The transition of motorized fleets towards the electric drive is the most important aspect of the mobility transition on the one hand and the next phase of the energy transition on the other. This is because motorized individual traffic in Germany today causes around a quarter of all climate-damaging emissions with the combustion of fossil fuels. An electrified fleet, on the other hand, could hold around twenty percent of the chemical storage capacity required for electricity by 2030 .
But the replacement of the car, Transporter- and the truck fleet is slow to get going. The share of all-electric cars in new registrations is stagnating at just under twenty percent. That also implies, that eighty percent of all newly registered cars are equipped with internal combustion engines will be used throughout the next decade. Most experts “see” a "hen-egg-dilemma": There were too few charging options for car owners, which keeps them from buying a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) or, bzw. investment in charging options was too little, because the demand for BEVs is too low.
In fact, neither hen nor egg are designed the way, that transition could take place at the required speed. Charging (Plugin) restricts the usability of the vehicle compared to familiar products. This at least is the opinion of a majority amongst consumers. And the high costs of the permanently installed battery leave buyers with uncertainty about the risks of acquisition, accident, defect or resale.
In order to avoid long term subsidies for electric individual transport and its infrastructure, a well known alternative solution for politics and industries is at hand, which will achieve a faster breakthrough for electromobility .
Wanted: automated exchangeable traction batteries
The alternative should lead to effects, that avoids subsidies for BEV, when purchasing and operating vehicles. Using an electric vehicle, drivers should be able to spontaneously cover any distance almost as quickly, as if they were using a diesel or gasoline powered car.. BEVs should not lose their value when resold due to the degradation of the traction battery. Rather, also older BEVs should benefit from the ongoing innovation in traction storage, to keep vehicles in operation for a long time once having been produced. Then BEVs will then conquer the market in less time. Six percent of the conventional car fleet, nearly three million vehicles, can then be electrified per year, as nothing keeps the vehicle owner from buying electric anymore.
E-UNLIMITED as a comprehensive approach, circles around existing technical solutions , that are ready for use on a small scale since years:
In this train, decarbonization will be expanded beyond the vehicle. That is, because an economically operable, optimally distributed storage emerges for renewable electricity, which is produced at the wrong time, in the wrong region – or - vice versa - is lacking the grids. Over 14.000 Local network storage systems throughout Germany enable mineral oil companies in cooperation with electricity network operators to withdraw from their fossil fuel business model and give the signal for the renewed acceleration of the energy transition. All-electric driving is becoming the norm with no state aid. The energy transition receives the most important component for its completion through motorized individual transport: economically operable storage facilities.
The necessary standardization of the traction battery, uniform dimensions, connections, Fixation technique and electrical output voltage, is due to date (2021) The progress made in energy density can be achieved. Indeed, a standard helps European industry to facilitate production. This leads to lower unit costs. Low costs allow reasonable prices for consumers. Competitive prices in the segment of e-mobility lead to growing demand. So far, however, there has been no great demand for e-mobiles in Europe, as well as a working overall strategy for exiting the combustion engine.
The E-UNLIMITED concept therefore describes a sector coupling strategy for the rapid transformation of motorized individual transport (MIV). The concept meets the following key requirements:
High user acceptance for BEV
Direct positive effect on the development and the sensible use of renewable electricity
Integration of existing, Investable economic players in the motorized vehicle market through market incentives
The purely electric operation of the fleet is the transport policies' objective of the concept. Adapting existing MIV infrastructures appears to make more sense than building new systems, to consistently enhance both, the political- as well as the business economic potentials.
The qualitative development of the energy transition with the help of the fleets' transformation is the energy policies', equally important objective of the concept. Because in return, the decarbonisation of the electricity production positively feeds back on the emission balance of thr electrified BEV fleet. The requirements of a growing fleet under the so-called sector coupling read as follows:
Standardization of the traction battery, excellent in terms of uniform dimensions, connections, Fixation technique and electrical output voltage.
Fulfillment of further minimum requirements, Energy density, C-Rate etc..
