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My name is Christian von Koenigsegg.
I'm 40 years old and for half of my life I've been on the
quest to be a leader in the hyper car industry utilizing
Swedish design combined with visionary technical solutions.
Our latest car, the Agera R, is built in the old hangars of
a former Swedish fighter jet squadron.
Their symbol, a ghost, is now proudly painted on the back of
every Koenigsegg.
[CAR ENGINE REVVING]
[CAR ENGINE REVVING]
Carbon fiber is really one of the fundamentals really to
make a car strong, very light, safe, and have fantastic
performance.
It creates massive rigidity but does not add weight which
is crucial if you want to make a really efficient, fast, and
fun sports car to drive.
As far as we're aware, our cars are the most carbon fiber
intense cars in production right now, as we have over 400
different carbon fiber pieces.
This here is an intake for the engine--
intake plenum.
We have some pressurized turbo pipes, valve cover, and even
parts like the engine, as we can see here, are made of
carbon fiber, especially the parts up top on the engine to
get the center of gravity low.
So what we're seeing here is something as
very simple as a tube.
It's a turbo piping.
And what I have in front of me here is a
machined mold from aluminium.
Even a simple detail like a tube needs a lot of thought to
make it perfect.
The CAD model is flowed to check that the flow is
perfect, that it has enough volume to pass enough air to
the engine at top power levels and top RPM levels.
It also has to have a shape which is strong enough and to
calculate the thickness of the carbon fiber so that it can
take the boost pressure.
You can see here that it's kind of a funky shape to it.
That its flow is optimized for this curve.
We have an integrated mount here for a pressure and
temperature sensor.
Actually, when we manufacturer a carbon fiber part from this
tool, the first thing we do is to put a release agent here.
Because in the carbon fiber pre-preg, which I have here,
which is actually the material the part is made out of, it's
pre-impregnated with two component epoxy.
So if this would be put down here without releasing, it we
would actually stick to the tube.
And then this material, the carbon fiber, is cut to suit
the tube part.
This is not optimized for this.
I just took a small piece.
But it's applied like this and layer by layer, different
amount of layers depending on the need.
So that's actually what's going to become the part.
Then we need to pressurize.
We need heat and pressure to consolidate this to get it to
have the right strength and the right properties.
So in order for the rest of the processing material not to
get stuck into the carbon fiber and the epoxy, we put
this kind of a release film here which is easy to tear off
of the part when it's done.
And it also makes sure that this breathing fabric, as it's
called-- it's called a breather--
doesn't stick to the carbon fiber piece.
And what this does is make sure that the pressure that
this is subjected to, or the vacuum that we also suck out,
that it gets spread out and that we don't
get pockets of air.
It's making sure the atmospheric differences are
controlled over the surface.
So at the end, we put this bagging material over the
whole part and then we seal it off with kind of a goo that is
similar to black chewing gum, I would say.
So, basically, these are the elements included in the
production of the part.
And it's quite intricate, especially with a tube like
this that has to then-- we put carbon fiber here, we put
carbon fiber here.
And then these--
I'll take this off right now--
then they have to match together.
And I'll need this bagging material to come in to the
tube to pressurize the tube from the inside and then to
seal off the tube from the outside.
Of course, the thinner, the lighter but
also less strong part.
So if it's a safety critical part or, like this, a
pressurized part, it really needs to be calculated well to
have the right amount of carbon fiber.
You never want to put more carbon fiber than you need
into a part because, first of all,
carbon fiber is expensive.
So the part becomes unnecessarily expensive.
It takes more time to apply the carbon fiber than is
actually needed.
And in the end also the part becomes heavier, which is
maybe the worst part in a super light sports car.
The end result is this tube.
So in the end, it's a quite simple looking part, but
there's a lot of thought that has gone into what it becomes
in the end.
Already, of course, from shaping the part, but also
when it comes to laying it up and getting the right
consolidation.
You can see straight from the tool, you get a quite nice
even surface that doesn't require a lot of the hand
fettling afterwards.
As it is a very complex technology, there are many
types of weaves, many types of carbon fiber strand, and
different philosophies of how to apply them.
It's a little bit of a black art really, and really lessons
learned and what kind of philosophies
you're working towards.
But we have been developing carbon fiber parts since 1994.
So I would say we have quite good experience and can create
extreme, lightweight, and strong parts based on the
knowledge we have and the analysis tools we have.
So it's really a labor-intensive process and
the persons involved in the manufacturing really needs to
know what they're doing to get the desired result.
Of course, here, we have a much more complex part.
So you can imagine what has to go into this compared to a
simple tube.
And what's nice about carbon fiber is you can vary the
strength and thicknesses in different areas with no limit.
It's just how much thought you want to put into it and how
much labor you want to put into it.
But it can be so optimized, like this corner can have a
little bit of extra carbon.
It can be thinner here.
We can have a different direction.
Not many other materials gives that kind of freedom.
At the same time, not many other materials can soak up so
much time in the production process.
But that's what makes the car extreme and what
it is in the end.
Koenigsegg and carbon fiber are very closely integrated
and it has to be that way in this very competitive
market we're in.