JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #93 - December 2014 - 34

country guest of honour: Singapore

A composite body for EVA,
an electric taxi for Singapore

By
Sebastian Bender, Research Associate,
Raymond Khoo, Project Officer,
Stephan Schickram, Research Associate,
TUM CREATE Ltd.
Heong Wah Ng, Professor,
Nanyang Technological University
Markus Lienkamp, Professor,
Technische Universität München

UM CREATE is a collaboration
between the Technische Universität
München (TUM) and the Nanyang
Technological University (NTU) funded
by Singapore's National Research Foundation as part of the Campus for Research
Excellence And Technological Enterprise
(CREATE) programme. In Singapore,
TUM CREATE employs a team of
more than 100 scientists, engineers and
designers from over 20 countries. As a key

Fig. 1: The EVA electric taxi

EVA is an electric car specifically designed as a taxi for tropical megacities. It was designed, developed and manufactured
by TUM CREATE in Singapore. The vehicle structure is entirely made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP). The car's
development and fabrication is presented in this article.

output, EVA (Fig. 1) is the first electric
vehicle specifically designed as a taxi for
tropical megacities. Moreover, it is the
first car ever designed, developed and
manufactured in Singapore. The prototype
was first unveiled at the 43rd Tokyo Motor
Show in November 2013.

Significantly reduced
greenhouse emissions
The EVA project started in late 2011 with
the target to develop an electric taxi for
Singapore. In the city-state, taxis make up
for less than 3 % of the vehicle population,
but account for 15 % of the total distance
covered by all vehicles. Thus, the environmental impact of a single taxi is far greater
compared to a private passenger car. By
replacing the
current fuelbased taxis
with electricpowered
ones, this
leveraging
effect would
lead to a
significant
reduction
of both
greenhouse
emissions and
local noise.
In Singa-

34 jec composites magazine / No93 December 2014

pore, most taxis operate on a two-shift
rotation, covering an average of 520 km
over a 24-hour period. However, current
electric vehicles have a limited range
and long recharge times (up to 8 hours),
making them unsuitable for use as taxis.
This challenge was resolved by developing
a super-fast charging system that only
requires 15 minutes of recharging to cover
a realistic 200-km range based on the
Singaporean driving pattern, including
energy consumption by air conditioning
and auxiliaries. With this, taxi drivers can
quickly recharge during a short break. This
solution requires charging stations that can
provide 360 A at a voltage of 450 V [1].
In order to achieve the desired range
efficiently, the reduction of energy
consumption was the main development goal. The most sensitive parameter
determining energy consumption is the
vehicle's weight. Since a conventional
structure accounts for around 20% of an
electric vehicle's overall weight, using
lightweight materials such as CFRP
offers an attractive saving potential.
Selecting the right concept is important,
but eventually it is necessary to produce
it. In Singapore, there are companies
with experience in manufacturing large
composite structures, but no enterprises
are able to fabricate metal structures out
of high-performance materials with tight

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #93 - December 2014

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