Bidirectional battery management under optimised conditions
Accessing economic potentials through polyvalent battery usage: The simultaneous provision of electrical traction energy and various power grid services stimulates investments and enables amortization.
The change principle applied to the infrastructure for the provision of traction energy, thousands of, decentralized, so-called local electrcity grid storages, each with multiple megawatt hours of storage capacity, will be set up in accordance with the growing fleet.. While the electric drive decarbonises and detoxifies the private and public transport, and lowers its noise emissions substantially on the local level, local electricity grid storages will flank the transition to an overall zero emission power generation. It is this element of the electic transport system that allows for entering the phase-out of carbon based power production – as it ensures stable power grids as part of an ever-growing renewable electricity supply.
Argument 1: user acceptance
Customers decision to purchase a BEV in direct comparison with established products already available the market. Plugin-BEV remain less attractive in terms of price and performance, compared to conventional cars . Public and private charging points are the systemic flaw (in regard to urban layouts and return of investment) , a permanent burdon for the urban and rural infrastructure. As a result access to a demand-driven mass market remains locked for BEV.
The public perception of BEV alters swiftly though “as soon as the car does not come with a socket”, without its own, permanently installed traction battery, but is available within the familiar, refueling system. Now the initial costs for the battery fall away, as they become part of the investment in the electricity grid infrastructure. Service providers guarantee the battery-quality – just as, they do for the consistently high quality of carbon fuels today. The BEV holder will change the battery regularly, as it was discharged in operation.
The cost of BEV shrink to the level of conventional vehicles available- today. Whenever the BEV requires full range, the battery currently in use is returnded to a changing station and replaced by an optimally charged. The process in the already developed automated exchange concepts takes just under three minutes. This solves the BEVs range problem – because the actual problem of lack of range, the charging period, does not apply for the user anymore, regardless of the size of the battery
The exchange principle makes vehicle owners benefit from the continuous progress in battery development. Owners of older BEV benefit from latest capacity improvements. so that the electrical equipment does not have negative effect on the residual value of the vehicle.
The necessary infrastructure already exists: About 14,500 gas stations in Germany are ideal for a successive conversion.
The standardization of the battery opened (of conventional cars, vans and lorries) to convert their used vehicle to electric drive. – Medium-sized automotive companies and garages fearing the uncertainties of the transition, will set up a market for the electrification of the conventional fleet - a sustainable alternative to scrapping high quality, but conventional vehicles.
Argument 2: Pooled battery capacity flanks the energy transition
Assuming todays performance, at a busy exchange station, daily 200 to 300 batteries will be replaced. Batteries will be managed underground, and under constant, good conditions. For each returned discharged battery (potentially negative balancing energy) a charged battery (potentially positive balancing energy) will leave the station, establishing a perfect battery circuit.
This way exchange stations function as local grid storages. At best, they will absorb power from electricity grids, when, due to strong winds- and solar power (low demand) the prices at the electricity stock exchange, are low. If power production falls short, intelligent storage management will sell off electricity back into the grid. The system turns economically attractive – and thus will be implemented – if it is asured, that individual vehicle owners in Germany (and many more throughout Europe) will not have to individually cooperate with hundreds of grid operators, depending on where the car needs additional traction energy. The first group of stakeholders, the car users, has a simple goal: to quickly and spontaneously reach multiple destinations. A car equipped with a combustion engine keeps this promise most of the time. stakeholder two, grid operators, know: From a systemicle, economicle point of view BEV should not be recharged, as they need traction energy, but opportunistically, oriented on the fluctuating power generation from wind- and solar energy. This conflict of interest is resolved by a system, that holds enough charged traction batteries on the one hand and is flexible enough, to take economic advantage of fluctuating electricity situations on the other hand.
Esspecially scarcity enables interesting income opportunities at the stock exchanges, provided, the cumulative storage capacity of the market participant is large enough and the stock of base load power plants shrinks due to political will (nuclear- and successive coal phaseout).
