High-Performance Electric/Hybrid Vehicle—Environmental, Economic and Technical Assessments of Electrical Accumulators for Sustainable Mobility

Abstract

The present work aims to provide a technical, economic, and environmental analysis on the electric accumulators used for electric mobility (pure electric, hybrid, full hybrid and/or mild hybrid) to reduce the environmental, social and economic impacts generated by private vehicles. Initially, the scenarios for the development of electric mobility and the regulatory context were assessed. Attention has been focused on the batteries used in electric vehicles and the technological aspects related to their charging operations. With regard to the economic aspects, the evolution of battery costs in relation to capacity and size has been highlighted in recent years. The advantages related to the containment of environmental impacts are highlighted considering the aspects related to the end of life of the batteries themselves. As retrofitting ICE vehicles by electric motor currently represents a potential transition solution to improve the shift towards the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, the retrofit methodology of some of the current B-segment vehicles was evaluated. In the present work, the authors wanted to demonstrate how the solution proposed here, the retrofitting of class B vehicles, can represent a medium-term way to implement the transition from MCI-based traction to electric.