Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems

Description of Research
In response to the climate emergency to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the UK's road transport system is rapidly transitioning from internal combustion engine vehicles towards electric vehicles (EV). Life cycle assessment (LCA) literature has extensively agreed on the decarbonization benefits of EVs over ICEVs but at the cost of increased impacts in resource depletion and toxicity categories. Predominantly, this is attributed to the upstream impacts of battery manufacturing requiring substantial scarce and toxic resource inputs (e.g., copper, cobalt, and nickel).

The reuse and recycling of EV batteries at their end-of-life can reduce these impacts by extending the product lifecycle and lowering the demand for primary materials. However, despite the highlighted reuse potential of EV batteries in stationary energy storage, this is rarely considered in the LCA of EVs. Moreover, if battery recycling is considered, it often relies on oversimplified and outdated inventory data that risks misrepresenting current and future technology. Lastly, the uncertainties in parameters and future scenarios of end-of-life processes are largely unaddressed leading to static, single point results. Thus, the influence of end-of-life strategies on the environmental impacts of EV batteries is not well understood. This is mainly due to the speculative nature of end-of-life calculations, because EV adoption is still relatively early and yet to reach substantial end-of-life quantities. However, with the global EV stock approaching 12 million with the potential to surpass 145 million by 2030, prospective methods to project the end-of-life environmental impacts of EV batteries is vital.

This PhD project will delve into battery reuse and recycling stages in LCA of EVs to collate representative data, explore current and future end-of-life scenarios, and address uncertainty. This will further the understanding of critical factors in determining the environmental impacts of EV batteries to inform environmental sustainability for electric mobility.

Firstly, a systematic review will be conducted on end-of-life in LCA of EV batteries to identify, analyse and compare current methods used to specify key limitations and research gaps. This will inform the data collection phase looking to collate up-to-date databases and engage with industry to compile new, representative life cycle inventories of current recycling technology and reuse scenarios. Subsequently, with the compiled end-of-life inventory, LCA will be applied to assess the environmental impacts of various battery chemistries and their wider influence integrated into EVs. Further, statistical uncertainty propagation will be utilized to end-of-life parameters and future scenarios to generate potential deviations in results.

Through journal publications, conference presentations, and public engagement, this work seeks to benefit academia, industry and policy, in particular: (1) LCA practitioners, by contributing up-to-date inventory data for end-of-life and methodological perspectives; (2) key strategy decision-makers, by furthering the understanding of environmental impacts of EV batteries, and; (3) the general public by informing the discussion of the topical nature of EV batteries. As funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this research project primarily contributes to the theme of Energy to inform engineering and policy in addressing environmental sustainability of batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable eneRGY

Impact Summary

This proposal has been developed from the ground up to guarantee the highest level of impact. The two principal routes towards impact are via the graduates that we train and by the embedding of the research that is undertaken into commercial activity. The impact will have a significant commercial value through addressing skills requirements and providing technical solutions for the automotive industry - a key sector for the UK economy.

The graduates that emerge from our CDT (at least 84 people) will be transformative in two distinct ways. The first is a technical route and the second is cultural.

In a technical role, their deep subject matter expertise across all of the key topics needed as the industry transitions to a more sustainable future. This expertise is made much more accessible and applicable by their broad understanding of the engineering and commercial context in which they work. They will have all of the right competencies to ensure that they can achieve a very significant contribution to technologies and processes within the sector from the start of their careers, an impact that will grow over time. Importantly, this CDT is producing graduates in a highly skilled sector of the economy, leading to jobs that are £50,000 more productive per employee than average (i.e. more GVA). These graduates are in demand, as there are a lack of highly skilled engineers to undertake specialist automotive propulsion research and fill the estimated 5,000 job vacancies in the UK due to these skills shortages. Ultimately, the CDT will create a highly specialised and productive talent pipeline for the UK economy.

The route to impact through cultural change is perhaps of even more significance in the long term. Our cohort will be highly diverse, an outcome driven by our wide catchment in terms of academic background, giving them a 'diversity edge'. The cultural change that is enabled by this powerful cohort will have a profound impact, facilitating a move away from 'business as usual'.

The research outputs of the CDT will have impact in two important fields - the products produced and processes used within the indsutry. The academic team leading and operating this CDT have a long track record of generating impact through the application of their research outputs to industrially relevant problems. This understanding is embodied in the design of our CDT and has already begun in the definition of the training programmes and research themes that will meet the future needs of our industry and international partners. Exchange of people is the surest way to achieve lasting and deep exchange of expertise and ideas. The students will undertake placements at the collaborating companies and will lead to employment of the graduates in partner companies.

The CDT is an integral part of the IAAPS initiative. The IAAPS Business Case highlights the need to develop and train suitably skilled and qualified engineers in order to achieve, over the first five years of IAAPS' operations, an additional £70 million research and innovation expenditure, creating an additional turnover of £800 million for the automotive sector, £221 million in GVA and 1,900 new highly productive jobs.

The CDT is designed to deliver transformational impact for our industrial partners and the automotive sector in general. The impact is wider than this, since the products and services that our partners produce have a fundamental part to play in the way we organise our lives in a modern society. The impact on the developing world is even more profound. The rush to mobility across the developing world, the increasing spending power of a growing global middle class, the move to more urban living and the increasingly urgent threat of climate change combine to make the impact of the work we do directly relevant to more people than ever before. This CDT can help change the world by effecting the change that needs to happen in our industry.