The driving power of the electron

Abstract

Almost two centuries after Carnot's 1824 Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (Paris: Bachelier Libraire), electricity stored in Li-ion batteries or made available by hydrogen fuel cells onboard, is becoming the energy form powering the mobility of vehicles, including: cars, buses, trucks, boats and ships. The conflicting dynamics of global wealth, energy and population requires the replacement of fossil fuels with truly renewable energy sources (sun, water and wind). This also implies the replacement of the ubiquitous internal combustion engine with the much more efficient electric motor powered by renewable electricity. Will the availability of lithium or cobalt intrinsically limit lithium battery manufacturing rapidly driving up battery production costs? Can we expect hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles to become widely adopted as it is currently taking place with battery electric vehicles? Referring to recent research and industrial achievements, this study offers an answer to these and related questions.All power is retrieved by two Li-ion battery packs, each with a capacity of 520 kWh [9]. The electricity supplied to the batteries, furthermore, is entirely renewable as it originates from a near hydroelectric plant.Driven by the conflicting dynamics of global wealth, energy and population [10], the internal combustion engine running on oil-derived fuels needs to be replaced by the versatile and much more efficient electric motor. The process has been overly slow mostly due to the obsolescence of conventional batteries and by the high cost of first-generation industrial fuel cells.Industrially significant change occurred when large scale manufacturing of lithium batteries and EVs started in China in the early 2010s. If, as lately emphasized by Tillmetz [11], the growth rate of EVs remains that observed between 2016 and 2017, the number of EVs registered annually by year 2025 will exceed 25 million.Will the availability of lithium or cobalt minerals intrinsically limit the expansion of lithium battery and electric vehicle manufacturing rapidly driving up costs? Can we expect hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) to become widely adopted as it is currently taking place with BEVs?Referring to recent research and industrial achievements, this study offers an answer to these and related questions. The resulting unified overview produced at the dawn of the global transition to EVs in the context of the fully unfolding transition to renewable energy and distributed generation, will be useful to: policy makers, researchers, students, entrepreneurs, managers and innovation practitioners, including management consultants of the clean energy industry.

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