ELVA

Advanced Electric Vehicle Architectures

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Increasing energy costs and stringent CO2 emission targets drive the growing market opportunity (and societal need) for fully electric vehicles (EVs). The ELVA project focuses on electric cars for city passengers and urban delivery where traffic volume is high and the impact on the local environment is most significant. Knowledge transfer to other vehicle types will be facilitated by a novel design approach to be developed by ELVA. The change in propulsion technology from internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric powertrains will lead to the integration of new components and systems, while others undergo changes or become obsolete. This opens up new freedom in design and clears the way for new vehicle concepts. ELVA is to deliver results that allow for full exploitation of this new freedom, while responding to changing future market demands. To achieve this key objective, the ELVA project generates, investigates and analyzes innovative design concepts for EVs. It delivers a wide range of advanced modular architectures which enable at least the same high level of intrinsic safety as known from current best in class conventional vehicles at minimal weight, maximised energy efficiency, optimized ergonomics & loading space at affordable costs as well as acceptable levels of comfort and driving performance. In particular ELVA delivers best practices and evidence based design rules for modular lightweight and safe architectures specific to EVs. These practices and design rules will feed into and partially replace existing experience-based design methodologies, which have been developed over more than a century of vehicle design around the internal combustion engine. ELVA will achieve a substantial impact with regard to a greener road transport system and a competitive car industry due to the strong involvement of leading industrial partners including 3 car makers that together are expected to produce a substantial part of all EVs sold in Europe in the next decade.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

ELVA unveils the potential power of electric cars in advancing sustainable mobility. New vehicle architectures are created, reconciling future customer expectations with technological innovation.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Electro mobility has emerged as a promising area for progress towards the modern societal challenges of sustainable transportation and overall global sustainability. The new electric components and technology of electric vehicles offers decreased emissions and traffic, as well as an unprecedented freedom of design, moving away from the conventional vehicle model.

The objective of the joint EU research project 'Advanced Electric Vehicle Architectures' (http://www.elva-project.eu/ (ELVA)) was to explore the expanded potential of vehicle architecture. This is on account of the electric drivetrain and further electric mobility technology innovation.

The first phase of the project consisted of forecasting future markets. This meant investigating the technological possibilities, customer expectations and requirements, of 2020, the third electric vehicle generation. Determining such options remains a challenge.

Technological advances though, as with battery capacity, size, and weight, are expected. Customer requirements seemed to closely resemble expectations of conventional vehicles today, such as safety.

Also included in the initial stage was the participation of external institutions through a public design contest. Here, designers were invited to provide their ideas and impact the development of ELVA concepts.

ELVA also created three virtual vehicle concepts, led by the involved original equipment manufacturers (Centro Ricerche Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen). These were devised while taking the customer expectations, requirements, and awarded designs of the first phase into account. Assessment of the simulations against key vehicle development criteria, such as ergonomics, and their innovative architecture proved at least comparable, if not greater, to conventional models.

Looking towards the future, further scientific and technical research is needed for electric vehicles to successfully infiltrate the European market, but the ELVA project results are referenced by many new initiatives. The knowledge of its findings, due to the involvement of industrial partners, is expected to directly impact the future vehicle development process of the automotive industry. Overall, the goal would be to successfully reconcile customer requirements and sustainable technology advancement.