Energy Infrastructure – the Often Overlooked Constraint on Automotive Technology Transition

Authors

D. Bothe, A. Pfannenschmidt, F. Schrogl, Frontier Economics Ltd., Cologne; U. Kramer, FVV e.V., Frankfurt:

Year

2024

Print Info

Production/Publication ÖVK

Summary

For decades, the automotive industry has been rather spoiled when it comes to energy supply: Product development could be carried out solely with an intra-sectoral focus. The energy supply was secured by a few standardised fuels that were more or less globally available as commodities. This is changing with new drive technologies: Battery-electric or H2-powered vehicles only provide ecological and economic benefits in conjunction with the parallel development of a secure energy supply. In the public debate, stakeholders often ignore this link. This sometimes leads to unrealistically ambitious sales expectations or politically recommended fleet targets.

In our study, we use the data set available from the FVV Fuels Study IV and IVb and Frontier's "MOVEID" model (Model Optimised Vehicle and Energy Infrastructure Defossiliation) to derive in detail the infrastructure and raw material requirements are associated with the different propulsion concepts (e.g. "How much electricity grid expansion does an electric car need?"). Based on this, we outline the energy framework and bottlenecks for key infrastructures such as electricity grid expansion for electric vehicles or electrolysis capacities for hydrogen vehicles.
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ISBN

978-3-9504969-3-2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.62626/heua-kabn Copy link