Analysis finds hybrids make better use of scarce batteries than pure EVs

In the face of growing shortages of batteries and battery materials for electric cars, one respected analytics firm says those batteries would do more good for the environment put to use in more hybrid vehicles rather than fewer all-electric cars.

Per kilowatt-hour of battery capacity produced and installed in plug-in vehicles, hybrids deliver 14 times the benefit in emissions reductions that pure electric cars do, according to British analytics firm Emissions Analytics.

In European terms, the company measures the grams of carbon-dioxide saved per kilometer of driving, per kilowatt-hour of battery installed in the car.

The company considered 153 cars, including 59 conventional full hybrids, 7 mild hybrids, and 57 plug-in hybrids, and compared them to a theoretical electric car with a 60-kwh battery pack. It included vehicles in Europe and in the U.S., and showed even bigger benefits to drive on electricity in the U.S. than in Europe because gas cars in the U.S. are relatively less efficient than those in Europe.

The average mild hybrid across Europe and the U.S., with a battery pack of 400 watt-hours, saved almost 30 grams per kilometer of CO2 emissions, or about 74 g/km per kilowatt-hour of battery.

Full hybrids cut more CO2 emissions, but also had much bigger batteries averaging 1.3 kwh. Each kilowatt-hour of batteries installed accounted for a reduction of only about 51 grams per kilometer.

The metric is key in an era of scarce materials.

Emissions Analytics g/km/kwh chart

One of the biggest criticisms of plug-in hybrids is that they carry around a lot of extra weight (and use a lot of unnecessary materials in manufacturing) to include a gas engine and fuel tank that are seldom used.

The same argument can apply to the large batteries in long-range electric cars. The cars aren't driven any differently. On average, cars still get driven less than 30 miles a day. Allow some extra battery capacity for driving in cold weather, running the heater, and having some buffer left when a driver gets home, and they still normally use less than 30 or 40 kilowatt-hours a day. Yet many of today's electric cars have batteries twice that size or bigger to accommodate occasional trips.

Any bigger battery than that adds extra weight and accounts for extra material consumption that rarely gets used. Since manufacturers have been building internal combustion engines for more than 100 years, there's no shortage of supplies to make them. But there are increasing reports of shortages in the materials needed to make large lithium-ion batteries for cars.

The Emissions Analytics report shows that plug-in hybrids that rely mostly on batteries in their daily driving cycle—the Chevrolet Volt, for instance—saved the same amount of CO2 emissions as fully electric cars in their tests: 210 grams per kilometer. But they required much smaller batteries, just over one-sixth the size.

2018 Chevrolet Volt

The report comes just as several automakers, such as General Motors, Volkswagen, and BMW are reducing or eliminating their efforts to build plug-in hybrids and replacing them with more long-range battery-electric cars to compete with Tesla.

Given the urgency of the need to reduce CO2, to combat global warming, the report says, “paradoxically BEVs may not be the best way to achieve it. A major concern is that the push to pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will crowd out a more effective program of mass hybridization.”

Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework for Safe Automated Driving Systems.

DATELINE – Emphasizing safety by design, 11 industry leaders across the automotive and automated driving technology spectrum today published “Safety First for Automated Driving,” (SaFAD), a non-binding organized framework for the development, testing and validation of safe automated passenger vehicles. These 11 leaders — Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, FCA US LLC, HERE, Infineon,… Continue reading Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework for Safe Automated Driving Systems.

Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework

“Safety First for Automated Driving” (SaFAD) white paper emphasizes the importance of safety by design for automated vehicles. Emphasizing safety by design, 11 industry leaders across the automotive and automated driving technology spectrum today published “Safety First for Automated Driving,” (SaFAD), a non-binding organized framework for the development, testing and validation of safe automated passenger… Continue reading Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework

CUPRA breaks ground on new headquarters for 2020

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Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework for Safe Automated Driving Systems

“Safety First for Automated Driving” (SaFAD) white paper emphasizes the importance of safety by design for automated vehicles Emphasizing safety by design, 11 industry leaders across the automotive and automated driving technology spectrum today published “Safety First for Automated Driving,” (SaFAD), a non-binding organized framework for the development, testing and validation of safe automated passenger… Continue reading Automotive and Mobility Industry Leaders Publish First-of-its-Kind Framework for Safe Automated Driving Systems

Involvement of German car maker Audi in diesel scandal widens: reports

BERLIN, July 1 (Xinhua) — The involvement of German carmaker Audi in diesel scandal surrounding illegally manipulated exhaust levels has apparently been more extensive than previously known, German media reported on Monday.
The German public broadcaster BR and the business newspaper Handelsblatt reported that Audi had used four and not one so-called defeat devices in order to comply with the exhaust emission standards until the beginning of 2018.
Until now, the responsible German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has only declared the engine warm-up function as inadmissible. After the engine has been started, such a warm-up function is increasing the exhaust gas purification for a limited time.
Although the German authorities found that three other defeat devices had been used by Audi to keep exhaust emissions artificially low during test phases, the German carmaker was allowed to “voluntarily” remove these defeat devices from the engine software, BR and Handelsblatt cited from ..

BMW isn’t finished with internal combustion engines yet

Many automakers now see electric vehicles as the long-range future of the passenger vehicle.

What may actually say more though, in the language of corporate nuance, is that few companies have gone so far as to solidly declare that the end is nigh for internal combustion engines.

Among the examples that have been so bold: Volvo won’t develop a new generation of engines after its present one; and Volkswagen will develop its last generation of internal-combustion tech in 2026. Both brands might of course keep building the engines for a decade or more after freezing development.

Don’t count BMW in that group. BMW plans to keep investing in the engineering and development of internal combustion engines for a long time—with diesel engines expected to be part of the automaker’s global product line for at least 20 years and gasoline engines for at least 30 years.

2019 BMW M2 Competition

That reality check, from remarks made by Klaus Fröhlich, the company’s BMW Group board member in charge of development, to Automotive News, stands as a sharp reality check to what was otherwise the news from BMW’s NextGen event in Munich earlier this week: electricfication.
The event this week brought a series of sweeping electric-vehicle announcements that included a stepped-up plan to electrify its lineup and bring 25 new plug-in models by 2023.

BMW Concept iX3

Fröhlich, who called the shift to electrification “overhyped” and pointed to issues with battery raw materials, noted that even with the most optimistic assumption of electric vehicle adoption, at least 80 percent of its vehicles would still have an internal-combustion engine in 2025.

Beyond then, even, the lack of a charging infrastructure may slow the adoption of fully electric vehicles in Russia, the Middle East, and even Western China, Froelich said.

The continued development of IC engines by BMW runs counter to what many inside the industry have predicted. In 2017, for instance, Wolfgang Schaefer, the CFO of the supplier Continental, predicted that investment and engineering for engines would taper off between 2023 and 2025.

That said, there will be casualties as engine lineups get trimmed down. Some of BMW’s specialty diesel engines won’t be replaced. BMW’s gasoline V-12 used in Rolls-Royce products might not be around much longer either. And BMW is currently putting together a case to save something Americans hold near and dear: the V-8.