Mirrow Provocator, a new city car concept from Russia

Unusual Provocator from Russia gets support: New concepts, such as Mirrow StyleT, Mirrow Paradox and a universal platform viewed as a catalyst to an age of polymers and 3D printing in the automobile industry.

In 2016 our start‐up related to more effective urban Mirrowcars was granted a chance to live! Positive tone of the releases, thousands of messages from people all over the world, who understood and appreciated our concept, gave us energy to develop.

However, we've seen that some people miscalculated the dimensions of our Mirrow Provocator towncar concept, believing it is a little, not spacious and unsafe car with quiet a tiny clearance. Therefore, we prepared a range of steps, which, as we strongly hope, will close the pending issues and which may possibly help the project find its strategic partners and investors to let us fulfill more plans this year compared to the previous one.

Taking all things together, our general strategy remained unchanged, and we still do not plan to become an independent cars manufacturer. The role of Mirrowcars, as we see it, centers around being a licensing partner granting the rights to use our concept for the existing and future automobile companies. Or, for example, in cooperation with a large‐scale chemical concern our role could involve manufacture and supply of ready‐made polymer car bodies created on the base of our concept considering, nevertheless, an individual brand design for each cars company.

And today, to show the flexibility of the platform, based upon which the Mirrow Provocator was designed, and to provide a better understanding of its overall dimensions, we've prepared two additional versions of the body design different in style, and a physical full‐scale model of our platform, which we would like to present to you.

One of our concepts is designed in retro style inspired by the legendary Ford vehicle brand — Mirrow StyleT, while the other concept — Mirrow Paradox is targeted at the followers of a more modern or a bit futuristic style. At that, we feel certain that in future, applying our platform, the designers of automobile companies could easily create various bright and attractive images for their vehicles executed in individual and corporate style.

Both concepts, StyleT and Paradox have the same overall dimensions as Mirrow Provocator; they are designed on the universal platform of less than 2.7 meters length. They also use the aircraft configuration: their main door is also located on the rear side of the car, and small emergency exits are located on both sides. Each of these concepts is capable of reducing traffic jams, parking in a perpendicular to sidewalks and being actually a safe and comfortable urban car for 4 persons and their luggage.

While our new concepts are intended to show the flexibility of the platform, based on which Mirrow Provocator, Paradox and StyleT were designed, the physical full‐scale model completely proved our expectations regarding the external and internal dimensions and the results of the 3D simulation.

But the most surprising and paradoxical thing is that standing near with model of the platform or being on driver's seat, it creates the feeling that before you a car that is not inferior in size or authority to the road even a huge pickup Nissan Titan. Moreover, the platform model doesn't have a roof, its length is less than 2.7 meters just like the length of Smart Fortwo, and the model has quite an urban, not an offroad clearance, equal to 180 mm.

The physical model helped us prove that 4 persons can comfortably sit in the interior space, and enough space is left for luggage in the aisle. Space for the legs, driving and passenger position in the front seat are similar to Mercedes E‐class, and on the back seats even more comfortably. Considering all the above said, there is still a possibility for the driver to move across the interior space, in the aisle located in the center of the platform we put several large suitcases, a snowboard and even a bicycle.

So, the car on the Mirrow platform, according to our reckoning, can easily handle the most part of the daily challenges of a 2 ‐ 4 persons family including going to picnics, summerhouse or to the airport. High driving position, sufficient width and good vehicle composure will make even a long road or a journey quite comfortable.

In addition to the impressive spacious interior, the Mirrow platform has a significant technical space outside. A gear box and a 1,5 L classical internal‐combustion engine are easily housed in the engine compartment, in the front part of the platform. Additional technical space for various necessary components, suspension components and fuel tanks is located on each side of the central aisle, under the floor and seats. However, as much as we are the followers of electric vehicles, we assessed the energetic capabilities of our platform measuring the space using cans with popular energy drink, which look similar to the enlarged Panasonic 18650 accumulator units used in the amazing Tesla Model S.

Thus, we managed to place more than 800 cans, which is approximately equivalent to 11,000 accumulator units of 18650‐type, outside the interior and engine compartment, in the additional technical space of our platform, which remained free after installing all the suspension components and other necessary units. If we can trust the data, which one can find in the Web, Tesla Model S (85 kW/h) uses 7104 accumulator units of 18650‐type to cover 400 km, so we can be proud of the measurement results we obtained. Moreover, we are talking about the car capable of saving almost twice the space in a parking lot or in the road compared to any of the standard or electric sedans.

Although we created the full‐scale model of the platform in a somewhat simplified form, it gives a good visual representation of the general scheme of the load‐bearing structure of the car body on our platform. Massive load‐bearing elements, double floor system and a high driving position can effectively protect the driver and passengers in the event of an accident. In spite of their short length, Mirrow cars will ensure the safety level equal to that of the long cars, to which we are used nowadays.

At that, as we supposed initially, to manufacture the Mirrow car bodies and load‐bearing structures we can use light‐weight combined polymeric and metal load‐bearing elements capable of good absorbing the shock energy, provided their strength is not less than that of the bare metal. When working with the model we also understood that our platform is not just good, but is perfectly suitable for printing on the industrial‐scale 3D printers.

We are not talking about 3D print of a little number of body elements or a range of parts, we are talking about another, truly integrated approach to 3D print of the car bodies and their load‐bearing elements, which is extremely challenging with regards to the classical vehicles having a different special arrangement and a weak point (large side apertures and doors).

Thus, the Mirrow platform might not only possibly resolve the traffic jam problems and lack of parking space in urban areas, but might also become a catalyst to an age of polymers and 3D printing in the automobile industry.

We surely hope that our reasoning is not incorrect, and that our concept will be useful for the society. We would really appreciate it if your opinion or your articles, as well as the view expressed by your readers could finally give a push start to the large automobile companies and governments to look to urban cars from a different perspective. In the nearest future more effective cars may compete with the outstanding, but excessively long modern cars.

Alexander Malyshev
office@mirrowcars.com