Improvement of crash behavior in a light urban electric vehicle

Urban-EV applies innovative manufacturing technologies and materials to produce a 2-seat urban electric
vehicle with enhanced range: 150km. Attending to weight and power targets, the vehicle is classified as L7e,
heavy quadricycle. The aim of the project is to design and test urban electric vehicles with crash behavior similar
to conventional vehicles. The crash configurations considered for the design include both the ones in the
Regulation and also the ones done by Euro NCAP. For achieving this target new materials and processes and
also innovative joining processes have been optimized. The result is a very light multi-material structure that
includes innovative solutions for energy absorption based on the use of low cost structural thermoplastic
components. The paper includes the description of the structure optimization process and also of the restrain
system that presents specific characteristics to be adapted to this kind of vehicles.