Limo Green

A series-hybrid, high performance, luxury limousine

Designing small eco-friendly city cars is one way to reduce the environmental impact of the transport sector, but sometimes a city car simply will not do. Larger vehicles present a whole new set of challenges… and MIRA likes a challenge! Is it possible to design a luxury limousine with impeccable green credentials? We think so and, with the backing of the DfT, a consortium has been drawn together to take project ‘Limo Green’ off the drawing board and onto the road.

Limo Green takes a Jaguar executive saloon as a basis for the development, proving out the concept of a large luxury hybrid limousine, utilising an advanced drive motor, small battery pack and a small Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) for sustained cruising. The collaboration between Jaguar Cars Ltd, MIRA Ltd, Lotus Engineering and Caparo Vehicle Technologies, aims to demonstrate a large, prestigious executive saloon with less than 120 g/km CO2 emissions, whilst maintaining premium quality characteristics. The combined average fuel
consumption target is 57mpg. MIRA is responsible for the advanced drive motor &
controller, battery pack and hybrid integration.

The car is fitted with a powerful 170hp motor, which gives the car comparable performance
to the standard diesel Jaguar XJ, but with maximum speed limited to 112 mph. Limo Green is a series hybrid, which means that it is primarily an electric car with an onboard generator to keep the batteries topped up. The car will also take power from the mains, providing enough charge for 30 miles of zero emission motoring.

Further details are included in this article extracted from MIRA's 'M' newsletter:

Limo Green (.pdf 369Kb)