Counterintuitive innovation for EVs

Issue #212, July 13, 2023

Some of the innovation witnessed in the electric vehicle (EV) market and auto industry are counterintuitive. One suggestion multiple experts have given is to shrink the EV battery size to reduce the range, just enough for a day's drive in a city. The European Commission is introducing new regulations for green freight. Toyota's plans are to go for solid state batteries and to use gigacasting to combine many small components in an EV's frame into a single piece of molded aluminum, streamlining the manufacturing process. Wear and tear on tires and brakes have been shown to produce more particle pollution than car exhaust systems. Usage of natural materials is one approach to address this issue. Toyota continues to be bullish on hydrogen fuel cells, deciding to expand beyond Japan. Below are some innovative ideas that are contrary to popular perceptions.

Smaller EV batteries for responsible design

Range anxiety is a major reason for the low adoption of EVs. Big batteries are a solution. But according to data from the US Department of Transportation, 95.1 percent of trips taken in personal vehicles are less than 31 miles; almost 60 percent of all trips are less than 6 miles. In total, the average U.S. driver only covers about 37 miles per day. - Washington Post

New EU regulation for green freight

Despite being a major source of CO2 emissions, there is no standard framework for freight companies to calculate "door-to-door" emissions. This is a reporting gap the European Commission wants to fill with new regulations. The commission has also proposed amending the size of heavy-duty vehicles to accommodate the weight of batteries as the European fleet shifts to EVs. These shifts are expected to encourage the purchase of zero-emission trucks. With technology expected to bring about lighter batteries, the extra weight allocation can instead be used to carry more goods. - Channel News Asia

Toyota's solid state battery

Toyota has unveiled ambitions to halve the size, cost and weight of batteries for its EVs following a breakthrough in its solid-state battery technology. The carmaker’s battery expert said that simplifying the production process for battery materials would bring down the cost of its next-generation technology. Solid-state batteries have long been heralded by experts as the most promising technology to solve EV battery problems. They replace a liquid electrolyte with a solid one and use lithium metal at the anode instead of graphite, the current standard in lithium-ion batteries. But the technology remains expensive and difficult to produce. - Financial Times

Gigacasting at Toyota

Toyota aims to use its new "gigacasting" production method to build a new EV model due out in 2026. "By reducing the number of parts and steps needed, we can make more effective use of our space," Takero Kato, head of Toyota's newly established BEV Factory division. Gigacasting combines many of the small components that make up a vehicle's frame into a single piece of molded aluminum, drastically streamlining the manufacturing process. Toyota envisions its EV bodies consisting of three segments: front, middle, and rear. Gigacasts will be used for the front and rear sections. - Nikkei Asia

Natural materials for tyres

For decades, scientists and health officials have warned drivers of the harmful pollutants coming from tailpipes. But as car exhaust systems have become cleaner, pollution linked to heart and lung disease has increased from a different source: tires and brakes. Wear and tear on tires and brakes have been shown to produce increasingly more particle pollution, by mass, than car exhaust systems did. Some of the particles are large enough to see with our eyes. Others are fine particles which can enter through our bloodstream and harm our organs. The solution isn’t to get rid of tires or heavy vehicles, but perhaps shift the tire materials to natural or non-fossil sources.- Washington Post

Scaling up the hydrogen economy

Japan and Toyota have long placed a huge bet on hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels. However, sales of hydrogen-powered vehicles have fallen flat. This is largely the result of the high cost of carbon-free hydrogen and the lack of filling stations for the gas, from which a fuel cell makes electricity to power the car. Still, Toyota says it sees a much bigger business opportunity by 2030 to sell its fuel cells in Europe, China and North America as the world’s biggest economies compete to decarbonise and win control over energy supply chains. It also views fuel cells, with their higher energy density, as better suited for longer-range, heavy-use vehicles such as delivery trucks. - Financial Times