I VOLVO CELL
CONCEPT

2016 - 2017 MASTER THESIS HOCHSCHULE PFORZHEIM
SPONSORED PROJECT BY VOLVO

This content excludes certain part of full project.
Following contents are property of Han.L & Volvo cars.

Prologue

Chapter I
Thesis Index 0-11

META:
MORPHOSIS

According to ‘theory of evolution’, most of the species, not only humans, are evolving to adapt to the environment. And just like we are, the history of cars is also alive, which has been evolving for the past 130 years ago. This is such a huge leap, considering human beings have evolved from 100,000 years ago. If you look at the angle arrangement of the History of the car on the left side, we can figure out that the car is developed into stair steps not straight. When a new generation is born and settled, it keeps developing until another next one is coming. When new technology emerged, sometimes social effect had been affecting entire architecture of the car to be changed.

Angle arrangement of Autos (p. 9)
#1 Prologue :

EXPANDING RANGE OF
DISTANCE / USE

In terms of the transporting service business like sharing car, it will be inevitable to compete with other existing transportation such as coach, train, even airplane and hotel as the working range of the car is going to be far increased, Car sharing should have their own advantage to being used compare with another transportation since other transportations will also be developed in their way. However, although this risk, autonomous and sharing car also have several advantages which the other transportation doesn’t. So finding and developing reason for customer to use this service, efficiency of transportation system and consideration for enviroenment will be the point to develop. How can we maximise and develop this value?

Angle arrangement of Autos (p. 10)
#1 Prologue :

META:
BOLISM

OUR CITIES TODAY:

From cities to megacities to gigacities More than half of the world’s population already lives in cities today. And the urbanization trend continues: in 2030, it will be two-thirds. Most of these urban areas will be located in the developed countries of Northern America (82 % of total population), Latin America and the Caribbean (80 %) as well as Europe (73 %). While vast parts of Africa and Asia are still mostly rural, their cities are among the fastest growing in the world. An increasing number of urban areas are exceeding 10 million inhabitants. We call them megacities. Urbanisation is progressing ever faster. A new category of urban agglomeration has emerged: gigacities. These would be supercities of more than 50 million inhabitants, an almost unimaginable number. And yet gigacities may soon become reality in China. The Chinese government is reportedly planning to connect multiple cities in five integrated urban conurbations which would together be home to half a billion people by 2020. If these ambitious plans are realized, there will be four urban areas in China each with more inhabitants than the whole of Germany. Greater Shanghai could in theory contain more than 170 million inhabitants by 2020. This extreme concentration of people is causing big challenges, particularly in the area of sustainable development. According to the UN, the world’s cities only cover 2 % of global land area, but they account for 70 % of greenhouse-gas emissions.

WHAT IF :

Meanwhile, the current cities, especially mega cities, are sufferring from many negative problems such as traffic jam, air pollution, lack of parking places, etc.
what happens if we get metabolism trouble in our body? blood will stuck in vein, cells will produce too much toxic, and eventually get ill in the end. It is not a first time to try to solve traffic trouble in the mega city. From reducing the number of cars to developing traffic control system, a lot of attempts are still on going and coming out. yet it seems we couldn’t find out fundamental solution because the speed of reducing the number of cars and car emission cannot catch up with the speed of the increasing number of human beings and demands.

After 3th Inducitrial revolution, Average quality of product had been highly improven that many of manufaturer already reached ablility to produce high quality product. So the point which makes premium In 4th Industrial revolution era will be something else. Simply put premium means the best at that moment. Imagine the hotel or first class service. space, food what they offer is not the best thing in the world, and the space you can afford is not owned but shared. We think those are luxury because those are best thing you can afford AT MOMENT. What is the best premium you can have in the car? Which kind of service and contents passenger can have? How can we develop Volvo sharing car in Volvo way?

Research

Chapter 2
Thesis index 12-24

RIGHT INGREDIENTS FOR RIGHT RECIPE

: Equal benefit
Equal benefit, Equal premiumness

Lets think about Apple I phone. Would there be anyone Iphone SE is not premium? I assume not. it is obviousely chaper version of 5S, but why people think it is still reasonable choice?
My humble guess is that its because they still can get equal benefit. both are based on same OS, are able to purchase software equally, but it has just smaller and bit slower hardware.
In this sense, would it be a smart idea to just make small car chaper and large care premium like most of current car manufacturuers do? In order to convince people to let use both car, I believe we should offer them a equal software and hardware to offer euqal benefit, except the size or speed of car. But since we can not make everything pricy, we can choose what to be shared.

