With the unfolding of major events, Acciona has presented this week at its Madrid campus the result of three years of work with which it increases its electric urban mobility proposals: the Silence S04.
A car that they define as a new type of light urban vehicle, and that the company places, in the words of its president and CEO, José Manuel Entrecanales, “in our strategy of providing practical and useful solutions for the great challenges that our society faces, now and in the coming years. One of them, mobility in large cities and, another, emissions.” For Entrecanales “this solution, the concept that S04 provides, can be very different when it comes to building more liveable societies and cities. Because, the reality is that half of Humanity is going to live in cities, they do not stop growing and the traditional concept of vehicles and the way of moving has to evolve.”
In terms of performance and features, this NanoCar measures 2.28 metres and is 1.57 metres wide, making it easy to park. So much so that two of them fit in the space of a conventional average car. Only without emissions or noise. The two removable lithium batteries give it a range of 149 kilometres and the engine has an immediate response, allowing it to go from zero to 50 km/hour in less than 7 seconds, and reach a maximum speed of 85 kilometres/hour.
The difference
What makes the S04 different? According to Carlos Sotelo, Director of Mobility at Acciona, the first thing that makes the S04 different is the spirit of the project: “We want to compete with combustion vehicles, to be similar to their autonomy.” This idea is the basis for the other two differences that Carlos Sotelo highlighted: “As an electric car, we break down the two barriers that these vehicles have: infrastructure, because of their removable and rechargeable batteries in our battery stations, they can circulate unlimitedly. And the price. We aim to reach many more users, and for that it has to have a competitive price,” Sotelo stressed, “and, right now, with state aid and the Move III Plan in force, it can be purchased from 6,000 euros.”
Removable batteries
Two batteries that are easily removed and can be carried like a small suitcase, a trolley, are one of the bases on which this new concept of urban car is based. “With it, we enter into direct competition with gasoline products that move around cities,” Sotelo emphasizes, “because of the price and because in our network of battery stations, spent batteries can be exchanged for charged ones in 30 seconds and you can continue on your way. It is like replicating the traditional refueling experience, but in much less time.”
At this point, Sotelo said that the 120 battery stations, with 1,200 exchange points, currently existing in the main Spanish cities, will have 40 more added before the end of the year, which will reach 1,600 battery exchange points. “In fact,” Sotelo pointed out, “some of the new ones will be next to a petrol station and it will be possible to see in practice the difference in time between one refuelling and another.” And he stressed that “all of them can also be recharged at any domestic socket.”
Other challenges
The S04 will be manufactured at the Acciona factory in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, ”where we have installed 60,000 square meters to manufacture up to 20,000 vehicles of these characteristics in shifts of
24 hours” and the first units will be released in September, and can already be reserved online. For international sales, Acciona has teamed up with Nissan to market it first in France, Italy and Germany, and then in the rest of Europe.
In addition to the more automotive aspects, so to speak, Sotelo stressed two issues that go further. “We have not forgotten the great challenges that Europe faces. Nor that four years ago we suffered one of the most important crises of the last century, that of COVID. From it came great projects that Europe has to undertake: reindustrialisation, because we cannot afford to lose more factories, more industry. That is why we are the first to bet on reindustrialisation in Europe.”
The other is that we have to reduce emissions. The World Bank says that by 2035 there will be more than twice as many people living in cities and we have a requirement to reduce emissions in them by 50%. The only way is with small, light and electric cars.