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You are here: Home → Energy and Environment → Focus on Electrification of the Vehicle

Focus on Electrification of the Vehicle

Energy supply together with the issues concerning fossil energy resources and climate change represent major challenges being faced by society today and which are set to gain in importance over the coming years. The growing demand for mobility and energy in emerging regions make these problems even more urgent and potentially severe. The automotive industry must identify and provide sustainable solutions for the mobility and transport systems of the future. These solutions will be exposed to even stricter requirements than those of today which already impose highly stringent limitations concerning environmental impact and emissions; clean fuels and secure energy sources, together with optimised efficiency of energy use are just a few of the boundary conditions driving the development of future vehicles.

Another fact is that the urban areas continue to attract an increasing part of the population (UN forecast is 80 % in 2030). In urban agglomerations a large portion of the population will typically limit their daily travel to short and medium distances of less than 100 kilometres. At the same time, a large amount of goods transport will take place in the urban areas, increasing the need for cleaner and more energy efficient distribution vehicles.

Although a simple unique response to meet the challenges has not been identified, today it is widely recognised that widespread electrification of the mobility and transport systems will form an important part of the solution. Correspondingly, new concepts and technologies need to be developed to realise highly efficient electric vehicles suited for individual and public mobility and for goods distribution respectively in urban areas.

Without doubt, the success of current drive towards wideranging electrification of the transport system will depend on the coordinated co‑operation of all the key stakeholders and contributors including:

  • Automotive industry for developing efficient and affordable electric vehicles and components,
  • Energy suppliers and distributors for deploying the needed infrastructure including charging spots and related information and communication systems,
  • Authorities for the deployment and creation of suitable prerequisites for a successful market introduction of electric vehicles.

To achieve this, it is necessary to act within an integrated approach and in a consistent direction right from the outset, based on today’s technologies in the short term but projected towards the longer term when adapted. New technologies will enable the electric vehicle to become affordable to private consumers and therefore achieve full market penetration in urban regions. Standards and common interfaces (e.g. vehicle-to-infrastructure charging including exchange of relevant data between vehicle and infrastructure) need to be agreed upon rapidly for Europe as a whole to avoid a fragmented pattern of local competing solutions giving rise to compatibility issues. This represents a unique opportunity for the European industry to establish a position of global leadership in electric vehicles and related transport systems. In this scenario, to achieve this potential, the battery technology at cell, module and system level plays a key role while transversally impacting other application fields.

Regarding range, affordability and interior space provided by the vehicle, the first electric vehicles on the market satisfy customer expectations only to a very limited extent. Considering the low vehicle volumes forecast  initially, necessarily the early electric vehicles correspond to derivations of existing vehicles, using current “electric” technologies that have been adapted from other applications, even from outside the automotive market, leading to expensive solutions with limited durability and insufficient performance. Hence, in order to achieve a large scale replacement by electric vehicles over conventional vehicles, it is necessary to support an accelerated evolution of electrification technologies. For future electric vehicles, increasingly dedicated design solutions for the vehicle will be introduced progressively in order to enable optimised component technologies to be exploited fully.

The intelligent integration into the existing urban transport infrastructure, such as the application of intelligent ICT solutions to enable optimised traffic management and intermodality between different types of transport solutions, will be essential to overcome some of the current shortcomings of the electric vehicle.

 

 

The following R&D activities have been identified in this area:


Affordable and safe battery systems with improved performance

Market introduction and convenient use of vehicles with an electric powertrain depend mainly on the costs and performance of these vehicles. Safe operation certainly has to be secured for all automobile applications. The key component for both performance and cost of an electric vehicle is the energy storage system. Today it is expected that the energy storage system over the near term will be a lithium-based battery system.

It has to be taken into account that a battery system includes, besides the battery cells, components for interconnections and packaging as well as electrical and thermal management equipment. All these additional components have a significant influence on the overall volume, weight and cost of a battery system.

Even though significant progress has already been made in terms of the specific energy content of modern batteries, i.e. energy density with respect to the volume and weight, it still remains about two orders of magnitude lower than that of conventional fuels used in combustion engines. This fact alone represents one of the principal challenges for fully electric mobility in general also because a wide range of other factors are influenced as a direct consequence including cost and operational usability. For this reason, the focus for the deployment of the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) is on urban and near-urban transportation, at least for the foreseeable future. The required range of BEV under everyday conditions (including energy for comfort functions such as heating, air conditioning, etc.) will be 150 km (250 km under ideal conditions) in 2015. The research target is to provide a range of approx. 200 km (300 km under ideal conditions) in 2020.

