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Xing Mobility Is Leveraging Its Modular Batteries For Electric Vehicle Retrofits

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Published on October 1st, 2018 |

by Kyle Field

Xing Mobility Is Leveraging Its Modular Batteries For Electric Vehicle Retrofits

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October 1st, 2018 by Kyle Field

As the curtain is pulled back, the inner workings are exposed. What once was a lobby, suitable for the average passer by to see is no longer, as the gears and wires, batteries and motors that bring the machines inside to life are exposed. In an instant, it became clear that Xing Mobility (think “ZING”) is anything but a battery company. Xing invited CleanTechnica to its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, to chat with its top brass and to take a peak behind the curtain.

Fueled by innovation
Xing is a company that brings things to life. A company that energizes, powers, and tames the wild beast. In this case, in the back corner of the workshop that would be more at home in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein than in an automotive factory, lies the stripped bones of the beast that lives in a perpetual state of evolution.

She’s called ‘Miss R’ and is the third in a line of a revolutionary racing vehicles that started off, of all things, with an internal combustion engine. That’s not a topic we frequent around these parts but as it turns out, the original dino-powered race vehicle was quickly followed by her much faster electrified progeny.

Xing Mobility was founded as a racing company. Not long thereafter, Azizi Tucker came on board fresh off of a stint at none other than Tesla Motors, and as you might expect, he joined Xing with a bias towards electrified powertrains. His passion for electrified powertrains led to the second generation of its race car being fueled with electrons and propelled by a set of electric motors.

Change is the only constant
At Xing, change is the only constant. As it built up its second generation vehicle, the company designed a battery pack that was flexible, as it had to be to keep up with the ever-evolving designs at Xing. Change was the price of entry, as it’s in their blood. The same can be said of the powertrain, as Xing upgraded its design from an internal combustion-powered car to one powered by a much smaller and much more efficient electric motor.

The conversion filled the veins of the team at Xing Mobility with a passion for improvement which paired well with the skillful young engineers they staffed up with as Xing grew. In the mad scientist’s lab that is the Xing Mobility headquarters, it is clear that this passion continues to fuel them today. In one corner of the lab, a Xing engineer preps a battery pack for its own destruction as Xing continues to validate the safety of its industry-leading immersion cooling battery tech.

The core of Xing’s business model is indeed its battery modules, but Xing is not a battery company. It is a full service emobility company that has been hard at work defining the building blocks of electric vehicles. Imagine you’re a tractor company and you want to build electric tractors, but the company you normally buy motors and transmissions from doesn’t have any options for you, so you call up the team at Xing.

Xing Mobility is the realization of a dream that CEO Royce YC Hong and CTO Azizi Tucker shared. They met at a TEDx Taipei conference and their mutual angst to do, to create, to start seemed to have a carry-on effect that grew and grew until before they knew it, they were partnering to bring their dreams to life through Xing Mobility.

Sitting big and bold at the center of the Xing Mobility logo is an oversized X. They believe that the X is the crossroads. That’s where things meet up, where things are encountered. Where people meet and where symbiotic ideas are joined together. Xing is an intersection, a crossing. It’s the place where they are bringing together an impressive team of engineers that share a passion for building the next generation of electric vehicles.

Xing Mobility electric delivery van retrofit prototype. Image credit: Kyle Field

More than that, the company is creating, testing and making production ready all of the disparate parts of an electric powertrain. Xing knows electric powertrains. That’s what it does. The team specializes in solving problems, especially when those problems are related to powertrains, electric motors, battery control units, vehicle control units, and all the little bits and bytes that bring the total system to life.

Modular Batteries = Endless Configurations
At the core of its system is its battery modules which, as the name implies, are truly modular. It’s not just that they can bolt together, but that they were designed to be bolted together. It’s much like Lego in the sense that they were designed to literally stack on top of each other or to be bolted onto each other to form a battery pack.

The multi-layered, variable configuration battery packs that Xing builds utilize a revolutionary immersion cooling technology that takes a unique non-conductive fire resistant liquid developed by the chemistry geeks over at 3M to replace the aging Halon fire systems. The new solution, called Novec, is also great at dissipating heat and acts as a fire retardant.

