“We have an opportunity to rethink everything about moving people and goods from A to B,” said Hunter, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a former research fellow at General Motors.
Indigo won’t reveal its funding sources, but the company says it has raised $ 115 million to date. The company plans to launch its first vehicle, a three-wheel delivery van called the Alpha, by the end of 2022, Lyft or Uber. China’s Jing-Jin Electric will make the engines, while vehicle assembly will be handled by Michigan-based Roush Enterprises, best known for its NASCAR racing team, but also making custom cars and trucks.
The Indigo Draco prototype is in the lab.Lane Turner / Globe Staff
“Our goal is to be about a third cheaper than the average Tesla Model 3 or Chevy Bolt,” said Graylin, whose previous company LoopPay was acquired by Korean electronics giant Samsung. The Alpha is expected to sell for around $ 20,000, compared to $ 25,000 for the Bravo.
But Indigo doesn’t plan on selling cars the old-fashioned way. Graylin describes his business plan as “Zipcar on Steroids”. Fleets of Alphas and Bravos are used in parking lots, where gig workers can rent them on a daily basis with a smartphone app to deliver parcels or people. You don’t have to pay the up-front costs of owning a car. Since the cost of running an electric vehicle per mile is much lower than that of a gasoline vehicle, Graylin said Indigo drivers will make more money even after the rental is paid. In addition, Indigo’s clean-running machines will replace older, gas-guzzling cars and significantly reduce urban air pollution.
However, James Hodgson, senior analyst for Smart Transportation at ABI Research, warned that starting a new auto business from scratch would be “phenomenally difficult”.
“There’s a good reason we’ve pretty much had the same makes of automobiles for the past hundred years,” he said.
Inside the prototype of the Indigo Draco. Lane Turner / Globe Staff
Still, electric cars are cheaper to design and build than internal combustion models, Hodgson said, and that’s how a horde of companies have come into the market – not just Tesla, but companies like Lucid Motors, Fisker, Lordstown Motors, and Rivian. “It’s a brand new competitive area where incumbents don’t have an advantage,” said Hodgson.
He also said that Indigo’s plan to start ride-hailing and delivery fleets is a clever way to circumvent a major challenge facing most auto startups: creating a network of retailers willing to sell an untried vehicle Selling. “It seems pretty clever to me that they don’t go the sales route to consumers first,” said Hodgson.
Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the legendary car company, built such an electric car with motorized wheels in 1900. But it took two tons of lead-acid batteries and ran poorly. Also, the wheels in such a car are heavier than usual, making it more difficult for the car’s suspension system to negotiate bumps and potholes. The result is a very uncomfortable ride.
But instead of absorbing shocks from springs attached to the body, each wheel on an Indigo car has its own active suspension system.
An indigo wheel will appear showing the active suspension technology. Lane Turner / Globe Staff
A fraction of a second after the car hit a bump, sensors in the wheel immediately measure the vertical force and raise the wheel to compensate for this. When the car crosses the bump and flattens the road surface, the suspension lowers the wheel to maintain contact with the road. Hardly any of this movement is transferred to the body, resulting in an exceptionally smooth ride.
The Indigo design eschews heavy gears and drive-shafts, and the car body is made from lightweight carbon fiber instead of steel. Additionally, the Alpha will carry a 30-kilowatt-hour battery, much lighter than the 82-kilowatt-hour unit in a Tesla Model 3 sedan. When fully charged, it is said to provide a range of more than 200 miles.
The end result will be an exceptionally light machine – £ 1,200 for the Alpha and £ 1,600 for the four-passenger Bravo. In contrast, the Chevy Bolt EV and Tesla Model 3 weigh around 3,600 pounds each. “Why would someone have to deliver your Chipotle in a 4,000-pound vehicle?” said Graylin.
Indigo CEO Will Graylin shows a model of the motorized bike. Lane Turner / Globe Staff
During a demonstration at Indigo headquarters, a 2,000-pound Mercedes smart electric car shook violently as it drove over a series of rubber sleepers. But in a prototype of the Alpha, passengers could barely feel the bumps.
In fact, the Alpha rode was smoother than Graylin’s personal car, a $ 100,000 Tesla Model S. It even outperformed Hunter’s personal drive, a $ 210,000 Porsche Taycan Electric.
The Indigo Draco demonstrates the smoothness of the active chassis.Lane Turner / Globe Staff
The company says it is in talks with unnamed companies about buying and using the vehicles in neighborhoods like Roxbury, where low-income residents could hire them to perform as delivery drivers. Graylin said Uber and Allstate Insurance have expressed an interest in the plan.
Indigo hopes to have 30,000 Alpha and Bravo cars on U.S. roads by 2025. Then the company will play for US workshops. Later that decade, Indigo plans a three-wheel sports car called Charlie and a four-wheel sedan called Delta, both of which will be sold to consumers.
Graylin believes that by then millions of drivers will have experienced the silky smooth ride of an indigo taxi and want their own cars to feel just as good. “The value of our technology will really make us stand out,” he said.
But will consumers spend thousands on a radical new car from a little-known startup company? It would not be the first time. “The first time I ordered my Tesla,” recalled Graylin, “people were like, ‘What the hell is that?’ ”
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.