The corresponding quantified targets that need to be met for passenger car Lithium-ion battery systems are:

  • Performance: Energy density has to be improved at least to 180 Wh/kg in 2020 (130 Wh/kg in 2015). Current technologies achieve below 100 Wh/kg.
  • Durability: Calendar and cycle life targets have to meet the expected lifetime for the vehicle. Batteries must last at least 15 years lifetime or 5500 deep charge/discharge cycles by 2020 (4000 charge cycles in 2015 with 10 years life-time) in order to operate the vehicle without replacement over vehicle life.
  • Costs: A target of less than 140 €/kWh has to be achieved in 2020 (less than 215 €/kWh in 2015) for a widespread dissemination of electric vehicles.

 

Post Lithium-ion technologies

To be able to overcome the performance hurdles of Lithium-ion technologies in the long term, already today it is necessary to investigate post Lithium-ion technologies for further improvement of the overall performance of electric-powered vehicles. This research must encompass basic cell research on materials in order to ensure availability with lower costs and higher energy density, considering also manufacturing issues, cell design and packaging,  and recycling and life-cycle aspects according to the operational requirements and usage of the vehicles.

 

Efficient vehicle and energy management system

Today, the internal combustion engine powers the electric systems for safety and comfort features, including the braking force booster, power steering, air conditioning and heating. Instead, in the fully electric vehicle, the energy for these systems must also be supplied by the battery. In addition, the battery has to be thermally managed to avoid damage and premature aging. Moreover, in order to limit the negative impact on the range of the electric vehicle, it is essential to not only minimise the energy consumption of the on-board safety and comfort systems,  but also investigate the full potential of energy recuperation and harvesting from the different sub-systems also with regard to that currently dissipated in vibrations and thermal effects. From the customer’s perspective, apart from the costs, the main difference today between a vehicle with an internal combustion engine and a full electric powertrain is the significantly lower autonomy of the electric vehicle together with the much longer recharging vs. refuelling time. Correspondingly, in order to avoid over-dimensioning the battery capacity and added vehicle costs, R&D is required for:

  • Cost reduction and efficiency improvement for the electric powertrain concerning main drive components e.g. electric machines, power electronics and those specific to the electric vehicle such as range extenders and charging devices.
  • Efficient solutions for electrification of vehicle auxiliaries, for example for heating (which today uses waste heat from the combustion process), cooling,steering and integrated passive and regenerative braking,
  • System architecture (e.g. redundant concepts in order to ensure the function of safety critical systems) and integration, including novel range extender concepts. Simulation methodologies covering all electrical aspects are requested for the optimisation of the system architecture.

 

Specifically focused R&D is required in the short to mid term on the development of new small, lower cost and highly efficient internal combustion engines designed considering not only the constraints but also the advantages of the range extender application usage. This will be necessary in order to reach the extremely ambitious targets in terms of noxious, CO2 and noise emissions.

 

High voltage systems and components

High voltage (400 V) is needed, which requires further research activities regarding safety at handling, during maintenance and after collision.

 

Connection to the infrastructure

One of the most critical areas for R&D in terms of promoting the wide usage of electric vehicles regards the connection of the electric vehicles to the infrastructure, particularly as concerns:

  • Charging: development of fast charging systems, easyto-use interface to infrastructure,
  • Dedicated information system for charging management:localisation of free spots, invoicing, etc.

In addition to the specific R&D topics which are related to the vehicle, its components and its interface to the grid, also with respect to the usage of high voltage, activities are necessary for the definition of a road-map for market creation and penetration. Required are field tests and demonstrations in order to acquire experience and feedback from the initial customers, facilitating the design of the next generation of electric vehicles, optimised for electric mobility.

 

Field tests and demonstrators

Field tests and demonstrations must prove customers’ acceptance and experience feedbacks. This is needed to validate the technical system including all infrastructural aspects. Passenger cars, buses and light duty vehicles should participate in such field testing.

 

Road map for market introduction of the electric vehicle

Concepts to be investigated should also include electrified heavy duty commercial vehicles, but with a stronger focus on hybrid technologies in order to ensure commercial usage, bearing in mind also that many of the technological solutions may find application to different types of vehicles with electric powertrains including plug-in-hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.

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