Aftermarket November 2022

BY Andrew Marsh, Engineering Director, Auto Industry Consulting Ltd I magine if today we had only ever known electric cars, which were the dominant powertrain of choice in the late 1800s. Consider someone coming along and suggesting the use of a powerplant which consumed a highly flammable liquid derived from oil? The headlines could be ‘oil is for lighting, not vehicles’, and ‘the dangers of explosions’. Of course, the very reason internal combustion engines won the battle with pure electric vehicles was because of better range, faster speeds and the ability to get the fuel source refilled in a matter of minutes rather than days. Everything about the late 1800s electric car made sense apart from the battery. It has only taken about 120 years so far to produce a better battery pack, along with infinitely better traction motors and power control. Speedy, no? From around 2010 the push to add electric drive or only have electric drive really got underway. This was also after the vehicle manufacturer lobby argued that the real intermediate solution to reduce tail pipe emissions – yes, that’s what this has been about all along – was to enhance the internal combustion engine. Only then did the EU Commission and collective MEPs seemed to relent. Meanwhile, politicians such as Lord Deben (formerly John Selwyn Gummer) chaired the Climate Change Committee (CCC) which gave the primary advice that led to the 2017 Climate Change Bill. The EU Commission had similar devices. This led to the pivot. Just as vehicle manufacturers rolled out mild-hybrid (MHEV), hybrid (HEV) and plug-in- hybrid (PHEV) as well as pure electric (BEV) models for 2019, the UK and EU stormed off into an electric-only future. Suddenly national leaders and city mayors competed with each other to make the most unfeasible deadline to stop selling any new vehicle with an internal combustion engine. Why did this happen? The UK CCC’s 18 AFTERMARKET NOVEMBER 2022 TECHNICAL www.aftermarketonline.net LI-ION BATTERIES: SIZE DOES NOT MATTER Andrew considers what to do when the unthinkable happens to an EV in the workshop research for example suggested that pure electric cars would cost £11,000, and that the electricity to recharge them was going to cost “very little.” When challenged on these assumptions, the committee said the projected cost was not about battery size, but vehicle size – but did not define that. Yes, it was based on the quadracycle known as G-Wiz. The politicians bought the whole flawed proposal, which is why vehicle manufacturers are running to keep up with the pivot to BEV-only, and there is an ever-increasing mountain of electrification technology, which seems to be sidelined as rapidly as it appears. This is why we see in some model ranges the electrical architecture for HEV, PHEV and BEV have stark differences. It is worth remembering that there are no common solutions and no agreed standards for the way motors, power controllers or traction batteries are built. We do know if the traction battery is recharged at a slower pace, and the vehicle driven without trying