The EU Energy Projects Podcast
FITGEN, a Horizon Europe project, aims at developing a functionally integrated e-axle ready for implementation in third-generation electric vehicles and therefore ready for mass-market production.
During the EU Project Zone Podcast discussion with Michele de Gennaro, team leader of FITGEN and senior scientist at Austrian Institute of Technology, he emphasises how busy the sector is nowadays.
“First and second life of battery cells, linking the automotive to the energy sector, as well as the reuse and recycling of red hearts from electric motors magnets. So a lot is happening. And we have also to give the time to regulation to develop,” he says.
Moreover, retail prices get a prominent role. As Michele says: “The two elements that influence the retail price the most are the cost of the energy storage system, so, the cost of the battery, as well as the cost of the traction system”.
And both of them are exacerbated by the relatively low production volume feature and work on the traction system. “It is designed to have a production cost of 2000 euros per unit at scale, and this is very close to the actual production cost of a midsize gasoline engine,” Michele adds.
When discussing e-vehicles and the infrastructure needed to integrate them into the power grid, Michele emphasises the fact that “super fast charge is not a need”. Contrary to what people think.
“The only scenario where super fast charge is needed,” he adds, “is in the case of long road trips. And this is a scenario that is met a few times a year for most users”. Fair enough, but what happens when it is indeed needed? Even for those few times per year?
Michele does not worry and argues that in the case super fast charge is needed, "the rate needs to be deployed mainly along motorways where the driver can stop, rest and recharge the battery in 1520 minutes. Very much likely it happens today with gas stations”.
Listen to the full discussion about FITGEN and find out also how “mobility will move away from the car ownership model to migrate towards an integrated system” as well as that “the end user product is not the car anymore in this system, but the mobility service and the experience of the mobility service itself”.