RUBICON - ultRa-dUraBle electrIC pOwertraiNs

This project will reduce the ecological and economic costs associated with the ownership of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs).

CAVs are widely anticipated to disrupt the future of transportation -- with estimations of adding up to £62Bn in economic growth to the UK economy by 2030\. This is driven by intense interest surrounding the introduction of high-utilisation mobility solutions, such as Shared Mobility and Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Ecological and societal impacts are also widely predicted, with decreased congestion, increased leisure time, more urban space (due to higher vehicle utilisation), and reduced emissions.

This future will only be realised if our new vehicles provide a net economic and ecological advantage over existing mobility solutions, something which is not necessarily guaranteed given that additional driverless equipment may negatively impact vehicle efficiency, production cost and production carbon. \[see appendix 2, exhibit A1\]

In this study we will benchmark existing passenger vehicles based on their lifecycle economic \[£/km\] and ecological \[gCO2e/km\] cost. Then, by means of a trade-off study, we will propose a novel vehicle design which achieves significantly lower lifecycle costs compared to the best existing benchmark.

Our hypothesis is that by increasing vehicle service-life relative to production cost/carbon, we can achieve much better economic and environmental outcomes for CAVs across their lifecycle. We see the trade-offs for this being higher manufacturing costs and vehicle weight -- exactly the opposite of current automotive design trends which favour low build cost (and hence low service-life) designs. This is a novel approach to passenger vehicle design, and is perhaps much more akin to a commercial vehicle methodology.

This new approach to passenger vehicle design also makes sense commercially. As passenger vehicles transition from consumer goods to capital assets, key purchasing drivers for CAV fleet owners will be economic-cost-per-km \[£/km\] and life-carbon emissions \[gCO2e/km\], both of which will be optimised in this study.

We will consider a top-level vehicle overview then proceed to explore the vehicle powertrain in quite some detail. The powertrain (Drivetrain, Motor, Inverter, Battery) is the most expensive and carbon intensive life limiting vehicle component, so this is where we allocate the largest project effort.