Cutting-edge Renault Filante concept hopes to break EV efficiency records - Related to might, bird, make, school, 13

Cutting-edge Renault Filante concept hopes to break EV efficiency records

The new Renault Filante Record 2025 concept is a racy, aerodynamically-sculpted piece of rolling electric lab equipment designed to push the envelope of energy efficiency and set new records for power consumption and range.

Built around the same 87 kWh li-ion battery as the Renault Scenic E-Tech electric car, the Renault Filante Record 2025 is a single-seat technology demonstrator that uses minimalist design engineering and lightweight, composite materials to bring its weight down to an impressive 1000 kg – a number made even more impressive when you realize that fully 600 kg of that mass comes from the battery!

“We designed this vehicle as a sculpture in motion. Inspired by fighter planes and the speed records of the nineteenth century,” says Sandeep Bhambra, Director of Advanced Design, Renault and Ampere. “(The concept) reflects both performance and timeless elegance. Every inch of the surface was crafted to capture the light and showcase the body lines, which appear to melt into the air. The blue windows and colour palette further underline this light and airy impression. The design as a whole seeks to convey an impression of flow and lightness.”.

Record-setting 40 CV des records; via Renault.

Inspired by the 1926 Renault 40 CV des records, which set a number of speed records at the track in Montlhéry, France, between 1924 and 1926, the Renault Filante Record 2025 concept capabilities a special new “Ultraviolet Blue” paint that flops between blue and purple, depending on the viewing angle. The paint serves to give the the impression of movement, even when it’s sitting still.

Renault says the final design was a collaborative effort between the stylists and aerodynamicists and meant to invoke the same sense of newness and speed as the now 100-year-old 40 CV des records. Adding to that “vibe” are bespoke, 3d-printed parts, unique friction-reducing prototype tires, and both steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire technologies that are expected to make their way into the next generation of Renault EVs.

The concept will be on display at this year’s Rétromobile motor show in Paris from February 5th through the 9th, before real-world test sessions and the hunt for a new efficiency record begins in earnest in Q2 of this year.

Renault – and, by extension, the Renault Group – has been making steady progress on both the electrification and autonomous vehicle fronts for years, even logging several million miles on its deployed fleet of electric semi trucks. So while it’s easy to dismiss the asserts made to hype up concept cars (which are, by definition, marketing exercises), it seems just as easy to underestimate Renault and its ability to drive at least parts of its concepts to production.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Renault, The Originals; via Electrive.

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Glades County schools deploy 13 new Blue Bird electric school buses

Florida students will be breathing a bit easier this year thanks to the deployment of 13 new Blue Bird electric school buses — some of which will be replacing diesel buses that have been service for over twenty years!

The students at the Glades County school district will directly benefit from the cleaner, quieter rides, and operational cost savings that electric school buses provide, of course. The killer app as far as students are concerned, however, will be the addition of much-needed air conditioning in the new school buses. Until now, only three buses in the district provided air conditioning, leaving most Glades County students to endure daily, sweaty rides on sticky brown vinyl in the intense Florida heat (that’s right, gang, most school buses in Florida do not have AC — source: native Floridian).

For the kids riding those Blue Bird buses, and for the school bus drivers themselves, these buses are a massive upgrade. “We’re excited to celebrate the arrival of 13 new electric school buses in Glades County,” revealed Dr. Beth Barfield, Superintendent of Glades County School District. “These state-of-the-art buses represent a significant advancement for our district, offering students a much more comfortable transportation experience in the extreme Florida heat. This milestone is a chance to bring our community together and recognize the teamwork and dedication that brought this project to life.”.

Blue Bird (Nasdaq: BLBD) is the only [website] and operated school bus manufacturer in the United States, and delivered its 2,000th electric school bus to Clark County School District (CCSD) in Nevada last August, and has continued to deliver both vehicles and solid stock performance even as other HD EV brands like Lion Electric and Nikola flounder.

As for how much the district will save with the new fleet, other school districts have reported paying a mere 19 cents per mile in energy costs for electric buses compared to fuel costs of up to 79 cents per mile for their diesel counterparts, as well as superior extreme hot- and cold-weather performance compared to diesel.

Electric school buses charging; via Blue Bird.

Even with all the uncertainty surrounding the federal Clean School Bus Program, the number of incentives out there to help electrify school districts is still huge, and a number of regional utility programs (like ComEd’s BE Plan in Chicago) are offering six figure rebates to help reduce harmful, surface level air pollution among school-aged kids – one of the most vulnerable populations.

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Honda's radical new EVs might help it make better Accords

Honda Ohio EV Hub will start making EVs in late 2025 on 0 Series platform.

Production will include Acura RSX, Honda 0 SUV, Honda 0 Saloon, and Afeela 1.

EVs, hybrids, and gas models will be mixed on single Marysville assembly line.