1 ≠ 2
1 + 1 = 2

Short distance / Long distance module
with equal benefit

: VELSATILE SPACE

ROTATING SEAT & INTERIOR
:SAFE / BETTER INGRESS & EGRESS
:VELSATILE LAYOUT

Limited point at the car interior is that space has limited space unless we produce more than 7Meter spaceship cars.
So we should design and use those limited space wisely. So I imagine cylinder cabin & revolving interior to have versatile layout, by roating door and seat together, customer can have all different position and atmosphere at its use.

: SPACE & HEIGHT MATTERS
- More space
Equal benefit, Equal premiumness

-HIGH
Better Ingress / Egress
Offering relaxed space

-LONG WHEEL BASE
more interior space
AI drivetrain : no steering problem

-CUSTOMER ORIENTED
Wide range of user, usage

Think typical package layout plan for present cars. compare with rear seat, the ergonomics of driver seat is much more complex to organize. driver should take a proper and precise position to steer handle, step the pedal, shifting the gears easily, and look forward.
Thses days modern car has very nice package plan for driving but probably it is not most comfortable ergonomics for human. But, do we need to keep this layout and shape for autonomous cars?
Imagine designing lounge-layout autonomous car over present layout.(left) then we got a serious collision problem on front passenger to have face to face layout. Since its fast- dropping front glass and nose, it is impossible to have lounge-layout unless car is 7m long.
Instead, what kind of layout we can imagine?
If you don’t need to drive and have nothing to do in the car, what would you like to do? I would imagine to seat around inside of the car and have a great time with my family or friend, just like when we are being at our livingroom. and most of customer would be pleased, if they don’t need to drive anymore.
So we need very space effective interior layout and generous height to have pleasant space for Shared autonomous car.
Maybe Van styling could be a perfect layout but since its cliche of present use, it’s hard to convince customer to take it as a premium passenger car by its look. Isn’t there any possibility to have flexible and velsatile interior layout for shared-autonomous car?

HIGHER , MORE SPACE

YEEES I KNOW,
BOX IS THE MOST EFFICIENT SHAPE.. BUT?

:Non-box EXTERIOR

YES, box is the most effieient sculpture everyone easily digest.
So far, probably the ideal geometry for Self-driving car. But is toaster only the answer for our future?
As a person who is investigating future and obligaged to, I would like to discover another potented architecture still realistic even if it might be provocative.

: Better Ingress & Egress

WHAT SHARING NEEDS
: SANITARY

What makes people most to hesitate share a car? mong many concerns sanitary might be one of problem. how can we improve it to be more welcomed? Inspired by rolling towel, I imangined a seat which revolves its skin after it is being used. until seat welcomes next passenger, skin slides into the backplate where vaccum and UV lights are installed underneath till next passenger can seat on fresh surface.

PATENTED*

EXPANDING RANGE OF CUSTOMERS

Autonomous technology will let everyone can drive a car. what does it means? Children, senior person, handicapped, even bilnd people will be able to drive a car. Urban mobility market in the autonomous era will be explode by those new customer.
Thus, Design will orient more to those new customers.

: DRIVETRAIN FOR AI
: QUADRATIC DRIECTION
OMNI WHEEL

Would Artificial Intelligence need current steering drivetrain?
Human logic to drive a car is very linear. we get confused when sterring comes quadratic movement. its because we got used to walk towards front, with front vision.
But unlikely AI does’t think like human being. information which AI is receiving is 3D grid data, meaning in full autonomous level, driven by AI, Its more practial to make all-wheel steering for Artificial Intelligence.
Until full autonomous level driving system is being archived, front-wheel steering will last as long as car is driven by human. but at level 5, when only AI drive us, we can imagine what is better design for AI. it could be 4 wheel steering, or even Omni wheel.

IMAGINE FUTURE MANUFACTURING
:INTEGRATED BATTERY
(ALL SOLID STATE)

Volvo Battery Pouch Bootlid The notion of shaped batteries has also been explored by Volvo. Working together with academic research partners, it formed cells into the shape of existing body panels for an experimental S80 saloon, revealed in 2013. Their approach sandwiched thin battery pouches between layers of moulded carbonfibre. Though a far-sighted approach, bodywork batteries are not yet a practical proposition for a real-world vehicle.