Zenos Cars engaged Drive to design their first mid-engined, track-focused, road-going performance automotive, the E10, due to our experience designing for a startup automotive company. Built around a monocoque made out of recycled carbon fibre, the E10 was designed to embody Zenos’s brand values of belonging, thrill, and intelligence. Leading to a brand new British sports automotive brand.
The E10 concept marked the culmination of an intense design and development period. Drive and Zenos worked hand-in-hand to put down the muse for a “lightweight, reasonably priced, fun to drive” automotive, that fitted a brand new range of thrilling and accessible sports cars.
The corporate founders Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards, explained their unique market proposition and we extracted a couple of key words that will define their brand. Drive needed to create a design language that will embody all of their aspirations, for a very recent British sports automotive brand. The E10 can be a mid-engined, carbon fibre tubbed automotive priced at lower than £25,000.
A challenges in the course of the initial design process was achieving the fragile balance between a friendly, approachable look fitting the brand values, with an exciting, lightweight track day automotive. With affordability in mind, Drive wanted to spotlight the innovation of the carbon composite material and reflect the intelligence of the styling. The break up of panels, wings and tub allowing ease of production and lower repair costs in comparison with the only clam mouldings used on competitor products. Drive’s designers, working closely with engineers and composite manufacturers Shiny Lite Structures, developed the ultimate break down of parts and assemblies.
The close relationship between Drive and Zenos, and the openness of the management team were key to be certain that the design and business needs aligned at every stage of he project.
The general public’s response to the automotive’s design was measured by the 40 deposits taken from customers before that they had even seen it run. This justification of the product, only raised the pressure to deliver on their promise to have the production model ready for January 2015. Drive and Zenos launched right into a rapid production development phase sensitive to the incontrovertible fact that the automotive’s appearance couldn’t alter significantly, but taking the chance to tune the automotive’s character and balance.
This phase involved working with suppliers on feasibility whilst ensuring manufacturing costs were kept on course keeping to the marketing strategy and budget. The key of the E10’s affordability relative to its performance, is off-the-shelf Ford components engine, gearbox, and brakes. The modern composite tub made out of recycled carbon fibre that provides 70 per cent of the lightness and stiffness of pure carbon-fibre for a tenth of the associated fee.
The inside’s design, built around the best driving positon, the standard of the panels and fit needed to exceed what can be expected on the cars price point. This approach saw Zenos Cars has take greater than 110 deposits and a primary 12 months production run being roughly 70. For Zenos’s founders Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards, the E10 represents the culmination of a dream.For Drive Design, it provides a mobile showcase for its design strategies for startup corporations looking for the sort of collaborative, ground-up design approach that only Drive can deliver.
“Drive completely believed in and understood our vision right from the start. They committed themselves in every respect to developing the design of the E10, and helped us deliver a automotive that appears unbelievable, great handling and well engineered” Ansar Ali. The Zenos E10 project is the essence of what we do at Drive. We understand designing for a startup automotive company like Zenos. We help them take their idea through to production whilst understanding their business needs.
This Article First Appeared At www.drivedesign.co.uk
