What are the technological innovations that will shape the future of the automotive industry? From electric cars and fast-charging batteries to autonomous vehicles, additive manufacturing and robotics.
The global automotive industry is not just in year 2021 but for the rest of the decade and it will be an increasing emphasis on the development of vehicles that produce zero emissions.
Electric Cars
The head of the group corporate relations for Volkswagen in the UK, Oliver Larkin said that in order for VW to meet the demands of the Paris Climate Accord for complete CO2 neutrality in both products and processes by 2050, the company “must be making electric cars (ECs) only by 2040.”
He explains that, “At the moment, 14% of global CO2 is generated by the transport sector,” which means given Volkswagen’s share of the market that “2% of global CO2 emissions is produced by cars made by VW.”
Ultra-Fast Charging Batteries
In order for ECs to take off, something else is necessary – the ability to charge their batteries from nearly flat to full in a matter of minutes just like filling the petrol tank of a car today.
HyperCharge CEO Dr Daren George says that the importance of ultra-fast charging in a future EC infrastructure is still under-appreciated, but he believes that :
He said, “It is in fact the number one barrier for the adoption of ECs. Cost of ownership and cost per mile over the lifetime of a car is already less for ECs than it is for ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles.”
HyperCharge Technology’s solution is to re-engineer the chemistry of the lithium-ion batteries most commonly used in ECs so that graphite is replaced by a nano-silicon formulation as the primary anode material with vastly superior performance.