E-mobility is a game changer for the automotive domain. It promises significant reduction in terms of complexity and in terms of local emissions. With falling prices and recent technological advances, the second generation of electric vehicles (EVs) that is now in production makes electromobility an affordable and viable option for more and more transport mission (people, freight).
Still, major challenges for large scale deployment remain. They include higher maturity with respect to performance (e.g., range, interaction with the grid), development efficiency (e.g., time-to-market), or production costs. Additionally, an important market transformation currently occurs with the co-development of automated driving functions, connectivity, mobility-as-a-service. New opportunities arise to customize road transportation systems toward application-driven, user-centric smart mobility solutions.
The target of this paper is to provide a consolidated view of several related European research programs having the common goal to develop innovative, brand-independent architectures, components and systems for next generation electrified vehicles optimised for the infrastructure under the umbrella of the E-VOLVE cluster. This regroups the projects ACHILES, SYS2WHEEL, EVC1000 introducing innovative in-wheel motors for different vehicle segments, CEVOLVER introducing optimized concepts for energy and thermal management, and Multi-Moby focusing on the development of safe, efficient and affordable urban electric vehicles.
