Electric vehicles have existed since the late 19th century, but have only recently come to the forefront of the market as a serious competitor to traditional ICE vehicles. As such, the front crash management system, colloquially known as car bumpers, have been designed exclusively for ICE vehicles. Despite the recent popularity and rising trend of electric vehicles, little has been done to modify these systems with electric vehicles in mind.

The purpose of this master's thesis was to develop a concept of an innovative car bumper designed specifically for electric vehicles. This is not intended to be ready for production, but rather serve as a proof-of-concept for further development. The project utilized a traditional product development process involving literature study, brainstorming, concept development, elementary design and evaluation of a number of concepts, and the development of a final concept.

The literature study found that electric motors are generally smaller and more lenient in terms of its placement within the front part of the car chassis. This allows for slightly more space to be utilized for the crash management system. However, electric cars are generally heavier than ICE cars which results in higher forces exacted on the car. By extension, this places higher demands on the load-absorbing capability of the bumper.

The concept development process resulted in numerous concept sketches, with four of these advancing to the detail design stage. Basic detail design was made for each concept and simulations of three different crash tests were run on these - Allianz, pole and flat wall. Thereafter, these concepts were compared and evaluated using a scoring matrix. The concept with the highest score was chosen to be further developed upon. After additional improvements had been made to the final concept, a reference system of same weight was created for the purpose of comparing the impact of the new design feature of this concept that differs from the conventional bumpers on the market. The final design and the reference design were then compared, using crash simulations and analyzing the section force curves and the energy absorption of each system.

The comparison showed that the final design performed significantly better in the pole crash simulation than the reference system, by absorbing 38 % more energy and having a higher section force curve. The comparison also showed higher energy absorption in the Allianz test and the flat wall test of 15 % respectively 16 %. 

The results of this master's thesis indicate that the developed concept has a better crash performance than a corresponding traditional version of the bumper with same weight. With further development, this concept has potential of becoming a competitive asset for Gestamp. This master's thesis should act as an inspiration for future work within the Gestamp organization, both in terms of the concepts as well as the thought-process used to develop them.