Due to limited resources and growing environmental awareness, substitution of fossil fuels becomes more important. Because of its high share in global fuel consumption and CO
2 emissions mobility is in focus of political and social interests. Therefore, the German Government has set itself the goal to bring alternative drive technologies forward. By 2020, one million electric vehicles are forecasted to drive on German roads.
Factors that are crucial for displacement of current mobility with combustion engines are equality in costs, overcoming mobility limitations and exclusivity.
Above, it is more than just a discussion about "range". On the emotional side it is a limitation of flexibility up to the loss of mobility. For the establishment of electric vehicles mobility without restrictions is fundamental.
To overcome the problem of range different approaches exist. But the evaluations of proposed solutions are often only one-dimensional. To ensure an implementation in order the approaches shave to be examined differently. The focus has to be on "feasibility" and "potential". Public attention often becomes approaches that achieved insufficient results on at least one axis. As one popular example the discussion about swap-concepts can be mentioned. These concepts offer great potential to overcome limitations in mobility. Due to external factors (e.g. standardization of energy storage) the results on feasibility are insufficient. The analysis aims currently on the development of range extenders as the optimum between feasibility and potential.
In terms of exclusivity in particular political incentives can create desire. Over the past years the clean and green image, both in business and in the private sector became an important factor. However, the development and establishment of electric vehicles could not benefit from it that much so far. The incentives planed by the federal government such as the permission to use bus lanes or driving bans in city centers could someday compensate the mainly performance-based incentives. These political incentives result in a shift from limited mobility of electric vehicles to mobility limitations for conventional vehicles.
The establishment of electric vehicles in the mass market is unlikely as long as it is not profitable. Present hopes rest primarily on the potential for rationalization in battery production. Based on the analysis of P3 Ingenieurgesellschaft, these potentials can be realized faster than generally expected. Same opinion has Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, who, regarding overall costs, expects advantages for electric vehicles in 2015. Basic driver will be the system costs to reduce CO2 emissions. The cost disadvantages of electric vehicles are forecast to reverse in cost savings between 2016 and 2018.
The P3 Ingenieurgesellschaft and the affiliated P3 automotive GmbH, P3 energy & storage GmbH and P3 Communications GmbH work together interdisciplinary in the area of electric vehicles. As a high performance consultancy they walk along with leading companies within these areas to implement the solutions of tomorrow.
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