Cost, range anxiety and future electricity supply: A review of how today's technology trends may influence the future uptake of BEVs

TY - JOUR

T1 - Cost, range anxiety and future electricity supply

T2 - A review of how today's technology trends may influence the future uptake of BEVs

AU - Zhou, Wenbin

AU - Cleaver, Christopher J.

AU - Dunant, Cyrille

AU - Allwood, Julian M.

AU - Lin, Jianguo

N1 - The authors would like to thank the funding support by EPSRC under the Grant Agreement EP/S019111/1 on “UK FIRES: Locating Resource Efficiency at the heart of Future Industrial Strategy in the UK” and EP/ R001715/1 on “LightForm: Embedding Materials Engineering in Manufacturing with Light Alloys”

PY - 2023/3

Y1 - 2023/3

N2 - In this review paper, we show that the current battery electric vehicle (BEV) scale-up relies on several key technologies which all have detailed roadmaps with good track records for being met. These roadmaps include lightweighting of vehicle bodies using lightweight materials and architecture/structure design, and improvements in BEV powertrain with regard to the powertrain architecture/system design, battery and motor technology development. However, as technology take-up accelerates, our novel analysis suggests supply of zero carbon electricity may become a serious constraint. We find that the technical potential for abating the demand for electricity through powertrain and lightweighting improvements is just over a quarter of the projected total. Four promising avenues to mitigating this constraint – battery reusing and interoperable charging technology, shared mobility, advanced sensing technology, and novel compact space frame construction - are explored in brief, potentially enabling the large-scale deployment of BEVs without exhausting the supply of non-emitting electricity.

AB - In this review paper, we show that the current battery electric vehicle (BEV) scale-up relies on several key technologies which all have detailed roadmaps with good track records for being met. These roadmaps include lightweighting of vehicle bodies using lightweight materials and architecture/structure design, and improvements in BEV powertrain with regard to the powertrain architecture/system design, battery and motor technology development. However, as technology take-up accelerates, our novel analysis suggests supply of zero carbon electricity may become a serious constraint. We find that the technical potential for abating the demand for electricity through powertrain and lightweighting improvements is just over a quarter of the projected total. Four promising avenues to mitigating this constraint – battery reusing and interoperable charging technology, shared mobility, advanced sensing technology, and novel compact space frame construction - are explored in brief, potentially enabling the large-scale deployment of BEVs without exhausting the supply of non-emitting electricity.

KW - Battery electric vehicles

KW - Breakthroughs

KW - Cost

KW - Electricity supply

KW - Lightweight design

KW - Travel range

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85143488694

U2 - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.113074

DO - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.113074

M3 - Article

SN - 1364-0321

VL - 173

JO - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

JF - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

M1 - 113074

ER -