Q. How do you see the sustainability of electric vehicles, as there is a rising debate over electric vehicles’ fuel-cycle emission which includes emission mining of raw materials, source of power like coal etc, and also recycling of batteries?
Some of the critical remarks are certainly correct for today’s world; for example, using power from polluting energy sources like coal. You touched on the raw material, but in the course of the past few years, there are thousands of great engineers working on solving these topics and many have already been solved. For example, the rarest magnet utilization in the motors has been significantly reduced for some of the most difficult or, let’s say, scarce rarest portions that we used some years ago.
So, our engineers are working heavily on making the battery electric vehicle, really sustainable, and I’m very optimistic that in the course of the next 10 years, we will solve most or even all of these obstacles. So that electric mobility can be the solution in the next decade.
The rarest magnet utilization in the motors has been significantly reduced for some of the most difficult or, let’s say, scarce rarest portions that we used some years agoWolf-Henning Scheider – Chairman & CEO, ZF Friedrichshafen Group
Q. I just want to understand how the imperatives are going to be different for the developed economy and the developing economy, as we move forward to the future of sustainable Mobility?
Well, certainly in developing countries, but also in many areas of the developed world, infrastructure plays a major role. We see more and more vehicles now in the showrooms and there are very affordable electric vehicles, among them.
Infrastructure is a major topic. Certainly charging at home is a good solution for people that are mainly driving in urban areas. But if we want to replace the combustion engine vehicle then infrastructure is key. And I still see a big gap in many areas in India, in Europe, and in the US in spite of great governmental actions to build this up faster.
So this is why we see the plug-in hybrid as a great solution at least for the next 15-20 years because with a plug-in hybrid, you can charge it at home or at your workplace and then have a long driving distance in case you need it beyond a 100 km using the combustion engine. So this is a major reason why we believe so much in technology at least for the next two decades.
We see the plug-in hybrid as a great solution at least for the next 15-20 yearsWolf-Henning Scheider
Q. What are the forces or, you can say, the mega-trends that you note around the world that will shape up the future of sustainable Mobility?
Well, the mega trends are certainly electric mobility, that is for me strategically already underway and ZF is in full steam in executing the electric mobility but strategically with our long set-up globally, we are sure that we will be world market leaders with our product.
But what goes beyond the next wave of transformation is the connected vehicle, the software-defined vehicles. We need those vehicles with updated over-the-air software so that we can improve functions, load new functions into the vehicle.
Maybe even drive efficiency over time with most modern algorithms using AI in the back-end on the server-side, and then giving new functions to the vehicle. So for me, this is a transformation as big as we talked about in the propulsion system. And it’s going to come to the markets quite heavily in the midst of this decade. So ZF is heavily preparing in that area.
And then if we look at other functions, I mean in the long run, let’s face it. All vehicles will be autonomous but nobody knows where. Yeah, so it will certainly take some decades for vehicles to run autonomously. But due to comfort, it would obviously be the dream of everybody and we are working on it.
The way to sustainable mobility is through electrified and automated vehicles and we believe it’s not just battery-electric vehicles but plug-in hybrid vehicles that will play a roleWolf-Henning Scheider
So we have to introduce higher and higher autonomous functions and a great roadmap, also for electric vehicles. In the meantime it is important to increase safety. It is also very important for the Indian market and many others to use software and hardware functions for safety. ZF is working also on low-cost autonomous or automatic driving functions with the first aim of safety and in the longer run, helping to make the vehicle autonomous.
Q. You talked about PHEV; of course, PHEV is going to play an important role, especially for the emerging markets, like India and others where infrastructure remains a challenge. I just want to understand how you see the fuel cell or hydrogen fuel vehicles shaping up? What kind of, you know, market share.
In that sector, there’s certainly room for fuel cells because some trucks are going long haul. We estimate that maybe up to half of the truck fleet is going long haul. And the battery is not really the best solution in that case, due to the weight and cost of a battery for a truck that needs to go more than 600-1000 km on many, many trips.
So we focus on the fuel cell for commercial vehicles and there will be ZF Solutions coming up. But anyhow, we see also that the other portion of the truck market will be the battery because in cities, and then not so long distances for the daily truck drive, the battery might be the solution. Due to the overall efficiency of the hydrogen system, where you use a lot of energy in the process of producing hydrogen and then also in the use in the vehicle, the overall efficiency is even less than the efficiency of a combustion engine today. So, this is why we believe that for the passenger car, the battery and the plug-in hybrid are the better solutions.
Q. In your presentation, you mentioned that ZF will be carbon-neutral by 2040. Can you share with us what are the concrete steps you have taken so far? How does it work in the next two decades, because we are already in 2021?
First of all, it is always reduction, energy efficiency. So we are reducing our energy consumption by 2% every year. Working hard with the project, in spite of the growth of the company, So the net value is much higher and reduced. And this is by thousands of projects in all the sides in creating energy efficiency, hydrogen energy efficiency, and just reducing the consumption.
In the next 10 years, we will solve the obstacles like emission in the full-cycle-economics of EVsWolf-Henning Scheider
The other portion is turning to renewables. I mentioned solar as a large supplier for the wind industry. Obviously, we are also going for wind parks and also preparing joint partnerships of ownership of ZF in wind parks in order to supply our own renewable energy to our plants.
Other measures are turning away from natural gas, either turning it to renewable electricity or to green resources. The more difficult part is what’s called upstream and downstream product use for our supply chain and for the use of our products. With the use of our products, we want to be in 100 % renewable vehicles by 2040.
So, beyond that, we don’t want to sell products that go into combustion engines and only in really sustainable vehicles. And I think that’s possible. It’s extremely challenging, but this is our aim and I think it’s possible. With our suppliers, we have already been in intense discussions, in motivating them to go the same path, and we get a lot of positive feedback on that. So I’m sure that our supply base will follow us in being also CO2 neutral by 2040.
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