► What’s next for Gordon Murray?
► Recycle coffee pods?
► It’s called Project M-LighteEn
Coffee pods. Jean-Phillipe Launberg has carrier bags full of them in his office at the Gordon Murray Group. They will be recycled and used in the lightweight supercar prototype that’s being created for 2027 by a multi-company project he’s leading.
He’s serious: ‘We’ve been using virgin aluminium [in Gordon Murray Automotive cars], because that’s the strongest you can get. But something that started at Innovate UK has been progressing, using consumer scrap. In my office I have something like 80kg of Nespresso pods. I’m going to make a full vehicle structure using those!
‘We have all the aluminium we need in the UK – we need to re-use it. So let’s turn recycled consumer scrap into an aluminium that’s actually stronger and better than the virgin one we use today.’
It won’t be easy. After all, just about everything Gordon Murray has put his name to over his many decades as a boundary-pushing F1 and road-car engineer is already ultra-light.
But then again, Murray surrounds himself with kindred spirits who aim very high. If anyone can do it, they can. In 2027, a prototype supercar built around a new monocoque will be demonstrated at a proving ground, showcasing various lightweight and sustainable materials and techniques. After that, the learnings from the project could spread far and wide.
Innovation is never-ending within the Murray operation. ‘Sometimes it’s for the market and sometimes it’s for ourselves, but we have to find ways to continue pushing the boundaries.
‘For our types of cars, which do very low mileage on average, a lot of the environmental impact is not in the usage phase but in the manufacturing phase. There’s a lot of carbon in carbonfibre. And if you were to make it electric, although there’s no tailpipe emissions the lifecycle impact is high if you don’t keep it as light as possible.
‘So we’re using materials which have already been used before, and looking at how to minimise the use of carbonfibre at the design stage, and minimising waste in the production processes.’
The consortium working on Project M-LighteEn, led by the Gordon Murray Group, also involves composites specialist Carbon ThreeSixty, aluminium experts Constellium and metallurgists at London’s Brunel University.
With AI playing a big part in the development work, the targets are ambitious: 25 per cent lighter than a comparable chassis today, 50 per cent greener, and using 80 per cent recycled ultra-high-strength aluminium. (The project name is a contraction of monocoque, lightweight and low energy, fact fans.)
Funded by the government-backed Innovate UK and the Advanced Propulsion Centre (a non-profit organisation that helps find and allocate R&D funding), the project will lead to the creation of 160 new jobs and around £150 million of economic activity, if all goes well. They’re building digital and physical prototype monocoques.
‘We have low volumes and we are willing to experiment. We are innovators and early adopters, and then it can be used in higher volumes across the industry in different applications,’ says Launberg.
‘No one will say “I’ll make 500,000 vehicles a year” if it’s the first one. It might hurt your bottom line. The large OEMs are more conservative. Everyone likes to be the second, not the first,’ says Launberg.
‘In this project we will design a supercar structure, because we will be the first ones to use the solution. That’s what we have in our hearts and what we know how to do best. The project will deliver a supercar structure that’s validated in the lab and validated in manufacturing as well. We are not developing a future model, but future models will be based on this work, drawing on these learnings.’
But the big win comes if and when those learnings spread into the wider industry.
‘The solutions are totally powertrain agnostic. Whether you’re carrying a battery pack or a V12 or a three-cylinder mild hybrid, it’s up to the OEM.’
Colin is the managing editor of CAR magazine – and the man responsible for production and getting the words and pictures on to the page in an engaging, intelligent and high-quality fashion.
By Colin Overland
CAR's managing editor: wordsmith, critic, purveyor of fine captions