reduction of energy required and
utilisation of the vehicle fleet.
It would also transform the haulage
industry, as without the driver, goods
could be moved around in smaller,
discrete crates, at the optimum
time of day, which
would result in the more
efficient use of the road
network. When
vehicles are not in use,
they could be used to
store energy from
the network or be
moved intelligently to
the most likely place they
will be required. Journeys
that are organised longer in
advance will therefore be cheaper.
Instead of plugging in your EV,
imagine using wireless power transmission
to power vehicles parked at a particular
spot. WiTricity, set up by a team of
physicists from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT), already do this with a
wireless charging mat in your garage. The
same technology could possibly be used in
car parks, or even in road surfaces. Perhaps
then repair shops will turn into ICE/EV
conversion hubs. Although probably not
very profitable for large scale businesses to
consider; for small and/or freelance
businesses, it is an interesting
prospect, which could save many
businesses from going bust.
In all reality, the future will certainly be a
mixture of uses and energies. In
20 years’ time, some people will be driving
petrol cars, some people will be driving
electric cars, some electric cars will be
driving people and some people will still be
riding horses. Brayton, Otto, Daimler,
Maybach, Benz and Diesel’s legacy will,
arguably rightly so, live on for some time
yet to come. MADE
WWW.MADEIN.IE « MARCH 2021 « 23
turn making electricity infrastructure easier
to plan.
To support this acceleration in the UK,
the Prime Minister has announced that £1.3
billion will be invested to drive the rollout of
charge points for electric vehicles in homes,
streets and on motorways across the
country, so people can more easily and
conveniently charge their cars.
We already have a power distribution
network set up. Over 99.9% of homes in
this country are electrically connected.
Most have a household fuse of 60A. Given
the average house uses around 8kWh of
electricity a day, that equates to about 1.5A
your home is drawing at any time. This
leaves 58.5A which could be used to charge
a vehicle.
If EV batteries were charged to full
capacity while the sun shone, or wind blew,
then they would have more than enough
energy stored to supply and heat homes
when the generation level drops. Already
there are systems emerging which allow
you to plug in your house to your car -
rather than the other way around.
But for this to become a reality, many
limitations of battery technology still need
to improve. As part of the ‘Ten Point Plan
for a Green Industrial Revolution’, the
government have said that nearly £500
million is to be spent in the next four years
for the development and mass-scale
production of electric vehicle batteries.
EVs require significantly less
maintenance than ICEs. At the moment,
things like exhaust replacements and oil
changes are the backbones of many local,
smaller repair shops. Such jobs will vanish
and with them the profitability of the local
workshops. ICE maintenance will become
more difficult and the convenience of the
relative lack of maintenance of an
EV will further push their
adoption. The combination
of collapsing demand
and subsequent
reskilling will probably
result in most local
repair shops having to
reinvent themselves
or going bankrupt.
The fuel station
ecosystem is much more
vulnerable than many
people believe. A lot of small
outlets are already near
profitless and survive by attracting
customers with other co-located services
such as shops and repair facilities.
Unfortunately, EVs do not naturally fit the
fuel station approach, but need significantly
longer dwell times for their slower charging
cycles of currently more than 30 minutes, so
supermarkets with large car parks where
people already regularly go for longer will fill
the gap while the traditional fuel station,
which depends on a high turnover of
customers may not survive EV disruption.
Driverless vehicles, journey
transformation and haulage
Even by 2030, we may get to a point where
most new road vehicles can drive
themselves. This makes a much larger
impact economically and behaviourally than
what kind of fuel the vehicles will be using.
If you could choose the perfect vehicle to
appear on your drive automatically for each
journey, based on number of passengers’
need, baby seats and the luggage being
taken; or if you just wanted the special
birthday bus, then that would lead to a huge
“The fuel
station ecosystem
is much more
vulnerable than many
people believe. A lot of
small outlets are already
near profitless and
survive by attracting
customers with other
services.”
AUTOMOTIVE
/WWW.MADEIN.IE