ACM City One
German startup Adaptive City Mobility (ACM) has developed a cheap electric car for the city called City One. The five-door subcompact hatchback was created in conjunction with the Canadian-Austrian Magna International, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of auto components. The car was initially designed taking into account the possibility of its large-scale production. A pre-production model of the City One will be presented at the beginning of September at the IAA-2021 in Munich.
ACM says that their development is primarily intended for corporate use – in car sharing, taxi or fast food delivery. For such types of business, it is desirable that company cars work non-stop, so the engineers endowed City One with an interesting feature – the batteries are divided into four easily removable battery packs and are installed in the trunk. At the same time, special mountings for two spare packs are provided on the roof. Thus, when the batteries are discharged, they can be replaced within a few minutes with pre-stored charged batteries, and the “emptied” cells can be sent for recharging as soon as possible. Thus, the loss of time for recharging is minimized.
City One has a frame-panel body structure with the supporting frame is welded from steel pipes and stamped elements, and the outer panels are molded from composites. The developers say that the focus of the project is on saving weight, because the lighter the structure, the higher the energy efficiency.
The design is purely functional, the exterior with its numerous stiffening ribs evokes associations with travel suitcases, and the interior has simple shapes and easily washable finishing materials.
The length, width and height of the ACM City One are 3600 mm, 1650 mm and 1670 mm, respectively, with a wheelbase of 2500 mm. The curb weight of the City One is 950 kg, the maximum speed is 110 km/h. The capacity of each of the four battery blocks is 2.5 kWh, weight is 10.5 kg, that is, the total capacity is 10 kWh, weight is 42 kg. On a single charge of four batteries, the car can travel up to 240 km, taking into account two spare elements – 360 km. The power of the electric motor on the rear axle is 25 kW (34 hp).
Usually startups try to classify their electric cars into the L7e class (heavy quadricycles) – this way certification and further operation are cheaper, but City One is a full-fledged M1 class passenger car.
The preliminary cost of the car is from 10,000 to 15,000 euros, depending on the configuration. ACM says it has already got 208,000 pre-orders for it. However, mass production of the City One will start in 2023.