Flexible Components
On top of the modular battery pack, Xing has built a set of electric vehicle components including its own homegrown torque vectoring gearbox that dynamically optimizes the power output to all wheels in the vehicle, which maximizes the amount of power expended that is actually translated into forward motion.

Xing has also built up competency in electric motors, battery management systems, cabling, and all of the other components that are required to retrofit or build up the powertrain of an electric vehicle from the ground up.

To validate its approach, Xing is, in addition to working with numerous partners on in-flight projects, retrofitting a delivery van of its own. The process is being performed to get more intimate, hands-on experience with retrofits to allow them to more rapidly deploy retrofit kits for specific platforms. Delivery vehicles, with their low mileage per day, low average speeds in urban environments, and high impact on urban air quality make for great targets to retrofit to electric.

Retrofitting internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicle battery and powertrain kits is a much more resource efficient method of converting fleets and privately owned vehicles to electric. Xing is working to capitalize on this simple fact with an early push into the retrofit space, leveraging its mastery of modular batteries and durable, high performing electric vehicle propulsion systems.

A Veritable Electric Vehicle Laboratory
In the single day I spent at Xing Mobility’s office and workshop in Taipei, Taiwan, the company was working on electrifying a concrete moving vehicle for the construction industry, an autonomous personal electric vehicle, new PCBs for its battery management system, an upgrade to its infamous electric supercar Miss R, and a variety of other projects.

From this long list of projects in progress, you might expect that it employs a team of dozens or hundreds of engineers, but the reality is that they are only a handful of highly motivated, highly trained engineers, pushing the envelope for what electric vehicles might be. What they can be. Xing Mobility has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the electric vehicle retrofit space and is leveraging Taiwan’s impressively diverse and localized supply chain to get there.

The Future
What immediately became clear when talking with Royce and Azizi about Xing Mobility is that Xing is not just a showy battery company, nor is it an electric supercar company. They aspire to do much more with the technologies they have built today as they continue to build competency in electric vehicle retrofits, one project at a time.

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About the Author

Kyle Field I'm a tech geek passionately in search of actionable ways to reduce the negative impact my life has on the planet, save money and reduce stress. Live intentionally, make conscious decisions, love more, act responsibly, play. The more you know, the less you need. TSLA investor. Tesla referral code: http://ts.la/kyle623

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smart forease: As uncompromising and fresh as the brand

28.

