Advanced Light-Weighting for Future Electric Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

The World Economic Forum is encouraging companies to raise their ambitions for climate actions in order to reduce emissions for road vehicles, as they are one of the greatest contributors to CO₂ and NOx emissions. The recent developments in battery technology has enhanced the performance of electric vehicles (EVs), providing increased power, range and charge rate. Mass reduction corresponds to less power required during acceleration and deceleration, improving the vehicle performance and its lifespan. The enhancement in battery performance has been then complemented by weight saving, achieved using innovative materials and design solutions. Composites and high-strength steel used to replace cast iron and traditional steel, together with innovative geometries optimised with topological tools, have reduced significantly the weight of the vehicles. Multi-joining technology to enable lightweight design, re-manufacturing and re-use has been developed in response to the use of dissimilar multi-material structures. Multiple joining technologies (mechanical fastening, chemical and thermal joining) have been studied considering cost, performance & quality, capability for adaptive control, design for assembly and disassembly as well as end of life recycling.

The scope of the Special Issue is to gather contributions related to the technological challenges in the development of lightweight EV systems. The topics of relevance are development and testing of innovative material, design and simulation with advanced topological optimisation, simulation and testing of joints with similar and dissimilar materials, novel joining solutions, in-process inspection and control, structural integrity of joints, fatigue performance of innovative metallic and composites components, smart manufacturing for production up-scaling of EV systems, composites hybridization, additive manufacturing, natural fibres composites and crashworthiness of EVs, design for recycling.

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• Future mobility
• E-mobility
• Smart manufacturing
• Battery manufacturing
• Topological optimization
• Design for recycling
• Innovative materials
• Composites
• Innovative joining methods
• Dissimilar material joining
• Mechanical Testing
• Inspection methods