Concept Exploration of Urban Mobility Vehicle

Abstract

Cities are striving to enhance their sustainability by changing their infrastructure. These can be dealt with promoting more sustainable modes of transport. In the current era of BEV’s, the size and weight of the vehicle increases whereas the infrastructure of the cities has never changed. This is where C40, A global network which has a clear mission to create an urban life that is organised so that people can access all the services they need within their immediate vicinity, and where it’s easy for people to walk or bike to work and to nearby stores. (C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Inc, 2023). The aim of this thesis is to create a lightweight micro mobility platform which supports the urban cities that helps in creating a sustainable urban environment. One of the possible solutions for an urban mobility concept is Narrow tilting vehicle (NTV) which is the focus of this thesis. This concept involves understanding the principles of narrow tilting vehicles and investigating the possibilities for using this for the future mobility alternative for BEV’s. Our concept of narrow tilting vehicle is to make use of the bike lanes in the cities for shorter commuting distances with a possibility to transport small goods. The theory explains the principles behind narrow tilting vehicles and the components that are needed for this vehicle. The methodology used it the product development process by Ulrich and Eppinger. This product is developed by requirements that are given by Volvo Cars, where the master thesis was developed. Concepts were generated and the best fitting is created as a virtual prototype and a LEGO prototype. Calculations for the tilting mechanism were done and what we found is a hydraulic system needs to be created to allow tilting for this vehicle. This being an electrical vehicle the energy consumption had to be evaluated therefore a drive cycle was created to calculate the theoretical range of the vehicle. The final concept is presented as a virtual model. In conclusion, a concept for a NTV was developed with the main focus being on the tilting mechanism. However future work should aim towards improving the design, enhancing safety aspects, reducing energy consumption, and evaluating market interest and acceptance of NTV:s on bike lanes