CNN –
Sitting on the side of a tree-lined street, the Luvly O resembles almost any other small car. The cream-colored vehicle’s modern-classic aesthetic is boxy yet elegant and embodies Scandinavian minimalism. It wouldn’t look out of place in an IKEA showroom – and for several reasons.
Because similar to the Swedish furniture giant’s products, they are designed to be delivered flat packed to their destination.
Stockholm startup Luvly, founded in 2015, says its first ready-to-assemble car is so small and light that it can significantly reduce CO2 emissions associated with transportation.
In addition to the new flat-pack delivery, Luvly is also hoping for electric delivery The car’s other features – including its super-light frame and replaceable batteries – will make sustainable transport more affordable, says Håkan Lutz, CEO and co-founder of Luvly.
Weighing less than 450 kilograms (992 pounds) – less than a quarter of the weight of an average modern car – Luvly has a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles) and a top speed of 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour, Lutz said says is more than enough for most commuters and daily trips in urban areas.
However, these cars probably won’t be your next DIY project, says Lutz: To be street legal, they must be assembled by a licensed automotive factory before being delivered to customers.
Although self-assembly is not required, IKEA has made a big impact on it. Lutz says Luvly tries to do for cars what IKEA did for furniture, with “sufficient quality and very nice design, cheap and efficient for everyone.”
Luvly
The two-seater has a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles) – which the company says covers most daily commute routes.
Luvly O is a “light city vehicle”, also known as a small car.
Tiny cars have been whizzing through city streets since the 1950s. The iconic BMW Isetta – which weighed just 350 kilograms (770 pounds) – popularized the “bubble car” style, which continues to inspire the design of modern light vehicles today.
Although small cars look cute, they have a reputation for being unsafe. Due to the low height, lightweight frame and limited front crumple zones, drivers can suffer more serious injuries in accidents, particularly with other cars than with passenger cars. In addition, they are not subject to the same safety standards as normal passenger cars and do not require crash testing.
For light vehicles to compete with, and hopefully outperform, cars, they must be safe. People won’t accept switching from driving an SUV to driving a shelled scooter.
Håkan Lutz, Luvly
“For light vehicles to compete with, and hopefully outperform, cars, they need to be safe. “People won’t accept that you switch from driving an SUV to driving a scooter with a shell,” says Lutz.
To address this problem, Luvly took inspiration from Formula 1 cars, which have a lightweight but strong chassis. The Luvly O frame has a “sandwich structure” with an aluminum layer padded on both sides with lightweight plastic foam. According to Lutz, the force in the event of an accident is absorbed by the padding and the driver is protected.
Although crash tests are not required, the company does carry out computer simulations, according to Lutz. “It’s not cheap to use computers, but it’s a lot cheaper than crashing (real) things,” he says.
Luvly O is powered by two 16-kilogram rechargeable batteries, which can be swapped with another set, so the car is always powered.
Luvly
Luvly’s patented chassis uses a flat-pack system, allowing more cars to be shipped per container and reducing each vehicle’s delivery emissions.
Luvly is still testing the Luvly O prototype but hopes to bring the car to market next year at a price of around 10,000 euros ($10,500), Lutz says.
However, the subcompact car is not Luvly’s ultimate goal.
Luvly plans to license its patented light vehicle flatpack framework to other automakers to build their own branded versions.
“We don’t expect to be large manufacturers of vehicles, but we do expect to be smaller manufacturers of vehicles to champion and develop the technology,” says Lutz. “While we want to license this to others, we also want to stay at the forefront and be the best on our platform.”
Despite consumers’ growing preference for larger car models, Luvly isn’t alone in modernizing the subcompact car.
In 2020, French automaker Citroën introduced the Ami, a 483-kilogram, two-seat electric microcar recreated by German brand Opel and Italian automaker Fiat. Last year, Swiss urban vehicle manufacturer Micro launched the Microlino, a “bubble car” reminiscent of the Isetta minicar from the 1950s. Like Luvly, Microlino uses a sports car-inspired chassis to improve safety.
Microlino
The retro-futuristic Microlino is inspired by the “bubble” cars of the 1950s.
Small cars are easier to maneuver and require fewer parking spaces, says Mascha Brost, an expert on light vehicles at the German Aerospace Center.
With an estimated 68% of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, urban space is at a premium – so smaller cars could free up space for pedestrians and green spaces, which will also reduce the amount of trapped heat in urban areas. Bread adds.
Nearly 11% of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions come from passenger vehicles, and last year saw record-breaking sales of electric cars, helping to reduce tailpipe emissions unless energy and raw material use in vehicle production can be reduced. Research suggests the Overall benefit of electric vehicles is limited.
Resource-saving and with lower energy consumption in production than electric passenger cars, light electric vehicles (LEVs) such as small cars could significantly reduce CO2 emissions from transport, says Brost.
A fairly large microcar produces only a third of the emissions during production compared to an electric car.
Mascha Brost, German Aerospace Center
“A fairly large microcar only causes a third of the emissions during production compared to an electric car,” says Brost.
In a 2022 study she conducted on car use and LEVs in Germany, Brost found that up to half of all kilometers could be driven by light vehicles, including e-bikes, mopeds and microcars. This would reduce transport emissions by 44%.
Light vehicles could also improve pedestrian safety, Brost says.
The number of pedestrians killed on American roads has risen steadily over the past decade, according to a study by the research organization Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. And in 2021, the number of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in the U.S. reached its highest level in 40 years. This increase is partly due to the increasing popularity of sports utility vehicles (SUVs).
“An SUV may be very safe for the person sitting in the car, but it may not be very safe for other road users,” Brost says.
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But despite the great opportunity to replace cars with LEVs in our cities, regulatory and logistical problems are slowing them down, says Brost.
Sharing the roads with larger, faster cars isn’t always safe for light vehicles, Brost says. It is therefore important to create “safe operating conditions” for LEVs, such as lower speed limits or exclusion zones.
Brost points to Peachtree City in Georgia, USA, as an example. Here, a 100-mile secondary road network ensures safe driving conditions for the city’s fleet of 10,000 golf carts and is pedestrian-friendly. While this may not be feasible for every city, it shows the possibilities for light vehicles, she adds.
But to attract consumers, a greater variety of LEV models is essential, says Brost.
This is where Luvly wants to create added value: With its patented framework, it aims to inspire more car manufacturers to develop light city vehicles.
“The service that cars provide is something good, something beautiful, personal freedom. It’s just not very optimized for what we do,” says Lutz. “(Luvly) offers the same service with a fraction of the resources. That’s good – that’s what we have to do.”