Project

Increasing demands regarding safety and comfort have led to a significant increase in the weight of cars over recent decades. Today, medium-sized vehicles are almost twice as heavy as 20 years ago. Apart from high emission this development results in low ranges for electric vehicles, which presents a major obstacle in their establishment. In ENLIGHT, 22 European companies, universities and research institutes collaborate in developing novel technologies to reduce the weight of future electric vehicles. This is aimed to be achieved by combining innovative materials and processes in a new design, which will be based on a concept developed by Volkswagen in the European project ELVA. ENLIGHT aims to advance materials and technologies enabling both medium term application in premium/niche vehicles as well as longer term application in high volume EV (for introduction 2025). ENLIGHT is thus complementary to the European project ALIVE that focuses on material technologies closer to real industrial uptake. Five demonstrator modules of a future EV architecture will be developed, validating the performance of innovative materials in structurally demanding parts of the car. The demonstration and evaluation of the lightweight potential will be supported virtually with a full vehicle model.