OREANDA-NEWS. The development of the conceptual and technical projects of the Russian presidential limousine and line of cortege vehicles (sedans, SUVs and minivans) in the framework of the project "cortege" was completed. Alexey Borovkov, the head of engineering center of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Informed the agency "TASS" (SPbPU).

According to Alexey Borovkov, in 2015 we will develop the working design documentation of prototypes and to create the first prototypes of cars. Presidential limousine should be ready in 2017-2018's. "It will be the big, heavy - about 6 tons, but agile and heavy-duty premium car with 800 HP engine, and, most importantly, the safest car in the world", - says Alexey Borovkov.

The concept of a single modular platform of family of bodies within the "Cortege" project provides the ability to create the body structure of the presidential limousine and cortege car line with a high level of unification of body parts.

"We have incorporated several fundamentally new design solutions in the bodywork of all cars that have been confirmed by numerous virtual tests, implemented in the engineering center SPbPU based on developed polytechnics full-scale mathematical models by engineers and computer technology of world-class", - said Alexey Borovkov.

He noted that the amount of funding, provided for the project "Cortege", they are about 8 billion Rubles in 2015 and 2016 and they will be distributed approximately equally between the design and production of the project. In 2014, the project took 3.5 billion Rubles - most of them to perform design work and less - for the pre-production. "The closer to the end of the project, the greater the amount of funds will go to production and less - to develop," - said Alexey Borovkov.

According to him, the assembly of the car will be largely automated and take place at the production site of the Institute NAMI (National Automobile intelligent innovation) - the head executor of the project, the customer of which is the Ministry of Industry of Russia. "Central Institute of the industry is implementing the project in close cooperation with high-tech engineering companies that have experience of working with the world's leading automotive industry. This interaction allows you to organize a transfer of advanced scientific technologies. For example, it is the use of advanced manufacturing technologies - technologies of computer engineering and additive technologies (3D printers). It allows you to distribute effectively material in construction, receive and produce the optimum design. So some of the details, designed in the Engineering center on the basis of bionic design and topology optimization methods, weigh 2-2.5 times less than if we had used a traditional design approaches," - said Alexey Borovkov.

"At the beginning of work the number of potential implementers evaluated in 20 Russian companies, including the Center for Computer Engineering SPbPU and two companies of polytechnics and 40 foreign companies. During the implementation, the number of participants was reduced and their correlation has changed eventually in favor of domestic companies," - said Alexey Borovkov. The total volume of implemented works in 2014 by R & D Engineering Center SPbPU, "Laboratory" Computational Mechanics" (CompMechLab) and LLC "Polytech-engineering" that have the extensive experience in the design of bodies for the world's leading automakers, is 225 million Rubles.

Alexey Borovkov explained that the work to improve a single modular platform will be not completed by the development of the car for the president. "The technical project, design and, of course, manufacturing technologies will be continuously improved, so it will be the way for new and improved versions. For example, SUV of this line of cars, of course, in a simpler version and available equipment, will be launched in a series of mass", - said the interlocutor of agency.