September 2018

Stuttgart/Paris

Stuttgart/Paris. smart celebrates its 20 anniversary at the Paris Motor Show (4 to 14 October) with a show car that interprets and embodies urban driving fun in a refreshing way. The smart forease is extroverted and offers an uncomplicated solution for urban mobility. Seated under the open sky, the driver is at the centre of the hustle and bustle of the city, in which, thanks to the electric drive, they can freely participate. The openness and minimalistic style are a tribute to the pioneering smart concept vehicles “crossblade” (2001) and “forspeed” (2011).
Everyone knows that smart is practical. That smart is cool will be made clear to visitors at the Paris Motor Show by the smart forease show car. Reduced to the essential, it is uncompromisingly open, pays no heed to convention and is, of course, powered by an electric powertrain. It takes up the original motto of smart, reduce to the max, with a twinkle in its eye, standing for the authentic urban mobility that continues to be the underlying concept behind the brand.
Both the smart brand and the smart forease stand for emotionality, lifestyle and attitude. The vehicle owes its unconventional beauty to the opening of the interior to its environment, the absence of a roof and the shorter windscreen. With its radiant, dramatic metallic-white and colour accents in “stream green”, the smart forease promises a carefree driving experience, freed from convention, yet in harmony with its surroundings.
“The smart forease embodies a refreshingly simple form of driving fun in the city, standing for urban electric mobility without compromise – because, if in doubt, smart always opts for a consistent approach. The result is a sustainable driving experience built on freedom,” says Katrin Adt, new Head of smart from October.
“The smart forease is proof that smart thinks unconventionally. Its design is reduced and pure,” says Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer, Daimler AG. “The smart forease is a statement of urbanity and individual style. It has the coolness of the metropolis and demonstrates a truly free spirit.”
The design: uncompromisingly open based on the smart EQ fortwo cabrio
The designers bring the smart brand aesthetic to life with the smart forease, creating a light-heartedness that results from the unconventional approach typical of smart (ease by being unconventional): unconventional beauty, lightness and energy (energizing lightness) are achieved by reduction to the essential (clever reduction).
Like the concept vehicles “crossblade” (2001) and “forspeed” (2011) before it, the smart forease pays no heed to the convention that a car generally has a roof. It is open to the sun's rays and the wind, allowing its passengers to enjoy a liberated and pure driving experience. The shorter windscreen offers little resistance to the headwind.
The smart forease cleverly focuses on what is essential for urban driving enjoyment. Its manoeuvrability and relaxed openness exert a liberating and invigorating effect on the occupants. Safety comes courtesy of the two domes behind the seats.
The door handles, which are seamlessly recessed in the door, make for an elegant touch. The smart forease has a paint finish in effect-rich metallic-white. This offers a subtle contrast with the matt-silver Tridion cell and the brilliant “stream green” accents both inside and outside. Some of these are instantly noticeable, such as the contrasting green decorative seams on the upholstery, the green border around the media interface and the “stream green” contrast surfaces on the sides of the seats. Others become apparent at second glance from certain angles, such as the green honeycomb look inside the air vents plus further details on the headlamps and wheels.
The open vehicle concept produces a link between exterior and interior, the entire play of colour being at all times in evidence. The interior therefore contributes to the exterior impact of the vehicle. This is also reflected in technical details in the interior. A particular feature is the two round displays in place of centre air vents in the instrument panel – as if there were not already enough fresh air! The displays can be used, for example, to present content from the “ready to” app, which allows the driver to share their smart with friends or to monitor its functions. The speakers of the audio system, which provide a perfect sound for listening to music or making phone calls, are visibly integrated in the rear wall of the cockpit, emphasising the car's cool, playful character.
The smart forease is based on the standard-production smart EQ fortwo cabrio and can therefore be driven. It is a tribute to the two earlier concept vehicles crossblade (2001) and forspeed (2011).
It also affords a preview of the electric future of the smart brand. smart is the first automotive brand with its sights set on a systematic switch from the combustion engine to the electric drive: since 2017, smart has been selling only electric vehicles in the USA, Canada and Norway. From 2020, it will be marketing only battery-electric cars in Europe, too. The rest of the World is due to follow soon after. The smart forease makes it clear that electric cars for use in the city will be anything but boring.
2002: smart crossblade for total openness
This is an area where only few concept vehicles have succeeded: unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 2001, the “Crossblade” show car met with such an overwhelming response that smart decided to go into series production with it. From 2002, a small batch of 2000 units was characterised by total openness. The smart crossblade had no doors, roof or windscreen. Its driver was able to drive through the countryside under open skies with the wind in their face for an incomparable driving experience. A narrow, tinted wind deflector, extending across the cockpit area, was all there was to counteract the headwind.
2011: smart forspeed is open and electric
Ten years after the crossblade, smart unveiled another open concept vehicle. The smart forspeed was not intended for series production, but as a radical forerunner of the smart electric drive, which was to come out just a few months later. The forspeed combined contemporary urban mobility with the typical smart fun factor. With no roof or side windows, the two-seater featured a low-profile wind deflector instead of a windscreen in the style of a classic propeller aircraft. The result was an incomparable fresh air experience. Further driving pleasure was guaranteed by the responsive, further-developed electric drive with boost function.
Further information about smart is available online: http://www.media.daimler.com/, https://media.mercedes-benz.com and http://www.smart.com/

Press Contact

Ariane Fiedler

Manager International smart Communications

ariane.fiedler@daimler.com

Tel: +49 711 17-75924

Fax: –

Willem Spelten

Head of international Brand & smart Product Communications

willem.spelten@daimler.com

Tel: +49 (0)711 17-75847

Fax: +49 (0)711 17-79099473

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