The eternal automobile
The journey of the automobile into a more environmentally focused future started in 1976. Apocalyptically appearing panoramas of Los Angeles that was suffocating from smog led to the rollout of the catalytic converter in California – the first in a long series of technical measures taken by the auto industry to reduce the environmental burden caused by motor vehicles. Many innovations – engines became cleaner, the weight of vehicles was reduced, start-stop systems avoided unnecessary exhaust emissions – helped reduce the emissions burden.
Yet with the currently accelerating central paradigm shift – the transition from internal combustion (IC) engines to electric motors – other emissions than exhaust emissions and environmental burdens of motor vehicles have been moving into focus: the environmental lifetime footprint of a vehicle that considers not only its utilization but its entire lifecycle from raw material extraction to manufacturing to scrapping or reuse.
Such a more comprehensive environmental view of motor vehicles is indispensable, because by now there’s more at stake – the big picture, the future viability of motorized personal transportation in an increasingly burdened world for which there are hardly any alternatives in vast regions of the globe.
Electric cars with unexpected marathon skills
Although a growing number of automobiles are successfully fed into the circular economy today there’s an increasing disparity between the energy and material input required for manufacturing vehicles and the length of their service life. In Germany, for instance, the average service life of a car is 11.3 years. That means that the service life of automobiles has slightly increased in recent years but it’s still obvious that this technically complex product is destroyed far too soon.
The current shift in powertrain technology might change that because it’s becoming increasingly apparent that electric vehicles have an unexpectedly large potential for long life. Electric motors and traction batteries are already proving to be significantly more durable than many other vehicle components. That’s exactly where refurbishing, i.e., the renewal of wearing components for instance in the suspension or driveline, comes in so that all parts of a vehicle are provided with near-similar service life potential.
“I expect us having to live off the material that’s in the system more than we did in the past.”
Jens Schüler, Schaeffler’s Automotive Aftermarket CEO
In fact, initial farsighted pioneers have discovered the potential of electric vehicles as “eternity automobiles.” A student group in Eindhoven developed “Eterna” and the Aachen-based innovation hotbed of Professor Günther Schuh, the “father” of the “streetscooter” that’s widely known due to its use by the postal service and a small car called “eGo”, has developed a concept called “e.Volution.” Common to both projects is a reversal of perspectives: instead of putting the still usable components out of service (i.e., recycle them) when the weakest parts fail, the most durable part defines the maximum service life and the wearing components are replaced at regular intervals. It’s safe to assume that a car with an electric motor with a performance capacity of one million kilometers (620,000 miles) would use several sets of shock absorbers, wheel bearings, etc., which, even so, results in a better overall environmental footprint.
Automotive mastermind Schuh calculates that the vehicles from the e.Volution family could achieve a service life of 50 years and one million kilometers (620,000 miles) of mileage before being fully recycled – in other words about four times longer than the current passenger car average. Even when factoring in the material consumption and production energy of the spare parts installed in those five decades, which roughly equate to those of a full new car, into the e.Volution idea, the resulting environmental footprint is still twice as good.
Car on hold
The longevity concepts of Eterna or the e.Volution models provide for the vehicles to make a pit stop every few years at which all wearing parts in the suspension, powertrain, or electronics are replaced and thus reset to zero mileage. A perfect solution would be to refurbish and reuse the replaced components as well to achieve a further significant improvement of the environmental footprint.
That software is increasingly becoming the backbone of modern automobiles plays into the hands of the longevity concept as well. Unlike in the case of hardware, it’s much easier to update the programs – ideally even over-the-air so that the user doesn’t even have to notice what’s happening. If on-board electronics cause trouble the central control unit is replaced completely and fed into the refurbishing process.
Future-proof thinking
As compelling as the ideas from Eindhoven and Aachen may sound – to what extent consumers are going to go along with them remains debatable. People who are used to changing cars every two or three years out of sheer joy of getting something new will no doubt have to change their mindset. However, as consumer awareness changes there’s a growing need and demand for increasingly eco-conscious vehicles. Consequently, an eternity car would be suitable for anyone to whom a quick complete replacement of their vehicle is irrelevant. Ownership increasingly often turns into usership – instead of owners, temporary users more and more frequently get behind the wheel. Prospects for eternity cars like e.Volution exist in the areas of leasing, renting, and car-sharing, in other words wherever safe mobility performance matters instead of year of manufacture or mileage, two aspects that would become irrelevant as a result of the regular resets.
The following graphic describes provides more detailed descriptions of individual “life-extending” actions for a potential eternity car.
From electric cars to eternity cars
The aftermarket supports life-extending actions
The service life extension due to periodic makeover pit stops provides important impetus to the spare parts business. For Schaeffler’s Automotive Aftermarket CEO Jens Schüler, that’s not only an economic but also an environmental opportunity in terms of the refurbishing business. He says, “Especially in the case of the high-grade components of electric cars containing many valuable raw materials, refurbishing makes sense.”
Schaeffler has already put that into practice with an e-axle for the e-Golf in this way: Instead of completely replacing the costly component, the Schaeffler solution replaces only the worn parts – saving material, reducing CO₂ emissions and, not least, cutting costs. Schüler expects the business with refurbished parts to generally return – for two reasons: It can serve to reduce CO₂ emissions and it might be a response to current scarcities. “I expect us having to live off the material that’s in the system more than we did in the past,” says Schüler.
As a result, the aftermarket has the potential to assume a central role in relation to extending the service life of vehicles in the direction of eternity cars because automotive OEMs will hardly be able to tackle the task of keeping the components required for long-term cars available for 50 years on their own. Consequently, the eternity car will be able to display its potential only in interaction between OEMs, garages, and component suppliers.
