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Expert Q&A: trends in sustainable mobility

In-Depth

Low carbon and zero emissions vehicles form part of a wider sustainable mobility landscape that has been driven by legislation and realised by engineers. Here, senior engineers from Williams Advanced Engineering, GKN Automotive and Equipmake provide an outline of the trends and innovations driving sustainable mobility.

Ian Foley, Managing Director, Equipmake

Paul McNamara, Technical Director, Williams Advanced Engineering

Dr. Rainer Link, Senior Vice President Engineering ePowertrain, GKN Automotive

Ian Foley: Over the next five years: hybrid. OEMs have BEVs already, but the full battery technology isn’t quite there for the mass market yet at an affordable price. Couple that with the fact that most consumers are ‘innovators’ or ‘early adopters’ (i.e. small number of buyers at the very beginning of the product adoption curve) and hybrid will dominate. However, in 10 years’ time, it will be battery electric. Why? The OEM R&D budget will be there to make a BEV at an affordable price, while some second hand BEVs will be available and lessons will be learned to produce gen 2/3. There is also the imminent banning of ICE, so by this time there won’t be a lot of choice, while the buying habits of ‘Adaptors / Late Majority’ will have caught up. I could also envision the beginning of some vehicles being powered by solar as the technology advances.

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