Matt Prior: Snow idea for an automotive brainwave Car News

Autocar’s annual Drivers of Change initiative is a great company to promote talent in the industry. I’m probably contractually obligated to say it, but I also honestly believe it.

In short, if you come up with an idea that would benefit and improve the auto industry, you could earn £ 5,000, and maybe more opportunities will follow. This year’s deadline is September 24, and more details can be found on Autocar’s website.

Last year, to help promote the initiative, some Autocar staff were invited to come up with their own ideas. So during the peak of Lockdown v1.0, I put on some pants and walked over to my hangar to record an idea on video.

And I thought everything was fine, you know. An engineering company should design a flexible (not like this) electric vehicle architecture, similar to a skateboard, I decided, with a battery between the wheels, a widely adjustable double wishbone suspension all around, the coating efficiency option, up to 70%, one motor in the front, rear or both, inverters everywhere and mounting points for a body frame above.

Then it would be sold in any length or width, regardless of battery and motor size requested, to bodybuilders and niche manufacturers, who would then create cars around it. Everything from a rear-wheel-drive long-range luxury coupe to a short-range 4WD open beach buggy could be spawned from the same platform. And that would save niche manufacturers the expense and effort of creating all of the hardware themselves. It would be like going to Ford and buying an engine and a transmission, but more.

I had no idea that at that time precisely, something similar – PACES – was being developed in the UK by the Watt Electric Vehicle Company.

Either way, I feel so blessed with this kind of success that while I wasn’t asked for an idea to promote this year’s contest, Special Envoy James Disdale and I did. met the other day. There you go: the snow globe knob.

I know. I’m not going to pretend it’s anything other than mid-England fantasy. But you know how when December rolls around you head to the attic to knock down a load of lights and garlands for your house? Well, are you doing something for your car?

What if you could unscrew its button and put on a new one? Maybe it could contain a scene featuring a model of your car, maybe pulled by a reindeer, and every time you move the stick or the car itself shakes (which is pretty much all of the time). time), the globe would be submerged in glorious festive snow.