Thus the set up of the battery exchange system, from an economic perspective in particular, leads towards an interesting model, which is based on fluctuations resulting from electricity generated from renewable energy sources. The higher the share of the renewables in the grids, the better works the business with electricity storage. Therefore, operators of electric storage pools will quickly develop a deep interest in the expansion of fluctuating renewables.
However, the currently implemented plug-in technology leads to increased demand for electricity only – regardless of the type of production facility. The vehicle is but another electricity consumer, stressing lower grid levels the more, the faster the charging process is desired. Bidirectional “plug-in systems” are associated with risks for individual BEV owners trying to maintain the vehicles' value and for grid operators' business models, as increased charging cycles, under suboptimal climatic conditions, always pose a risk to the life expectancy of the battery. These risks can be technically avoided by removing the battery, an economical communitisation. The price for exchanging the battery will of course mirror the overall system costs..
Argument 3: standardized traction batteries enable business models, not subsidy traps
E-UNLIMITED leads to an about seven percent surplus of traction batteries in relation to the number of approved cars and vans. But only then will the BEV be interesting for the user. Consumer behavior now provides for the refinancing of the much-needed decentral local electricity storage system. This delays the need for a purely stationary storage system, which is not feasible from an economic perspective. Amortisation is achieved though, when traction batteries are used multifuncionally; either inside a vehicle or pooled and bidirectionally integrated into the respective low to medium tension power grid:
revenues from delivering traction power
revenues from cheap electricity storage opportunities (Exploitation in times of high electricity supply)
revenues from profitable feeding back power into the respective grid (Exploiting opportunities in times of low supply)
Argument 4: The standardization of the traction battery opens up the mass market
Standardization enables the cost-effective production of goods. With regard to the traction battery, it opens up perspectives for European cooperation. Similar to the first steps towards European cooperation in aircraft construction, The division of labor in the continuous further development of the exchangeable battery system enables the connection, if not the lead in the development of electric mobility, closely linked to a sustainable electricity system. In the case of raw material-intensive consumer goods, standardization also makes it possible to answer the, which rightly enters the debate, also in the matter of traction batteries. Largely identical assemblies are mechanical at the end of their life cycle, d.h. inexpensive, recyclable and can be completely reused.
For the smallest unit of electric traction batteries, the battery cell, standardised parameters are at hand since long. European vehicle manufacturers recently started to standardise their battery modules, groups of battery cells, to reduce costs through modular use in all their newly developed BEV models.
The graph to the right illustrates, for example, that half the size of the BMWs i3 traction battery is a good match for the standard size of a swappable traction battery. Small vehicles for urban use would be well supplied, taken the short stopovers due to battery changes, described in this concept. the following, simplified diagram schematically shows the possible spatial arrangement in the vehicle floor.
A multiple of the normed battery (here 15 or 30 kWh) supplies large limousines, vans and even buses for public transport. Automated handling at exchange stations was technically shown already. The automated transport of objects with similar masses is routine, e.g.. in automated warehouses.
Comprehend BEV as a partner of the energy transition
In Germany about 80 percent of all journeys made by people are done by car, according to the Federal Ministry of Transport. That does not mean,
that this must remain as it is, or
that those were not eighty good reasons, to deal with other modes of transport and their interaction.
However, this is an 80 percent reason, to finally deal with the system behind the car itself, if the transport sector is to be decarbonized, detoxified and silenced as quickly as possible. The system consists of:
the consumer, his constraints and preferences
industrial stakeholders: the automotive industry, their suppliers, the petroleum industry – and electricity grid operators
the transport, energy, and tax politics, which act in a regulating and shaping way.
Affected sectors of society and "political designers" are to be included, without unconsciously counteracting the transition of the car fleet. This may happen, if the car itself, regardless of its drive system, is questioned as a means of transport in the course of political communikation. The will of established stakeholders to cooperate would be undermined, resistance provoked – and time wasted.
The conversion to electric driving creates opportunities for qualitative growth in the automotive industry and for new cooperations between oil- and electricity industry.
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