This week’s Geneva show will confirm that two established trends are starting to pick-up speed. The first, the move towards shared global platforms, was highlighted again last week when Nissan said it would double the use of common parts in next generation models. The second is the commitment of the major vehicle manufacturers to the development of electric vehicles.
For EV designers, this is an unfortunate combination as success in the former currently requires compromise in the latter. The move to electric drive opens fascinating new opportunities to fundamentally change the architecture of a vehicle as well as providing through-life flexibility that will help to solve some of the potential business challenges in the retail network.
When you start from scratch and remove the constraints set by a platform shared with a conventional IC powertrain, you have a tantalisingly blank canvas. Across almost every discipline, from dynamics to crash performance, there is significant potential to add value in new ways and to create new income streams for vehicle manufacturers and their retail and service networks.
The move to electric drive opens fascinating new opportunities to fundamentally change the architecture of a vehicle as well as providing through-life flexibility that will help to solve some of the potential business challenges in the retail network.
Even the fundamental calculations are different. For example, the high price of batteries changes the acceptable cost of weight saving, making technologies affordable on EVs that are less so on conventional vehicles. Look a little deeper into the design and we see conflict arising in some surprising areas of decision making. Take windscreen angles: on a conventional car, a low rake looks stylish and improves aerodynamics, but for an EV the increased solar loading is of greater concern as running electrically-driven airconditioning significantly reduces range.
We can also use the new approach to address the residual values challenge. The anticipated life of many production battery packs is currently around five years. It would be infuriating if the service item was restricted to the original technology in a field where performance is advancing so quickly. An in-service upgrade capability would help to reduce the depreciation problem that EVs are likely to face, usefully reducing lease costs, and will also help ensure the strong used car market on which so many dealers depend.
The challenge, though, is how much strategy, competitive advantage and IP would the vehicle manufacturers be willing to share with companies that in all other respects are still their rivals.
Developments in through-life vehicle upgradeability will also be critical in helping dealers find new revenue streams to replace those from maintaining much more complicated IC-engined vehicles. With appropriate planning at the design stage, many systems including vehicle dynamics and active safety could be upgraded by qualified dealers, allowing owners to continue to personalise and improve their vehicle while maintaining contact with the dealership.
To enable this upgradeability, construction must be modular and the electrical / electronic architecture must be as ‘open’ and flexible as possible. The engineering challenge is to understand where a bespoke approach delivers sufficient value and where the savings of shared components justify the design compromise.
PSA’s liaison with GM, also breaking news last week, shows just how quickly the move towards global platforms is gathering pace. It also shows that there is potential for component sharing across vehicle manufacturers that could substantially increase volumes for a bespoke EV platform, making such innovation significantly more affordable. The challenge, though, is how much strategy, competitive advantage and IP would the vehicle manufacturers be willing to share with companies that in all other respects are still their rivals.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
David Hemming is director of engineering at Prodrive Automotive Technology. He has been involved with architecture innovation for hybrid and electric vehicles for more than a decade and has particular expertise in vehicle integration and concept validation. Recent research programmes include the application of flywheels and supercapacitors to kinetic energy recovery and the development of a multivoltage DC/DC converter that will allow a simpler and lower cost implementation of next-generation EV systems.
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