Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros and David Sancho are two Spanish entrepreneurs who will seek the expansion of a new brand of electric cars totally sustainable and “made in Spain”. The Liux company saw the light of day during the month of October 2020 when these two experts, each in their own field, set out to launch their own brand of electric cars manufactured and developed in Spain. Now the project is progressing at a good pace and they already have a production plan, expansion and future models that will be marketed.
Liux’s business project is based on the importance of an electric and fully sustainable model through the use of natural materials and completely eliminating aluminum in its manufacture, as well as natural leather in the interior. Although one of its main assets is to change the way of manufacturing electric vehicles. The idea is to produce their cars in Spain, for which they are already in talks with several governments of different autonomous communities. The first step will be the manufacture of 5,000 electric cars throughout 2023, while by 2024 this figure would be multiplied by 10, thus reaching 50,000 vehicles produced.
The project of these two entrepreneurs does not involve building a factory of the size and capacity of the one owned by SEAT in Martorell, but rather their sights are set on building much smaller factories and setting a maximum annual production of 50,000 vehicles. Each of these factories will be established locally to provide work for its inhabitants and industrial support to that area. This system, according to Antonio, will mean enormous savings in logistics and CO2 emissions.
The main aspect will be that of a traditional car factory, although with a high capacity for flexibility and modularity. David Sancho claims to have designed industrial robots with which to make different vehicle molds at a cost of around 7,000 euros. In the first instance, the understanding of it goes through housing in its factories a maximum of 10 of these robots with which to complete each of the vehicles that will be manufactured there: “You don’t need 15 million in molds and tooling to set up a factory”, he assures. The first phase of the project will provide about 100 jobs until the project grows. Once this has settled and is at full capacity, its employability will not exceed 500 peoplesince they do not believe that it will be necessary.
Liux electric cars will dispense with aluminum in their construction: “We want to make the first production car whose body is based on plants, because the fibers and resins would all be biocomposites and bioplastics. This allows us to control the value chain of these components, and in Spain we have many”, say its creators. However, they also point out that the platform on which the vehicle will sit will be traditional (in terms of materials) and modular. No welding will be carried out on it to anchor its battery pack, but rather these will be inserted into removable modules. They expect their vehicles to equip a battery capacity between 45 and 90 kWhacquired from an Asian manufacturer yet to be determined.
Both creators of Liux hope that the company “is a hit.” For now they already have an investment of two million euros extracted from their first round of financing, where a large part has come from OK Mobility, the Balearic rental company, which is positioned as the first potential client. According to both founders of Liux, each of its factories will be profitable from an average production of 30,000 units per yearwhich will mean between 60 and 70% of the total capacity of said factory, although they also point out that this will depend to a greater extent on the demand of the market itself.
About its future electric models, a compact will come first aimed at competing directly with the Volkswagen Golf or the Ford Focus. This will be designed by David Sancho. then it will come a two-seater city car with the possibility of homologation as tourism or quadricycle. Finally, its medium-term plan proposes the commercialization of an electric saloon.
The compact model that will be the first to land on the market, will present the best quality/price/autonomy ratio on the current market, although its creators do not specify the sale price that this model will have. However, the compact will initially be conceived as a purely electric car, but the modularity of its platform will allow it to accommodate a small thermal engine to function as a range extender. Of course, the sale of their models will be totally digitalwhile the distribution will be supported by “experienced operators”, without going into concise data in this regard.
