The Car That Ate $14 Million

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday May 24, 2000

By BUSINESS EDITOR GREG ELLIS

A $14 million car featuring a voice-activated system recognising 40 commands is set to attract more than a passing glance at ICOM -2000 at the Novotel Northbeach.

The aXcessaustralia concept car was built by the automotive components industry to show overseas car manufacturers the products and technology available in Australia.

``Basically what you see here is a car that was literally built from parts," the car's personal minder Denis Burn said.

``What the component industry did was hire some engineers and say: `here are our components, now design and build a car'."

Venture Company director Larry Beaupre will today inform ICOM-2000 delegates that more than 130 Australian companies proved they could work together to build the world's most advanced car in 1998.

Mr Beaupre said the front engine, rear drive, four-door sedan, with external dimensions about the size of a small/medium car, was unique.

The vehicle incorporates many maintenance engineering features with emphasis placed on lightweight, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and recyclable materials and technologies.

It was also designed with improved serviceability and maintainability in mind and a service could be as simple as pulling out one module and replacing it with another.

``It's a maintenance person's dream," conference chairman Peter Robinson said.

Mr Robinson said the labour costs were a breakthrough in controllable costs.

The single-piece frame, made of hollow carbon fibre composite material, weighs just 69kg and can be removed from the chassis via four bolts.

Other features include exterior power, memory-position mirrors which incorporate a turn signal lamp, passive entry system antenna and a temperature sensor for the climate control system. And when the transmission selects reverse, the mirror glass adjusts to make reversing easier.

Wheels located close to the four corners of the vehicle had resulted in a roomy interior.

Under the hood the aXcessaustralia car is powered by an Australian-made supercharged, 2.3 litre, two-stroke, in-line, six cylinder engine which weighs just 120kg.

The car's voice activation system responds to the driver telling the car which gear is required, and it then changes automatically.

The car's door system features an invisible passive entry system which is activated when it reads a small personal identification card as the driver approaches.

The system automatically unlocks the doors, deactivates the security system and engine immobiliser and sets various memory-position functions to preferred settings.

Once the security system is disarmed, the driver selects from two small touchpads to open the front or rear doors.

A large colour console display incorporates climate control, radio, telephone, and satellite navigation and is integrated with other vehicle electronics and the voice activation system.

A power centre console housing a Sony 8 video player and PlayStation is located between the two back seats and video monitors are recessed in the rear of the front seats.

But many of the car's functions don't need to be voice activated.

Automatic headlamp and wiper control systems turn the headlamps and wipers on and off as necessary

The headlamp system monitors the ambient light and turns itself on and off as needed.

An integrated sensor activates the wipers and varies the speed from intermittent wipe to high speed continuous wiping.