BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, mesmerised the Indian audience by showcasing its ‘Smart Forvision’ concept car at the Indo-German Urban Mela, held in New Delhi on October 26, 2012. The BASF wonder product complemented perfectly the theme of festival, which is 'Sustainable Urbanisation.'
The company has taken electric mobility to a never before seen level, and has developed the Smart Forvision concept in collaboration with the German automobile multinational conglomerate, Daimler. According to BASF, its latest concept vehicle incorporates cutting-edge design and engineering coupled with futuristic innovation in the areas of temperature management, lightweight design and energy efficiency.
BASF's world class material and system proficiency along with Daimler's automotive competence have been put to a great end result, in the guise of Smart Forvision. The state-of-the-art vehicle flaunts numerous technology driven attributes providing a glimpse of sustainable and comprehensive electric mobility of the future. The research and designing brains behind the Smart Forvision concept have trimmed it with a plethora of futuristic materials, with most of them being still in laboratory stages, while some having a great potential of entering commercial production. The Smart Forvision concept was first introduced to the world wide audience at the 2011 edition of the International Motor Show in Frankfurt.
BASF is the world's leading supplier of chemical based products to the automobile industry and pledges itself towards coming up with pioneering sustainable and environmentally friendly mobility solutions. The company continues to dedicate its resources towards the development of energy efficient mobility solutions for the future. BASF joined hands with Daimler, in order to amalgamate their technological advances for creating a futuristic features laden concept vehicle, which is adept at offering definitive solutions capable of overcoming the challenges of future. Further, the Smart Forvision electric vehicle has been incorporated with Transparent organic solar cells, all-plastic wheels, transparent organic light-emitting diodes, infrared-reflective films and coatings along with new lightweight body components, thereby enabling it towards achieving reduced energy consumption, besides augmenting its range and expedience.
The coming of age materials and cutting-edge technologies entail the concept vehicles with better energy conservation and generation opportunities. The differential increase in abilities results in superior energy efficiency and performance of the electric vehicles. Evidently, the magnificently engineered Smart Forvision comes laced with state-of-the-art energy friendly attributes, such as power generating solar cells developed on organic chemical dyes mounted on its roof. In addition to that, the car features energy conserving Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) on the roof covered with solar cells. These breakthrough attributes make the Smart Forvision concept vehicle, a worthy environment friendly product, while its features laden roof is its absolute design and engineering highlight.
Sustainable production and utilisation of the power in driving a car has been a major challenge in progress towards the continuing development of electric mobility projects. Evidently, electric mobility's USP is its impact in avoiding climate change, while providing protection to the environment as most of the energy required for its running is highly efficient and produces minimum CO2 footprint. To accomplish the scenario commercially and for exploiting the most out of renewable resources, BASF is working towards generating electricity from non conventional sources like solar and wind power.
BASF is a strong advocate of producing multifunctional and lightweight vehicles. Evidently, lightweight electric vehicles require lesser energy for driving them, besides their range and practical usage purpose are also augmented as compared to relatively heavy counterparts. The company believes it can play a big hand in reducing the net weight of electric vehicles, which is one of the prominent challenges towards achieving comprehensive electric mobility solutions in the future. Lightweight design utilisation provides similar stability and functionality as compared to using heavy metal components along with composite plastic materials. Further, the net weight of the electric vehicles can be significantly curtailed by using fibre-reinforced plastics over the much traditional load bearing components, like in case of chassis. Interestingly, the Smart Forvision has been laced with the first ever all-plastic wheels suitable for series production, devised from the new high performance material Ultramid® Structure, specifically developed by BASF. Reportedly, the material can be regarded as stable as a metal that comes handy towards reducing the net weight of the electric vehicle by up to 30 per cent.
The heating and air conditioning components installed in vehicles can be regarded as one of the major consumers of energy. According to BASF, the amount of energy required for heating or cooling of the vehicle's interior can be intelligently reduced and sourced. To achieve the purpose, BASF has developed a comprehensive and modern temperature management system, which utilises state-of-the-art materials like polymer films in windows to reflect thermal radiation and other similar high performance insulating materials.
The Smart Forvision concept vehicle incorporates especially developed futuristic technologies from the chemical industry that have been scientifically utilised for building a unique, modern mobility concept with a distinctive design. Reportedly, the chemical and automotive sectors are working closely towards producing affordable, secure and environment friendly electric vehicles. Accordingly, both Daimler and BASF have created the perfect set up for the future mobility solutions with the Smart Forvision electric vehicle, which boasts off uninhibited electric mobility, energy efficiency and highly sustainable energy usage.
