Geely-backed LEVC have a new Space-Optimised Architecture (SOA) to build vehicles with.
Years before Geely entered the global spotlight with the purchase of Volvo Car, the company rescued the iconic London Taxi Corporation and helped it transition to electric vehicles. Today, a sizeable number of London cabs are fully electric thanks to Geely funding and technology. In fact, the London Taxi Corporation is now known as the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) and is ready to take the next step – to provide all sorts of e-mobility solutions in urban areas.
For this next phase in the company’s trajectory, LEVC will be using a newly-developed Space-Oriented Architecture that is fully electric, co-developed with Geely. LEVC claims this will be the first EV platform to be focused on maximising interior space. It will, of course, be fully-modular with support for front, rear and all-wheel drive layouts. The interior can be configured for passenger carrying or cargo loading capabilities. The platform can serve a huge range of vehicle sizes:
- length: 4860mm – 5995mm
- width: 1945mm – 1998mm
- wheelbase: 3000mm – 3800mm
Like most skateboard platforms, the SOA has its battery pack housed in the floor for maximum interior space. Powertrain components are mostly packaged at the front with an innovative rear suspension design for better carrying capacity behind the rear axle. Being an e-mobility-focused company, their architecture is designed for maximum access with low step-in heights for ease of ingress and egress. This is something most EV platforms still struggle with as battery packs raise floors quite a bit on most EVs. The platform is so spacious that it will be able to fit an additional row of seats versus rivals of a similar size. All seat rows sit on a sliding track that runs the length of the architecture.
The SOA was developed by Geely in facilities around the world, including Sweden, China, the UK and Germany. It was engineered for maximum crash structure performance and energy absorption and should theoretically achieve five-star safety standards in Europe and China given its current construction. The platform is also designed to have high torsional stiffness for better handling and refinement too.
SOA can be configured to take 73kWh batteries at its smallest and 120kWh batteries at its largest given current battery cell chemistry. With that size, a theoretical maximum range of 695km is possible, which means a lot to the e-mobility and public transport industry, where minimal downtimes are highly valuable.
SOA vehicles will feature a new digital platform developed by Geely and ECARX called L-OS. This uses a new electronic architecture from chip to cloud, providing autonomous capability and intelligent cockpit experiences. L-OS allows up to Level 4 autonomous drive capability. We wonder what sort of vehicles LEVC are dreaming up and if they’re building them for their own use or to start selling to other European taxi and e-mobility providers.
