Exciting times in the mobility & transport world. We are experiencing disruption at its best - in eMobility, and in H² Mobility. Technology is advancing fast and dynamically, not driven by regulation, but by innovation. Disruption tends to not go linear, but rather follows an S-curve. We are right in the middle of this now and things are dynamically accelerating. Since some years, BMW/Daimler have their electric ShareNow cars at the side of the road parked in our cities. My take on it: An acceleration like a racing car, a lot less noise, simplicity.
Electric cars are so much simpler in their setup, fewer parts, less complexity. Whilst combustion engine cars each are a moving power plant of their own, the generation of energy is happening elsewhere for an electric vehicle. Yet, simplicity isn’t quite the right word, because the complexity of an electric vehicle is less in the mechanical physical parts, but rather the software side of things, with a data driven fundamentally different approach to build an electric car.
A key challenge to face is what has been the challenge for energy in general: efficient storage with minimal loss of energy. And the battery remains efficient through its lifecycle. But how long is the lifecycle of a battery? Most importantly: How can we bring circularity into Mobility?
It’s great to see that OEM are building up capabilities and looking at this topic end to end, keeping the return supply chain and recycling of batteries insourced. The Volkswagen battery recycling plant in Salzgitter is a great example of this. Car batteries are a source of valuable raw materials, such as Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt and Lithium, reducing cost, and minimizing the CO² footprint.
Just like in Packaging, the way to go is Circularity and the good old R-R-R:
- Reduce – minimize the waste from Electric Cars, fewer parts, parts designed for circularity.
- Reuse – the more parts can be used beyond the lifecycle of the vehicle, the better. The linear approach makes no sense, there are valuable raw materials in what used to be called “waste”.
- Recycle – ensure that the environmentally harmful batteries are getting recycled and not end up as toxic waste, but rather follow the approach of nature and let the end of anything with its remains be the fundament of something new – ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
Written by Henning Weigand