Located next to Lake Bienne on the French - Swiss border, Domteknika SA is a service company providing technical and strategic assistance to world leaders in the automotive, household appliance, packaging and other design industries.

Flow helped with the design of the eco-friendly REDIGO SOFTCAR

Formed in 1999 by Jean-Luc Thuliez, the company is actively interested and heavily involved in improving design and production methods to benefit the environment and minimise ecological impact. Specifically they have researched the impact in design to cost analysis, tooling, plastics & polymers engineering and prototyping through their Research & Development group.

One such project was an eco-friendly car that not only produced zero emissions but equally as important, was also recyclable with minimal environmental impact.

Working on a project commissioned by the Poitou Charente region, Domteknika worked in partnership with DiedreDesign and Induct to create the REDIGO-SOFTCAR, an eco-friendly car both in terms of pollution, manufacturing and recycling. After much interest at the recent Mondial de l'automobile show, it is hoped the car will soon be in production.

Recycling
"The REDIGO-SOFTCAR certainly fulfils the criteria of the eco-concept vehicle originally presented to us", explains Jean-Luc Thuliez. "The concept of zero emission vehicles is an important topic and one that is high on the agenda for many automotive companies. However, for this project, the tailpipe pollution was not the only ecological constraint taken into account. The objective of the project was to produce a car where the benefit to the environment was split between the reduction in carbon emissions and the eventual recycling of the vehicle."

Other fundamentals of the project included the classic research for manufacturers to reduce costs, and the increasing demands of emerging markets to launch very low-cost vehicles. However, the batteries for fuel-cell vehicles are still very expensive and will represent a significant part of the cost for some years to come."

While continuing to protect the planet, Domteknika also develops an "electric monster" with extraordinary acceleration and a top speed approaching 260 kph.

Reduction of material use
Domteknika placed major emphasis on dramatically reducing of the number of materials used in the construction of the eco-friendly REDIGO-SOFTCAR. The largest reduction could be found in the number of thermoplastic polymers used.

A simple examination of the dashboard from a typical vehicle highlights the number of different polymers used during production. The dismantling of individual pieces and the sorting of materials for recycling can be long and expensive process. It doesn't make sense to produce a zero emission car if the manufacturing and recycling costs are too high, diluting the environmental benefits.

"It is an original exercise," explains Jean-Luc Thuliez. "No study has been pushed so far in a vehicle design based on such a criteria. However, to reach the goal, it was necessary for us to guarantee that the design of components and their production were also fully optimized. We not only had to analyse the geometry but also the simulation of the plastic injection process".