Circular Design Of Electric Car Parts
The dependence of Automotive industry towards the raw materials for manufacturing tends to be the topic of this resource-constrained world. Nearly 60% of global supply is being imported to the automobile sector and according to U. S Geological surveys, these reserves will runout by 2030. On the other hand, the automotive sector is the biggest source of environmental impact in terms of material waste disposal and there are research studies to analyze the situation and find solutions for circular economy. Redesigning and remanufacturing have gained the light of focus and adapting reverse logistics will be an area of research for adapting to circular economy. There is a great increase in the number of electric cars on the market. Volvo cars are marching towards an era beyond internal combustion engines. In 2017, they have made a commitment to electrify every car in their range. In futuristic view, there will be a demand for remanufacturing of electric cars to ensure commercial and environmental sustainability. Unlike the petrol and diesel cars, electric cars have only three main components – the electric motor, the on-board charger and the inverter, which require maintenance.
Circular economy in automotive sector
Circular Economy refers to a regenerative system in which the resource input and waste management are minimized through long-lasting design, maintenance and remanufacture of parts post their first life. The circular economy leads its concepts through three basic principles. First, preserving the natural capital needs through managing stocks and focusing on renewable energy sources. Secondly, optimizing the resource yields and recirculating the materials. Finally, effective design and stress for remanufacturing and reuse. The Automotive sector in Europe is moving towards electrification and the OEM’s have true interest in developing more sustainable products. By the consequences of the concepts and ideas of circular economy, greater attention has been given to what happens at the end of first life of the product. Rethinking of throwing the products after their first life has been started and more environmentally friendly behavior is being demanded in the society.
Future electrification of Volvo cars
Volvo Cars are committed to reducing their environment impact of all their products and therefore they are going to introduce many electrified cars in the coming years. They are going to introduce a fully electrified or a hybrid driveline for all their models within just a couple of years. Volvo estimates that 10% of global sales will be electrified by 2020. It is also estimated that as much as 50 % of their sales volume to be fully electric by 2025. They are also committed to putting 1 million electrified cars on the road by 2025.
To make this possible, every car released from 2019 and onwards will have an electric motor and a larger battery in the car of some sort. All the cars that are not fully electric will have a hybrid drive line. Volvo will use at least light hybrid systems in their cars. These electrification plans will play a major role to reduce CO2 and other harmful emissions to make earth a better place for current and future generations to live.
Volvo’s upcoming problem and their strategy: Volvo’s electrification plans will also have some ill effects in the near future as they are not prepared to deal with enormous numbers of post first life batteries. Electric Vehicles alone could leave up to 11 million tons of lithium-ion batteries which needs to be dealt with. Currently, Volvo has a strategy of dealing with retired batteries
- Remanufacturing: This is the one of the best way to deal with post life batteries. Remanufacturing makes sure that the battery is repaired and placed back into the car itself. This process will have the least impact on the environment as the manufacturing process which involves harmful emissions are omitted and rare minerals are reused instead of exploitation of it.
- 2nd life applications: The retired batteries have at most 80% of their total efficiency left enabling it to be useful for other applications. They are presently used to store renewable solar and wind energy by Volvo. It is also used in charging stations for their wide range of hybrid cars.
- Recycling: EV batteries are recycled to recover many minerals used in its manufacturing. However this process is expensive and the value of raw materials reclaimed from it is only a third of that.
Limitations of their strategy: The above strategies discussed involves disassembly of the EV battery in the first phase. The current batteries are designed in a way that they are easier to assemble and difficult to disassemble from the vehicle body. Disassembling process is time consuming and requires skilled labor. In some cases, even special tools are required for disassembly. Thus a redesign of batteries is needed for quick disassembling to implement the above mentioned strategies.
Why redesigning of e-car batteries?
Electric cars are trending towards a great opening and set to rule the roads showing signs of end of internal combustion engines. The next decade promises to be having a major shift in production trends bringing high number of Electric Vehicles into the market. The General Motors have announced its plans to go for an all-electric vehicle by 2023. Ford confirms seven of its future global vehicles to be electrified and custom plug-in hybrid. Mazda, Denso and Toyota have signed a joint technology development contract for Electric Vehicles. Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz has invested to build a plant for electric vehicles and outlined a plan to electrify its entire portfolio 2022. The Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi alliance will work together to develop new system focusing on purely electric and announced plans to release 12 all-electric models by 2022. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to electrify its entire vehicle lineup by 2020.
Volvo has announced to electrify its entire vehicle lineup by 2019 with 5 all-electric models by 2021. The VW Group, parent group of European Automakers like Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche are investing huge funds in battery production and plans to offer electric and hybrid version of 300 vehicles by 2030. In Electric cars, the batteries are warranted to last for at least 10 years. After the post first-life period of these batteries, the car manufactures will face a problem to dispose them effectively or jump into the concepts of using them in other application or to remanufacture and reuse the same in the electric cars.
