Aspiring OEMs – Page 447 – I wish I had more to offer

Much Loved British Sports Car Brand TVR Returns

Revered British sports car brand TVR is to make a welcome return to Britain after its owner, Russian businessman Nikolai Smolensky, agreed to sell the brand rights and all other assets to a syndicate of British investors.

The syndicate, incorporated as ‘TVR Automotive Ltd.’, now owns all TVR’s IP including its global trademarks, patents and designs. Also included in the sale were the entirety of TVR’s physical assets, including engines, chassis, jigs, body parts and spares, together with large amounts of historical documentation in both hard and soft copy formats.

Commenting on the acquisition, Chairman of TVR Automotive Les Edgar said, “It’s a tremendously exciting day and superb news for TVR enthusiasts and owners at home and abroad. Having lamented the demise of the famous Blackpool-based company, lovers of British sports cars everywhere now have something to celebrate. TVR is back where it belongs.”

Reflecting on the process of landing the brand back in Britain, the investors have put on record their thanks to Nikolai Smolensky for clearing the way for the acquisition and sincerely appreciate the cooperation received.

For his part, Mr. Smolensky added, “I am pleased to see TVR returning to its home country and, along with all sports car fans, look forward to what’s coming next. I’m confident TVR Automotive will do a great job.”

Les Edgar continued, “Our intention is to build new TVRs in the best traditions of the much loved classics. Planning is well under way for all-new cars, but we also intend to support the existing TVR community. Owners, enthusiasts and specialist engineering firms have kept the thunder rumbling these past few years and we’re looking forward to meeting and building great relationships with everyone.”

TVR Helps Establish TVR Parts Ltd

In order to help guarantee both quality and continuity of supply of TVR Genuine Parts, and to give customers confidence in the source of those Parts, TVR is pleased to announce the launch of TVR Parts Limited as part of an exclusive worldwide agreement.

Recognising the demand for genuine spares amongst trade and owners alike, TVR has spent many months working on the recently launched TVR Genuine Parts initiative. In tandem, and to guarantee the ongoing availability of original and carefully remanufactured parts well into the future, TVR has decided to assist in the setting up of a single distribution source – ‘TVR Parts Limited’.

Newly incorporated this summer, TVR Parts is fully licensed by TVR as the exclusive supplier of TVR Genuine Parts worldwide. Since none of the old licences or parts distribution agreements remain in force, things in future will be nice and simple. From now on, if you’re after a TVR Genuine Part then the sole source will be TVR Parts.

TVR Parts is already operational, and there are plans for further expansion of its services and facilities, including a new 12,000 sq.ft. warehouse. Furthermore, the plans are to increase the range of stock held over the coming months and years, growing to over 250,000 parts from some 5,000 line items always being available.

TVR has also granted TVR Parts access to its archives including the factory’s comprehensive databases of models and part numbers going back decades, so ensuring a solid knowledge base and future support for the TVR community.

You can read more about TVR Parts and browse the available stock at www.tvr-parts.com, where you can also set up an account and order online.

Replacement Chassis & Suspension Parts – Available Now

We are pleased to announce that Richard Thorpe of RT Racing has joined the ever expanding Network of TVR approved specialists and is confirmed as the sole approved supplier for replacement TVR chassis and suspension parts, all of which are now available via TVR Parts Ltd. In addition to the more general servicing and support requirements provided, Richard and his team have many years experience of producing high quality accurate parts and continue to support the many restorations and repairs that Heritage TVR owners demand to keep their vehicles in good safe running order. Whether you’re looking for a sectional repair piece, a replacement wishbone, or a full replacement chassis, look no further than RT Racing and TVR Parts Ltd for genuine approved components and maintain your vehicle’s provenance and originality whilst improving its longevity over original factory finish.

Visit TVR-Parts.com or call them to discuss your requirements – the only approved supplier of genuine TVR parts worldwide.

Apply for Certificate of Conformity online

We continue to receive a steady stream of requests for CoCs (Certificates of Conformity) from individual TVR owners around the world.

Usually we can help supply the Official information needed and we’ll always try extremely hard to help people satisfy the various requirements imposed by different countries.

Those interested in our Conformity service can now use our online form to get started with their request. We may need to come back with further questions, but receipt of a fully completed online form will go a long way towards helping things get off to a flying start. The form can be found here, on our website.

Existing TVR owners, your assistance is requested

Do you own a TVR? Is it a clean and generally unmodified example as the factory would have supplied? If the answer is yes then we would welcome you to make contact as we will be arranging a professional photoshoot to bolster the TVR graphic archives for some exciting future projects and your car could be the star!

