Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car by Paulo Italiani is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 A' Design Award in Vehicle, Mobility and Transportation Design Competition Category.
IronVehicle· 2022
Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car
Client: Paulo Italiani Design studio
A' Design Award Winner in Vehicle Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #138424The Design
About Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car
The Vixen is a fully electric sports kit car. The unique stripe-like led screen cutting through its hood flaunts cutting edge technology, whilst Vixen's exterior inherits the soul of 60's racing and sports cars. The screen is customizable like a smartphone, thus the driver can display sponsored ads for bonus credits in her or his next electric bill, non-fungible tokens, or any desired art. Under the screen lies a powerful battery module that can be easily swapped from the side of the car due to its unique position. The Vwap system tower can slide in a fully-charged battery module in seconds.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Interviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative integration of a customizable LED screen within the hood of the Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car challenges traditional automotive aesthetics - could you elaborate on how this fusion of digital display technology and classic sports car design elements came about?
I was always fascinated by racing stripes on performance cars. The most common approach is to apply stripes along the car’s length, but there are also versions that cross the width of the car, especially among American muscle cars.Although my intention was to bring a vintage feel to the design, I believe that if your goal is to create a truly relevant product for today’s market, you must embrace the most advanced technology—especially in a fully electric concept. Thus came the fusion between a stripe and a screen.I called it the “Meta Display” — a screen that visually “cuts” through the car’s body like a racing stripe. The Vixen’s Meta Display expresses its racing soul from afar, while up close it reveals cutting-edge technology that powers this racing machine.
The Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car's unique battery swap system through the side of the vehicle represents a fascinating approach to electric vehicle charging - what inspired this particular configuration and how does it enhance the overall user experience?
The Vixen was designed as a track-day sports car. Circuits are its natural habitat—competing and breaking records is what it was built for. However, every car has a limited energy source. Internal combustion race cars can refuel within seconds using the pit-stop refueling system. Electric race cars, on the other hand, cannot recharge that fast—at least not yet.The VWAP system was created to address this challenge. Whenever the Vixen’s battery is running low, it takes only a few seconds to swap in a fully charged battery pack. Thanks to the placement of the Vixen’s battery module, the pack can easily slide out sideways, allowing for quick and safe battery replacement.The battery tower, which collects, stores, and delivers the packs, eliminates the need for complex underground installations and is compact enough to be mobile. The driver can even spot it from a distance and prepare the system for the swap.
Your decision to base production of the Vixen Electric Sports Kit Car in Georgia, leveraging its position between East and West, reflects a thoughtful approach to sustainable manufacturing - how did this strategic location choice influence the overall design and development process?
Throughout the automotive industry’s history, factories have profoundly influenced their surroundings — shaping cities and communities that grow and thrive around them. Automotive projects also force you to look 10 years ahead, since the journey from concept to production takes many years.We know of the efforts to revive the Silk Road trade corridor through the “Silk Road Initiative,” and Georgia lies strategically along this route. Establishing a factory that brings value and jobs to a smaller country like Georgia is not only a way to generate prosperity outside the already saturated European and U.S. markets but also a powerful opportunity to reach any global market, thanks to its strategic position between East and West
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The Vixen is a fully electric sports kit car. The distinguished stripe-like LED screen in Vixen’s hood cuts through the car’s body, expressing the racing soul and the cutting edge technology. The screen is customizable just like a smartphone.
In addition to battery level and mileage range, the driver can display anything: From a racing stripe decoration to images of sponsors, messages, and even ads to get some bonus credits in his next electric bill. If the driver is a NFT art collector, he now has the perfect canvas to show off his digital art. Vixen ultra-light body and aerodynamics keeps the car agile on any track. Use your helmet for your track day without any discomfort with the Vixen oval shaped roof.
Vixen was idealized to have a very effective weight distribution. Its compact size and wide track width give the car a great grip, and its materials based on aerospace aluminum and carbon fiber helps propel this rocket to the finish line in a glimpse!
The spoilers and wings near the tires help to direct the air-flow to where it should be, using the turbulence of the exposed turning wheels as an ally. The Vixen Inductive Charging Pad is the easier way to charge your electric car at home. The cameras detect it, and the car autonomously touch the pad gently, charging it without any cables.
The Vwap system doesn’t require an underground facility to create an easy and effective way to swap your batteries. Thanks to the vertical position of the Vixen battery module, it can easily slide to the side of the car, allowing a fast and safe battery swap. - Dimensions & Packaging
- 1250mm x 3953mm
- Tags
- Electric sports car, kit car, , high tech sports car, led car, swap battery, inductive charging, customized car, women sports car, Vixen, Georgia
- Production Technology
- The production of the Vixen kit should be set in Tbilisi, Georgia. The goal is to use the country's strategic position between east and west. While the carbon fiber body is manufactured in Georgia, the screens and engine will be shipped from China by land in a much more sustainable way, avoiding the busy container ship traffic. The idea is to create a symbol of Georgian abilities to produce a high tech vehicle that represents their culture, skills and identity.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest Challenge is the design part. The design of Vixen has an interesting mix of curves and sharp surfaces. Every exterior part that represents technology, is an edgy and dark translucent surface, while the other parts of the body are smooth and bright.
The transition between the screen in the middle of the car, that has sharp edges to the rounded smooth hood reflects the antagonism between vintage raw experiences and modern digital technology. - Research
- The project started with a simple idea of a sports kit car, that is easy to ship in modular parts to lower shipping cost.
The goal was to produce it in a eastern Europeans country, initially in Georgia. We would like to leverage the economy stability of such countries though high tech mobility products. The strategic position of these countries would come handy by using the Belt and Road Initiative, since most of the electronic parts and motors would come from China. - Inspiration
- Vixen, the female fox. Such a provocative name should inspire the free spirited women who miss having a sports car to call their own. Vixen inherits the soul of 60’s racing and sports cars. Its vintage silhouette breathes performance, and the latest tech can be easily spotted.
- Project Duration
- The project started in January 2022 in Singapore and finished in April 2022 in Rio.
- Operation Flow
- Vixen ultra-light body and aerodynamics keeps the car agile on any track. Use your helmet for your track day without any discomfort with the Vixen oval shaped roof.
Vixen was idealized to have a very effective weight distribution. Its compact size and wide track width give the car a great grip, and its materials based on aerospace aluminum and carbon fiber helps propel this rocket to the finish line in a glimpse!
The spoilers and wings near the tires help to direct the air-flow to where it should be, using the turbulence of the exposed turning wheels as an ally.
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