Smart Bertone from Akka
07.05.2019
D y you can see that in the city flea, Akka's own design forge Bertone has also redesigned the look of the Smart. The concept vehicle is based on a conventional Smart (60 kW /80 PS Smart ForTwo Electric Drive), but is now suitable for an electric racer: the sprint from 0 to 100 km /h takes just 5.2 seconds, thanks to all-wheel drive, and has a visual remake Akka let German experts and project partner KW Suspensions modify the chassis. The track of the Smart has been widened by 60 mm, which makes the small car look considerably more massive.
The Smart Bertone got electric front-wheel drive in the form of wheel hub motors in the front wheels, which come from project partner Elaphe, a Slovenian specialist. A KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) now recuperates kinetic energy on the front and rear axles when braking. The electric all-wheel drive should be able to apply 1,600 Nm to the front wheels and 700 Nm to the rear axle. According to project manager Jean-Philippe Banquet, four wheel hub motors would also be possible, which would then enable even more propulsion.
Akka
In the interior, a combination of white leather and royal blue Alcantara creates a feel-good atmosphere.
A lithium iron phosphate battery made up of 112 round cells from the manufacturer Headway supplies the wheel hub motors with energy. The lithium-iron-phosphate cells are hardly flammable and can withstand more charging cycles than conventional lithium-ion batteries.
According to Akka, the price of the materials used adds around 80,000 euros to the vehicle price. The total vehicle weight is 1,280 kilograms. The KERS system accounts for 120 kg and the battery for 67 kg. The system is protected from overheating by its own cooling circuit.
280 HP without electronicSecurity systems
Akka
auto motor und sport editor Bettina Mayer was allowed to drive the 280 hp Smart.
In the interior, a combination of white leather and royal blue Alcantara creates a feel-good atmosphere. Otherwise, the interior pleases with the well-known Smart advantages: Comfortable seating position, good ergonomics and overview. But we weren't just able to try out the Power-Smart, we were also able to try it out - almost twice: the small display in front of the gear lever is a kind of second command center. There you can set whether you want to drive with the “regular smart propulsion” or with the combination of both drives in “race mode”. If you choose the race mode, the system warns you as a precaution that the fast all-wheel drive mode is not intended for public roads. Fortunately, we stayed on the Akka company premises in Stuttgart Sindelfingen, so we can drive with full power.
The Super-Smart proved to be an acceleration miracle, but also a cornering artist. In the jagged slalom, he willingly allowed noticeable drifts, since ABS, ESP and ASR are automatically switched off in race mode - which makes it clear why this is not recommended for public roads. It goes with the fact that you won't be able to buy the racing dwarf. The Smart Bertone, which Akka developed within just nine months, is intended to show the skills and experience the French development service provider brings with it for future product developments.
Akka
The battery weighs 67 kilograms.
Who is Akka?
Akka - never heard of? But this one will have to be remembered. Because Akka bought the Daimler Group's development specialist MBTech last summer and agreed to continue a strategic partnership to develop mobility systems and electric vehicles. Akka understands mobility systems to mean, among other things, the development of autonomous driving. Since 2009 Akka has been running a joint venture with Audi Electronics Venture called EFS based in Gaimersheim near Ingolstadt.
In addition, Regis Sandrin, CEO of Akka Technologies in Germany, also gives the presentation of the Smart Bertone latest target announced: Akka wants to become the largest German development service provider by 2022 and generate sales of 2.5 billion euros and a return of ten percent by then. Sandrin assumes that Akka will then grow to around 35,000 employees in 2022. For comparison: at the end of the 2018 financial year, 21,000 employees were working in 29 countries and generated sales of 1.5 billion euros. Akka is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.
Akka was founded in France in 1984 by Maurice Ricci, today's CEO of the Akka Group. The market for engineering services, research and development is set to double sales to 266 billion euros by 2022.