Processes introduced for EVs will apply to ICE models, making them improved too.

Over the past several years, a roller coaster of EV supply and market demand, with an about-face of regulatory moves, created a new kind of challenge for full-line automakers—about how deeply and how soon to commit to dedicated EV plants.

Honda continues to target 100% electric vehicle sales by 2040, and to have “zero environmental impact” by 2050. It’s previously projected 40% EV sales in North America by 2030. Meanwhile hybrids add up to 50% of [website] Honda Accord sales, and in recent months Honda has admitted that it’s hard to predict the trajectory of where the mix will be on the way to fully electric.

To reconcile all this, it’s prepared by committing to a new template for making both EVs and gasoline models, all on the same production line. This sea change in how it makes vehicles could keep its oldest [website] assembly plant, its Marysville, Ohio, facility that opened in 1982, humming at capacity, no matter what the market presents.

As Honda confirmed last April, Marysville will truly get the automaker to the point of EV mass production in North America, with a big asterisk. It has the capability to make hundreds of EVs per day, or many hundreds of gasoline models—depending on demand.

Marysville is one of four facilities set to make up what Honda is calling its Ohio EV Hub—including the Anna Engine Plant and East Liberty Auto Plant, all within 50 miles of each other, and a joint-venture battery plant between Honda and LG Energy solution in nearby Jeffersonville, Ohio. Battery plant aside, Honda says it encompasses more than a $1 billion investment in the three facilities, in redesigning the manufacturing process around being able to make ICE, hybrid, and EV models all on the same production line.

The investment in the Ohio facilities marks the global debut of changes in the way it builds vehicles, with expertise set to be shared across North America. And, , it’s aiming to set a global standard for Honda EV production.

Acura Performance EV concept - RSX Honda 0 SUV prototype Honda 0 Saloon prototype.

Honda is set to start electric vehicle production in late 2025 at the Ohio EV Hub, beginning with the Acura RSX EV. Honda-branded EVs based on the Honda 0 SUV and Honda 0 Saloon prototypes will arrive soon after, both in 2026.

That’s three models. There will also be a fourth model set to ramp up around the same time as those two Honda models: the Afeela 1, the Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) product of a joint venture between Sony and Honda. SHM confirmed last month at CES in Las Vegas that deliveries of the $89,900 Afeela 1 will start in mid-2026.

Honda EVs, hybrids, and gas models, on the same line.

At Marysville last week, Green Car Reports got to see this great change underway. Honda opted to combine its two assembly lines into a single flexible assembly plant concept. The project has been three years in the making behind the scenes, and Honda introduced the project specific to the plant in March 2023.

The plant previously made the Acura Integra and TLX on one line, while the Accord was made on the other. Without interrupting the production flow (and temporarily moving Accord production at one point), that involved a series of transitions, with the added space allowing a much wider line, with a new sub-assembly strategy allowing for processes that EVs require and gas models don’t—and vice versa.

Mike Fischer, the leader for Honda’s North American EV project, explained to GCR that this transformation of Ohio facilities is probably the single most crucial foundation for Honda manufacturing, moving forward, because it presents how Honda can maintain not just production flexibility but flexibility in how it keeps engineering and designing its vehicles. BEV and ICE vehicles can remain optimized for their respective strengths, and neither one will be hobbled for it on the manufacturing floor.

Honda is keeping the overall build time exactly the same after the line change, , who led the production launch of the 2013 Accord, which required some changes at the plant due to its extensive engineering changes like a strut layout, CVT automatic, and available hybrid versions. The upcoming BEV models and their subassemblies will take “a little bit” more build time than the current Accord, he noted, adding that there’s still opportunity for optimization and it should be the same or maybe a little less.

Meanwhile, it’s picking up the pace on that one line such that total output from the plant could potentially reach the previous peak production of about 950 vehicles a day, or an annual capacity of 220,000 from two lines.

It was no easy task. The upcoming EVs, which we previewed in October with a Honda 0 Series prototype drive, are set to have very little in common with Honda’s gasoline vehicles, and they’re going to be fundamentally different for many years. Honda has no plans to merge body structures or vehicle platforms among its gasoline and hybrid models.

Honda seeding the future in with its bread and butter.

From the concept-car proportions to the next-gen Asimo OS interface, to all-new switchgear and displays, to the calibration needs of their Level 3 automated driving system, and everything underneath, it’s seriously hard to find commonalities. While the Accord’s structure is primarily steel, the EVs will be built on an aluminum-focused body structure, with the aluminum battery pack an integral piece. They were designed with different priorities—so as to have short overhangs and efficient cabins, with the force paths designed with no allowance for an engine in front, eliminating the need for high cowl crossmembers and sending force paths to thick side rails.

So it created a series of sub-assembly lines that could handle all the differences in the way an EV is assembled versus the way a gasoline or hybrid vehicle is assembled—and widened the way for those sub-assemblies and for parts and components to get through.

