WILLIAMS ADVANCED ENGINEERING
2019, but what’s being achieved is world’s apart
as a result of iterative improvement. We’re set
for a long period of this. We’re currently able
to get around 200 miles 321km from lithiumion,
so we’ve only got to double that for people
to be happy with range, and if we keep going
at 5-6% a year improvements we’ll get there.
Tell us about the Aston Martin Rapide E
project – what were the goals and most
interesting aspects?
The Aston Martin Rapide E is the pinnacle
of what we’re doing here. Aston Martin was
energized to get an electrifi cation project out
and we were speaking to them about four years
ago when Formula E was starting and we were
pushing our credentials for high-performance
electrifi cation. The fi rst project we did with
them was the one-off demonstrator, which was
done in short space of time, just nine weeks.
The objective was to create enthusiasm
among their shareholders and potential
customers. We used some existing technology
we had at the time to deliver it quickly
and it went down well. It then
evolved into the full program,
where the real engineering job
started. We had to have the electric drivetrain
mimic the drivetrain of the ICE version of the
Rapide in respect to the dynamics, weight and
structural strength, as changing the body of
the current car would have been very
expensive. This is was a challenge, which is
why we ended up with a carbon fi ber solution.
For a specialist limited edition car this is fi ne,
but it wouldn’t work for mass market.
What about the Triumph TE-1 project?
How di erent is it working on an
electric motorcycle?
The challenges for us there is trying to make
a lightweight and compact battery pack and
trying to work out what are the trade-off s in
terms of liquid cooling or air cooling, and how
to make it very robust especially for an
unprotected structure of a motorbike.
92 // July 2019 // www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com
We see electric motorcycles and urban mobility bikes as
a growing sector, which is focused not just on performance
but utility. This is the next step up from the Brompton
e-bike, which we worked on, and I know a couple of
manufacturers are looking at this. There’s a great diversity
to where electrifi cation can take you but at the root of it
you’re dealing with the same problems each time, which
is how are you going to fi t the battery into it, what’s the
best chemistry, the controller, its safety and how you get
it through regulations.
Does WAE, or the EV industry as a whole
struggle to recruit skilled engineers?
For Williams, the brand certainly helps us recruit but in
terms of skills you can’t buy lots of experience in this fi eld,
that’s the reality of it. You have to bring in people relatively
young with some experience from a variety of diff erent
sectors, not just automotive, and they learn with us. There’s
no doubt we are seeing a bigger demand for chemists,
mechanical engineers and electrical engineers, particularly
the latter due to the control aspects of the batteries.
We’re employing more electrical engineers that
traditionally would be seen at a major OEM, who have more
mechanical engineers.
What’s next for WAE?
We’re just embarking on the Extreme E race series, there’s
more motorsport work, as well as other secret projects on
going for fully electric supercar and hypercars. But our
electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility Hyperbat
is the ultimate end point of this journey. Hyperbat was
created because we recognized that, in the market, if you
are an OEM of low-volume and need somebody to buy a
battery off , we could provide this. We secured Aston Martin
as a lead customer for it, but we also think there is a big
potential for big OEMs who want to do sporty, low-volume
derivative models.
We want to be both an engineering solutions provider
and a component supplier. We’ll supply batteries, BMS
systems, software to manage batteries etc. We’ve also setup
the Williams Foresight Technology Fund to work with
startup companies, which has bought in £40m US$50m of
funds to be invested in companies. Not just electrifi cation
companies but any good idea such as the fridge aerofoil.
We take innovation whether its electrifi cation,
lightweighting, aerodynamics, and get that out to the
industry with the theme of better energy e ciency and
better use of natural resources.
5. The Williams
Adavanced Engineering
team at the Goodwood
Festival of Speed with one
of its Singer Porsche 911s
6. WAE developed the
battery system used by all
Formula E teams for the
fi rst four seasons
5
6
/www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com