The Formula Student Electric (FSE) racing car developed at the University of Munich has six highly isolated RECOM DC/DC converters on each wheel supplying the power electronics (Photo: MunicHMotorsport)
Anyone that expects a quick shift towards e-cars in Germany with a graduate physicist at the levers of power will be disappointed. The political scene originally forecast a million e-cars by 2020, but last year only saw fifty thousand – and that’s including half the number of “hybrid compromises.” All the political and environmental activists seem to be campaigning for the same, so why has the transition been so sluggish? There’s a host of reasons.
With this in mind, enthusiasm for e-mobility is unsurprisingly lukewarm. It’s almost as if the time hasn’t quite come for battery-powered motoring – especially considering that a battery with 400km range weighs in at 600 kilos. This weight needs to be moved along with the car, decreasing efficiency. It comes as little consolation that electric motors are lighter than conventional car engines – even if some of the power can be recovered during braking.
Anyone that expects a quick shift towards e-cars in Germany with a graduate physicist at the levers of power will be disappointed. The political scene originally forecast a million e-cars by 2020, but last year only saw fifty thousand – and that’s including half the number of “hybrid compromises.” All the political and environmental activists seem to be campaigning for the same, so why has the transition been so sluggish? There’s a host of reasons.
- Range and lack of charging stations: The lithium-ion batteries available barely have enough capacity for a carefree start to the weekend. That especially applies to the summer and winter months calling for a climate-controlled interior. Apart from that, quick-charging stations are still very thin on the ground in Germany – especially in rural areas. And once found, it’s still almost an hour’s wait for the battery to charge up enough for a couple of hours of driving. This means that pure e-cars only make sense as second cars for driving around town.
- E-cars are still too expensive: E-cars are still too expensive for the mass market despite state subsidies. The price of electricity is also especially high in Germany, saving just 30% compared to diesel at 30 cents/kWh. These savings might pay off for long-distance journeys, but hardly for a city runabout next to the family car.
- Limited battery life: E-cars save on maintenance costs such as oil changes, but the heavy cost of replacing a worn-out battery looms large after a few years. An e-car’s value could be expected to depreciate to a few thousand euros with the original battery fitted as potential buyers will need to factor in the cost of a new battery.
- E-mobility is not as clean as its reputation: Even without an exhaust pipe, e-cars are not nearly as clean as their reputation. The raw materials used in lithium-ion batteries include lithium, cobalt and nickel, which are mined in countries where environmental protection is not high on the priority list. Apart from that, manufacturing emissions average more than a hundred kilos of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of battery capacity. On top of that, the electrical power needed to charge the battery is only free of emissions if it comes from renewable sources.
- The raw materials are not available in unlimited quantities: Nobody knows how long lithium deposits and other resources will last in amounts high enough to meet the needs of global e-mobility. As resources dwindle, the price of batteries may well rise rather than fall, especially as the battery will have to be replaced at least once over the lifetime of the e-car. The raw materials can to some extent be recovered by recycling, but this process is time-consuming and expensive.
With this in mind, enthusiasm for e-mobility is unsurprisingly lukewarm. It’s almost as if the time hasn’t quite come for battery-powered motoring – especially considering that a battery with 400km range weighs in at 600 kilos. This weight needs to be moved along with the car, decreasing efficiency. It comes as little consolation that electric motors are lighter than conventional car engines – even if some of the power can be recovered during braking.
