Electric
vehicles powered by electricity from renewable energy sources are an
attractive option for mobility within the urban area and beyond.
However, previous approaches lead to vehicles that either are too heavy
and too expensive or do not meet mass-market safety requirements. Within
the joint research project Visio.M scientists at the Munich Technical
University (TUM), in cooperation with engineers from the automotive
industry, will develop concepts to produce electric cars that are
efficient, safe, and inexpensive. Lead manager of the project is BMW AG.
The project has a total volume of 10.8 million euros and is funded by
the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
Electric
cars are silent and cause no emissions where they go. Therefore, they
are considered an important option for future individual mobility in
urban areas and beyond. But on the way to mass production of electric
vehicles, there are still significant technological hurdles to overcome.
Previous small electric vehicles offer only a minimum level of vehicle
safety and therefore are not mass-marketable. Electric cars that were
derived from gasoline-powered models are usually too heavy and require
large and expensive batteries.
Within
the joint research project Visio.M well known companies of the German
automotive industry, together with scientists from the Technische
Universitaet Muenchen, explore how the price and safety of small,
efficient electric vehicles can be brought to a level enabling them to
achieve a significant share of the mass market. The mobility concept
deriving from these visionaries will be a vehicle with a power of 15 kW
and a maximum curb weight of 400 kg (without battery), meeting the
requirements of the European regulatory category L7e.
The
consortium partners use the electric vehicle prototype MUTE developed
by the TU Muenchen as their test carrier to explore innovations and new
technologies for vehicle safety, propulsion, energy storage, and
operational concepts for implementation under the framework requirements
of large-scale production. Special attention is given to safety-related
design issues. Despite minimal weight, Visio.M is expected to achieve a
level of protection equal to that offered by conventional cars with
combustion engines.
Participants
in the Visio.M consortium are, in addition to the automotive companies
BMW AG (lead manager) and Daimler AG, the Technische Universitaet
Muenchen as a scientific partner, and Autoliv BV & Co. KG, the
Federal Highway Research Institute (BAST), Continental Automotive GmbH,
E.ON AG, Finepower GmbH, Hyve AG, IAV GmbH, InnoZ GmbH, Intermap
Technologies GmbH, LION Smart GmbH, Neumayer Tekfor Holding GmbH,
Siemens AG, Texas Instruments Germany GmbH and TÜV SÜD AG as industrial
partners. The project is funded under the priority program “Key
Technologies for Electric Mobility – STROM” of the Federal Ministry for
Education and Research (BMBF).
