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
hybrid 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
probably painted on the back
of every Koenigsegg.
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So the interior of the car
is as important as
anything else we do.
We spend a lot of energy and
time optimizing and making it
really special and unique, and
functional, of course.
I mean, this is the place where
the driver/owner and the
passenger spend most of his
time, so it's important that
you feel really special
inside the car and
that it works well.
So I'm going to tell you a
little bit about our ghost
lighting system that we
developed for the Agera.
Basically, we wanted something
elegant, clear, unique, and
ergonomic and nice for the
driver and the occupant to be
able to control the car and
its function in the best
possible way.
We thought it would be pretty
cool if we could have a metal
bottom, an aluminum bottom,
which is just as smooth and
nice, and you don't see or feel
anything until the light
turns on, and then it shows
up what it actually is.
And we had to spend a lot of
time to get the lighting
correct, to have it shiny enough
on the inside, to have
the surface thin enough so that
the light can penetrate
through the very small
etched laser holes.
And the holes were optimized in
size so that they're hardly
visible when the light is off,
but very visible when the
light is on.
Also, we have a philosophy
that inside the car,
basically, the only materials
you can touch is either
leather, carbon fiber,
or metal.
There's no plastic anywhere.
Here is the circuit board going
behind, and we actually
have a light in here, but also
four small LEDs, very strong
LEDs, inside each button.
You see this one is naked, so
this one goes like this and
moves together with
the button.
Then they're all spring mounted
on this very unique
circular spring, which
was developed.
We used a special spring steel
with a certain thickness and a
certain shape to get the right
spring effect going to have a
really nice click
for each button.
So we mimic the same
kind of features on
the steering wheel.
First of all, of course, it
has to be manufactured in
carbon fiber, baked
in the autoclave.
Then it has to be clear coated
in the paint shop.
Then we put the foam agent
underneath the leather, and
then the leather.
And that's about a one-day
process just
to apply the leather.
And then we have to fit all
the electronics, and the
paddle shifters, and circuit
boards, and make it
into what it is.
So the steering wheel is a
one-piece hollow carbon fiber
that we designed here, and it's
very optimized to the
interior of the car.
It's a little bit thinner up
top, so it's easier to see the
instrumentation.
It's got a flat bottom to make
it easier to get in and out of
the car, and it's got an
optimized grip section.
Also, underneath the leather,
there's a foam agent to make
the steering wheel more
compliant and to take out some
high-frequency vibration
that it's not--
well, that dilutes the input
from the road, basically.
Here we have also ghost
lighted buttons.
As you can see, they're just
shiny aluminum until
the light comes on.
And this goes into the steering
wheel here, one on
the left side and one
on the right side.
And there's a lot of
functionality and processing
going on in the steering
wheel, so we actually
developed a circuit board for
the steering wheel, which has
CAN bus communication and CAN
bus protocol going through
just a small amount of cables.
The reason why we have CAN bus
in the steering wheel is to
reduce the amount of cables
that has to go through the
axle and that has to spin
around all the time when
you're turning.
But it also gives us flexibility
to have different
functions for the buttons.
We can change symbols and change
software, and then we
have completely different
function
without rerouting cables.
Another thing which is very
important is that we have
these shifters mounted to
the steering wheel.
And we spent a lot of time
making sure we have the right
click feel, so it's like
a trigger, basically.
It's either on or off.
You can't press it halfway.
And it's also important that it
has a solid mounting base.
If you want to press it by the
tip, it doesn't flex at all.
And they're very long for being
steering wheel mounted.
So you get very good ergonomics
when you're turning
the steering wheel.
But most important
is how they feel.
They have a really nice trigger
feel click to them.
So there are several different
spring elements inside the
shifter to have the
right feel.
All in all, it's a very unique
product, the steering wheel
with all its functions.
And I would say normally it
would take almost the size of
our company just to develop a
thing like a steering wheel,
but that's something we
just do on the side.
And of course, the final part
is the airbag that goes in.
So it's a quite complex product,
the steering wheel
alone by itself.
Here we have an aluminum part.
All the aluminum parts inside
the car are machined from
billet aluminum.
And you can see here on the
backside there are some traces
of machining.
On the front side, of course,
the machining time is much
longer and slower to make
it really smooth.
After it's machined, it's
polished in a special
polishing machine.
It's not just tumbled.
It's a proprietary polishing
system, which makes it
extremely smooth.
And after that, it's anodized
to get a good surface
protection.
And this is the process that all
the aluminum parts in the
interior go through.
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