Multiple photos will be taken of each vehicle involved, together with the recording of additional details, including possibly some video and this material will form a key part of a future presentation.

More details will follow but if you wish to be considered to take part, please contact us at heritage@tvr.co.uk marking the subject field with “Heritage Photoshoot” followed by your TVR variant (for example, “Heritage Photoshoot – Sagaris” or “Heritage Photoshoot – Cerbera”) and please also include a colour image of your car within the email. (A JPEG of at least 640 x 480 resolution is preferred.)

We wish to cover all variants of TVR, so please don’t be shy. Once we have a large enough field of applicants we will provide and request more details by return.

“Engineered with Daimler Group” DENZA 400 EV Makes Debut in Auto Shanghai

Shanghai, April 19, 2017—The 17th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (Auto Shanghai) will be held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) on April 19-28th, 2017. At the exhibition, Shenzhen DENZA New Energy Automotive Co., Ltd. (DENZA Auto) will debut the DENZA 400 EV at the 4.1 Exhibition Hall. In sync with this debut,… Continue reading “Engineered with Daimler Group” DENZA 400 EV Makes Debut in Auto Shanghai

When cars and solar energy meet

Lex Hoefsloot — Co-Founder

Energy is the ability to do work. It is the reason why we have progressed into a highly prosperous society within 200 years. Energy veteran Gregg Maryniak showed me this graph that puts the whole story into perspective. Looking at this timescale, it suddenly becomes clear that fossil fuels are just a blip in history. In a very short time, fossil fuels gave us prosperity and the ability to accelerate all aspects of human development. Sadly, we all know that these energy sources came with a dark-side. We will inevitably switch to a new energy source.

Fossil fuels are just a blip in history. source

Despite the fact that this ‘blip’ is associated with massive amounts of energy, scientists are in fact quite certain that we can produce the same amount of energy using solar and wind power. Isn’t it fascinating how we are heading towards a future in which we can produce many times more energy using solar and wind power than mother nature has been ca..

Lightyear wins €100 000 in Postcode Lottery Green Challenge

Martijn Lammers — Co-Founder

We have joined the finalists on stage at the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge. The four other finalists came from all over the world to pitch their companies in front of an international jury (http://www.greenchallenge.info/info/juries). Lightyear will use the 100,000 euro cash prize to accelerate the development of their first car, the Lightyear One. Several preliminary rounds preceded the finals. Out of a total of over 500 companies the five finalists remained.

“All the problems we have had with zero emissions vehicles, those belong to the past now.” – Lex Hoefsloot, CEO of Lightyear during his pitch at the Green Challenge finals.

On June 29, 2017 the Dutch startup Lightyear officially announced their plans to bring a commercial solar car to the market in 2019. The first vehicle, the Lightyear One, is an electric four-wheel drive car that can handle rough terrain and has a battery range of 800 kilometers, charged by the sun. Production of th..

Lightyear Investor Cafe: this is only the beginning

Martijn Lammers — Co-Founder

We have held our first Investor Cafe.

During this evening we presented our plans to a select group of people from our network. We informed them on what we are doing and what our plans are for the near future. We would like to thank all attendants, especially our ambassadors Camilla van den Boom, Maarten Steinbuch and Ton Backx.

Goals
The goal for this evening was to slowly start putting our mission out in the world and get valuable feedback on our plans & story. Mobilising our network to help us has proved a good strategy to test our plans against a larger group of interested people of various backgrounds. It is extremely motivating to see a growing group of people interested. Their feedback gives us a clear overview of what parts of our plans to focus on. We do this to continuously keep learning and improving.

First investors
Attendants of the investor cafe got the first, exclusive, opportunity to be among the first investors in Lightyear. To..

FAQ: How does a solar car work?

Arjo van der Ham — Co-Founder

A solar car is a car that uses the sun as its main source of energy. You might know some experimental solar cars from the World Solar Challenge, a biannual 3000 km challenge through the deserts of Australia.

The first known long distance solar car is The Quiet Achiever. Built by the brothers Larry and Garry Perkins, this car crossed the Australian continent from west to east in 1982. It reached an average speed of 23 km/h. Over the years, battery and solar technology have improved. A lot. In 2013 the World Solar Challenge introduced the Cruiser class for more practical family cars. Today the technology is at an adequate level to start the development of commercial solar cars.

How do solar cars work?
At its core, a solar car is an electric car – one with an unlimited, free and wireless power source which it takes anywhere it goes. Basically, a solar car consists of a solar panel, a battery and one or more electric motors. All these parts are co..