Microfactory We visit EV start-up’s pioneering plant

Car production’s micro revolution

Start-up Arrival is pioneering the ‘microfactory’ manufacturing process for its new EV

ne of Britain’s most

Oadvanced vehicle factories, owned by EV start-up Arrival in Bicester, is gearing up to make its first parcel delivery van, and Autocar has been given an exclusive first look.

The site is the first in the world to use a ‘microfactory’ production system, in which the usual assembly line is replaced by flexible manufacturing cells, with the design, layout and low output of the site established for supplying the local market.

“We’re all about being local, selling locally, configuring our plant to local demand and being flexible in production,” said EV platform boss James Broomer.

Arrival’s manufacturing revolution is revealed by its van’s high-tech interior, rather than the exterior of its two anonymous industrial sheds.

One building of 120,000sq ft houses the body plant, where composite thermoset panels are heat-formed on two lines of vacuum presses, while the second, 180,000sq ft building is the assembly hall, fitted out with Kuka robotic-arm manufacturing cells and logistics handled by a fleet of 150 computer-controlled Wemo mobile robots.

When we visited, Bicester was bustling in the ramp-up phase, with engineers and factory staff focused on trialling production processes, installing robotics arms in the production cells and fine-tuning the programming of the Wemos.

Capacity is 5000 per year, doubled with a second shift, but Arrival has delayed delivery of its first vans until the second

Aluminium platform and frame will be clad in composite panels

WHAT ABOUT LARGE GOODS VEHICLES?

All new large goods vehicles must have zero-emissions powertrains from 2035, the heaviest articulated trucks following in 2040. Currently, most are diesel-engined.

Industry stalwarts like Mercedes-Benz already have a range of batteryelectric trucks, such as the Fuso eCanter 66kWh in service with DPD and the eActros rigid/artic, with a 448kWh battery for a 250-mile range.

And for intercontinental long-haul haulage, Mercedes will employ hydrogen fuel cells, with its first tractive unit due in service in 2027.

Just like on the car side, there are also EV start-ups, like Volta. Its Zero 18-tonne rigid truck, equipped with a 150kWh battery for 125 miles of range, is scheduled for first deliveries in 2023.

Truck operators face even more upheaval in the next 10 years than car drivers as net-zero policies close out 100 years of diesel truck operations. Even last year, just 1% of the new trucks sold in the UK were battery-electric.

Arrival uses Kuka robot arms and its own mobile robots

❝ This production system goes hand in hand with its radical van design

by computer-controlled machines that devise the best combination to reduce waste.

Unlike in a typical composite factory, where workers handle and position the plies into a single part, here robots do the job, using unique handling tools, equipped with hooks and developed by Arrival itself.

The next stage is also robot controlled: the part is delivered to the heat press by a Wemo, although an operator keeps an eye on the process.

Soft tools are used on the heat press; these have a shorter life than steel tools but save tens of thousands of pounds in comparison.

To form a panel, the thermoset material is heated to 200deg C for 1min 30sec to ensure it has all melted to the correct shape.

The thermoset material is pre-coloured, so each panel exits the forming tool in its final colour, thus requiring no paint. This whole panel-forming process is timed to 22 minutes – the ‘tact’ or cycle time that defines how long each operation should take – and the same time is used in the final assembly hall. In volume production terms, that’s an age for a process usually planned around one minute, but it’s integral to the microfactory concept. Sets of body panels are then transported by Wemos to the adjacent Number Two Plant for final assembly. The heart of the assembly plant are five cells of Kuka robots, each equipped with around six arms and timed to that 22-minute tact. half of 2022, so the race is These cells are fed with parts on to get the new production by the fleet of Wemos, and cosystem working in the third ordinating these logistics will quarter to hit a target of 400- be the secret to the efficient 500 delivered by year’s end. operation of Bicester.

“We have the sprint In charge of robotics is exmentality,” smiles Broomer. Airbus boffin Giuseppe Napo

Much is resting on this Montano, whose 50-strong start of production. Arrival team designed the Wemos has raised nearly $1 billion from scratch in three years in funding from investors and was busy programming including the Hyundai Motor the production sequence Group, asset management when we visited. giant Blackrock and courier “The Wemos are completely firm UPS, which has agreed configurable, can talk to to buy 10,000 vans globally. each other and operate

The potential business autonomously,” he said. win as the world scrabbles Three Wemos are needed to to reach net zero emissions support the weight of the van’s has resulted in a valuation of platform, which is fitted out Arrival, yet to turn a profit, of with its battery pack, motor £1.76 billion – almost twice and ancillaries at Cell One; that of Aston Martin. before moving 22 minutes later

Arrival’s adoption of the to Cell Two, where the extruded microfactory system goes body ‘hoops’ are fitted; then hand in hand with its radical onto Cell Three, where the cab van design, which is more akin The is constructed from multiple to that of low-volume sports cab is built panels and the front module cars like a Lotus Elise than up on a special jig at bolted on; and then to further a steel box on wheels. Cell Three. The driver

A skateboard-style sits above and behind chassis is formed of the front electric motor, extruded aluminium which is mounted on a members, then steel subframe and the composite body front impact crash panels are hung structure. on alloy extrusions joined by cast nodes.

The van’s front end is cleverly engineered, too, as a single large precision-formed injection moulding. A mould for this module is pricey, at around £1 million, but it’s common to all versions of the van, so economies of scale apply.

The body panels are formed from thermoset The large plastic that starts life as nose-and-fronta roll of woven material bumper section has to supplied from a factory be precision moulded and in Blackburn. fitted, because it hosts the

Each panel is built sensors that feed the van’s up typically from autonomous driving four material layers, technology. called plies, cut to shape The microfactory concept was first proposed in 1998 by Cardiff Business School academics Peter Wells and Paul Nieuwenhuis.

They shook up car making by replacing a large-output, sprawling factory with a network of low-volume plants. Instead of a highinvestment, metal-bashing press plant, a paint shop and a complex production line, their vision was of low-investment, flexible production equipment responsive to changing market conditions.

“You can build a microfactory network bit by bit, which from a strategic point of view is important, because you expand your production to a growing market by replicating each microfactory locally, rather than building a huge factory and then forcing cars into the retail network,” Wells told Autocar.

They studied low-volume firms like Lotus (which had recently launched the revolutionary extruded-alloy, compositebodied Elise), Ferrari and electric car pioneer Think. The conclusion was to size a microfactory around annual production of 5000. Thus supplying a market like the UK, typically served by a large plant making 300,000 cars per year, would require 60 microfactories, each near a major population centre. Each would also act as the local dealership and repair hub, cutting out 40% of the total cost of the vehicle. “If the vehicles are leased and brought back to the microfactory for refurbishment before moving on to a new user, you can get pretty close to the circular economy. I can see Arrival’s [car] deal with Uber working like that,” said Wells. Elise inspired microfactory concept’s creators

cells for installation of the interior and load-bay fittings to the customer’s specification.

No vehicles were running down the line during our visit, so we can’t judge the final quality of the vans, but the The pre-production body is of examples made a double-skinned at Arrival’s thermoset composite, pilot plant hung off ‘hoops’ of alloy in Banbury extrusions. Early production will be for UPS with doors at the rear only. Sliding cargo doors are available.

look well finished.

The plan is to get production going in time for UPS to start electric delivery of Christmas parcels around London and the south-east of England. It would be a timely Christmas present not only for customers but Arrival too. JULIAN RENDELL