Honda had to upgrade its vehicle carriers for heavier EVs, redesigned its people-movers along the line for more effective ergonomics, and had to devise robots that would apply thermal gap filler to the pack on the vehicle line. It also had to design a process for battery pack assembly itself—including the installation of cells from the nearby Honda-LG battery plant—and for battery pack installation into the vehicle (below).

For the body structures of the new EVs, Honda is switching to a CDC weld technology—a world first, employing pulses rather than a constant current to help make a lighter, stronger structure. If you expect fireworks of sparks at welding stations, it feels uneventful.

Honda Accords going through inspection - Marysville OH.

ICE and hybrid vehicles pass through the EV battery pack area without stopping, while EVs may pass through some of the steps for elements like exhaust and fuel-system installation without stopping. Honda calls it “multi-platform flexibility.” And to keep the rate of Accord Hybrid production running strong, Honda also created a new area for hybrid battery assembly.

LG pouch cells fill the modules that get installed into the EVs’ battery packs on the Marysville line, as we saw demonstrated, but Honda hasn’t yet confirmed the battery capacity. The pack is kept thin by Honda’s unusual and innovative cooling strategy—with water jackets machined into the pack case itself, allowing super-thin channels of coolant to circulate between that and a jacket cover that fits over it.

Honda 0 Series battery case - quenching after casting Honda 0 Series battery pack Friction stir welding of Honda 0 Series battery case halves.

Honda’s engine plant pivots to packs—and maybe motors.

Meanwhile, the packs themselves are set to be made less than an hour’s drive away, at Honda’s Anna Engine Plant, where it’s taking on a similar challenge: manufacturing some of the key components for the 0 Series’ battery pack and powertrain without interrupting its throughput for the range of engines—including Atkinson-cycle four-cylinders for the Accord Hybrid.

Honda has made about 30 million engines at Anna, and it has the production capacity to make more than 4,800 of them per day. Electric motors for the EVs, engineered by Honda but built by captive supplier Hitachi Astemo at present, are likely to be brought into Anna eventually, executives unveiled.

With six 31-foot-tall, 6,000-pound die-cast machines at Anna, Honda will “megacast” the battery-pack cases set to go into EVs at both Marysville and East Liberty. As Honda underscores, it’s larger than anything it’s ever die-cast.

Megacasting uses less energy than gigacasting, and the die-cast process reduces scrap, eliminates the need for heat treating, and enables Honda to shift the energy used in the process from gas to electricity—reducing the CO2 footprint.

In Honda’s EVs, the pack is split into a front and rear section, with a friction stir welding process—strongly joining the two pieces without melting—bonding the “butt joint” between the two sections.

Prior to machining, to make sure the cases, which serve as part of the structure of the EVs, are dimensionally in check—and, given the shape, that it’s stayed flat—Honda has put to use a new “photogrammery” method potentially employing more than 100 cameras that rapidly take a series of photos of the part, reconciling all the recorded geometries.

Honda Accord Hybrid component assembly - Marysville, Ohio.

Higher-quality Hondas all around from revamp.

As Fischer suggested from an engineering standpoint, the meticulous look at how vehicles are being built, that went into this project, meant more than EVs on the same line plus updated machines and new robotics. It will benefit future gasoline, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles in a multitude of ways.

Tim Leopold, the BEV project lead for the Marysville plant, expressed that it’s brought in more of a “big data” approach to production starting with the EV Hub remake, that extends to EVs and gasoline models alike. It brought in a layered quality approach that’s so extensive it connects everything from the torque feedback of the tools used to tighten bolts to things like the dimensional accuracy of the bodies and how components fit together.

“We can either trace or track it with data, and control it to the point of an interlock where that particular unit won’t be able to pass downstream unless we get a system saying, it’s okay, I’ve received good data,” explained Leopold. “We’re using the EVs as an opportunity for change, but at the same time that change is going to help the ICE or hybrid counterpart, which is pretty exciting.”.

Honda 0 Series prototype and battery pack marriage - Ohio EV Hub.

Leopold introduced that Marysville is only about a month away from making so-called “trial production” versions of the first EVs, after which—with lots of analysis along the way—it will go through multiple iterations over the next 10 to 11 months leading to mass production.

This market-dependent, flexible, lift-all-boats approach is a necessary piece for remaining competitive over the next 12 to 15 years. Some of the way there it may simply become a question of when to retire the gasoline models. We aren't there yet.

Now it’s a matter of proving the idea out in real-world manufacturing—a project that the team behind it feels very confident in taking around the globe.

“I can translate this, shift it to any of our manufacturing body plant operations,” noted Fischer. “How to do ICE, hybrid, and BEV in general, together…It created the perfect storm for us to be able to do this at two facilities from the start, and then it will go wider.”.

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