3D printing processes, we are now able to create complex geometric structures which substantially lightweight vehicles, improve performance, lower production costs and save on battery power. We welcome this opportunity with Arcimoto to provide their drivers with the best possible in-vehicle experience,” said Reichental. “In this new age of industry 4.0 manufacturing, no one company can do it all alone. This project demonstrates the power of curating relationships and building joint innovation programs that pool together resources and expertise from complementary organizations to create practical tractable products in record time.”
The Technology Behind the Lightweighting: Design and 3D Printing
ParaMatters’s CogniCAD software uses AI to create designs with engineers by simply entering design goals and materials parameters. The AI can explore nearly infinite design permutations based on the design concept, and provide an optimal solution to lightweight parts. CogniCAD can also automatically combine all the different parts into one homogeneous assembly instead of creating multiple parts that need to be manufactured – a time consuming activity that also leads to heavier components. Arcimoto FUV’s lightweighted parts can then be 3D printed to produce the final product.
About XponentialWorks
XponentialWorks built a unique ecosystem that unites the forces of early-stage companies with the experience and deep market knowledge of mature companies. Leveraging its innovation labs campus in Ventura, California, XponentialWorks curates, invests in and guides the growth of some of tomorrow’s most promising category makers and serves as the innovation and transformation arm of mid-market companies. Learn more at www.xponentialworks.com/.
About Arcimoto, Inc.
Headquartered and manufactured in Eugene, Oregon, Arcimoto, Inc. (NASDAQ: FUV) is devising new technologies and patterns of mobility that together raise the bar for environmental efficiency, footprint and affordability. Available for pre-order today, Arcimoto’s Fun Utility Vehicle, Rapid Responder, and Deliverator are some of the lightest, most affordable, and most appropriate electric vehicles suitable for everyday transport. For more information, please visit www.arcimoto.com.
Safe Harbor / Forward-Looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements that express our intentions, beliefs, expectations, strategies, predictions or any other statements relating to our future activities or other future events or conditions. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our business based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict and include, without limitation, our expectations as to the success of any lightweighting of materials projects, efficiency gains; and making FUVs increasingly affordable. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may, and are likely to, differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to numerous factors discussed from time to time in documents which we file with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and except as may be required under applicable securities laws, we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Source: XponentialWorks
