29 Evice Rolls-Royce Corniche | Dossier A simple, classic steering wheel, for example, that’s just unbeatable.” Focus has been placed on ensuring new elements are very safely integrated, however, and Pearson says: “Our front battery fits within a lot of structure designed to make it safe, but this also adds stiffness to the front of the car. The same with the rear battery, motor and power electronics assembly – it’s all adding stiffness and structure to the rear. “We also work to the UN ECE R100 regulations in terms of how far away from the front and rear points of the car the batteries can be, so we keep them out of the initial part of the crash zones. And, of course, we keep all of our cabling, both high- and low-voltage wiring, clear of anything that would snag it and cause an issue.” Continuous refinement Evice’s first prototype car, the R001 Silver Shadow, will begin road-testing in the New Year, and the company plans to test and evolve the vehicle over the course of the next 18 months. A second prototype, with upgraded systems, is waiting in the wings for 2025, with the first production car sold and planned for delivery in the second half of 2026. The first prototypes are already quite advanced, but still only in the middle of their development journeys. Improvements in all areas – mechanical, electrical and software – are already in development, with the interior finish, software and noise, vibration and harshness characteristics seeing significant ongoing development. This relatively slow timeline is purposefully planned, says Pearson. “We’ve got an ever-growing list of interested people, but the real differentiator of what we’re doing is that we’re building the company around showing people what we’ve done, rather than trying to sell cars on a promise of what we’re going to do. “That’s why we’ve invested a lot of time and money into building these first two cars – the camouflage-wrapped, experimental prototype, which we chose to call Marshall, and the validation prototype, which we call Elvis, which is a beautifully restored, repainted, left-handdrive Rolls-Royce Corniche drophead. “Elvis is a painted, rolling chassis, currently in our workshop, next to our first car. It’s currently hidden from all marketing content, and we’ll be launching the specification of that car in February next year. That’s going to take all the technology we’re developing now and will be version two of that technology, so we think it’s going to have a hell of an impact.” Both cars are owned entirely by the company, as opposed to being built for customers. This is because the founding trio feel it is vitally important to keep the development of their technology, processes and techniques detached from customer timelines and demands. This is to ensure every element is in place once they are ready to move from constructing their own prototypes to constructing cars on a commercial basis. “We need to do that to develop great technology and great cars,” Pearson adds. “We nail it, we get it right, then we build cars for customers. We’ve got a Corniche fixed-head coupe planned as our first customer car and we’re in the process of sourcing the donor for that, so we should be starting the restoration in early 2025.” With the initial build of R001 now complete, the team is eager to E-Mobility Engineering | January/February 2025 The lines of the classic Corniche and Silver Shadow are unmistakable Elvis is a painted, rolling chassis, currently in our workshop, next to our first car… we think it’s going to have a hell of an impact
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mzk4