Design and material based Sustainable Mobility – Copper vs. REE

Abstract

Carbon neutrality by 2050 is one of the greatest challenges of our society. Hence, the electrification of the mobility sector belongs to those to focus on, due to their high carbon intensity, when based on combustion engines. Therefore, electrification of power train is seen as a solution. Different alternative concepts with different materials exist to achieve the above-mentioned goal of decarbonisation of mobility. To provide a good basis for decision making in the automotive industry to support their sustainability goals for electric vehicles, the environmental impacts related to the manufacturing process of different types of electric motors (induction machines with copper rotor and also ferrite assisted and pure synchronous reluctance machines) in the typical power range of electric vehicles (75 kW and 200 kW) have been assessed. The work was carried out within the European Commission (EC) funded REFREEDRIVE (RFD) project (REFREEDRIVE – Rare Earth Free e-drives featuring low cost manufacturing). This paper intends to give some key facts which help answer some of the questions raised by stakeholders on sustainability, while comparing different concepts, the Induction Motors (IM) and the Synchronous Reluctance Motors (SynRel), both in different configurations.