Platform alteration
Seat’s former R&D chief is now the Volkswagen Group’s platform chief, with responsibility for the group’s MQB and MEB structures. Matthias Rabe will be supervising 12,000 engineers, up from the 1000 he shepherded at Seat.
Next on the Lister
Lister, the British sports car maker with longstanding ties to Jaguar Land Rover, has reportedly been offered the tooling to build the recently axed Range Rover Coupé. MD Lawrence Whittaker said while the offer was “tempting”, the firm must prioritise its new product roll-out, including a new version of the Knobbly sports car.RS engineer shifts Focus
Is Ford’s new AWD mega-hatch Focus RS as special as we first thought? And can it beat off stiff competition from the Volkswagen Golf R and Mercedes-AMG A45?
Tyrone Johnson, former Ford RS chief engineer and Engineering Hero winner at the 2016 Autocar awards, has a new role at HyundaiKia. Johnson takes over Albert Biermann’s role as head of vehicle integration. Biermann becomes global head of R&D.
How to cell
As the industry shifts to BEVs, different solutions to battery and chassis design are emerging. An independent engineer tells us the Jaguar I-Pace battery weighs 700kg, while the Tesla Model X’s 100kWh pack is 400kg. The difference? Jaguar protects its cells inside a cast alloy case. Audi takes a similar approach. Tesla surrounds the battery with alloy protection profiles.
