Williams gets its skates on to develop electric vehicle platform

Formula One’s engineering philosophy, embodied in a platform for automotive manufacturers to develop electric vehicles, is also to help wind turbine manufacturers reduce the amount of expensive carbon fibre they currently waste in their production processes, according to Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE).

The offshoot of the F1 racing team dedicated to finding new applications for the expertise it has developed on the world’s motor-racing circuits over its 40 years of competition at the pinnacle of motorsport is currently seeking an automotive OEM partner to help it test its FW-EVX platform, but is already finding new commercial outlets for some of the production processes it had developed during the project.

The FW-EVX is a ‘skateboard’ configuration that is intended to form the chassis and drivetrain for a premium-level electric vehicle. Around 250mm thick, it houses battery packs and a four wheel-drive configuration system with two yokeless and segmented armature (YASA) electric motors driving the rear wheels through an Xtrac transmission, and one driving both front wheels through an Xtrac differential.