RUBICON - ultRa-dUraBle electrIC pOwertraiNs

该项目将降低与拥有互联和自动驾驶汽车(CAV)相关的生态和经济成本。CAV被广泛预期将扰乱未来的交通--据估计，到2030年，CAV将为英国经济带来高达620亿GB的经济增长。这是由围绕引入高利用率移动解决方案的强烈兴趣推动的，例如共享移动和移动即服务(MAAS)。生态和社会影响也被广泛预测，随着交通拥堵的减少，休闲时间的增加，更多的城市空间(由于更高的车辆利用率)和减少的排放。只有当我们的新车辆比现有的移动解决方案提供净经济和生态优势时，这种未来才能实现，这一点并不一定得到保证，因为额外的无人驾驶设备可能会对车辆效率、生产成本和生产碳产生负面影响。在这项研究中，我们将根据现有乘用车的生命周期经济成本和生态成本[gCO2e/公里]对其进行基准测试。然后，通过权衡研究，我们将提出一种新的车辆设计，与现有的最佳基准相比，它的生命周期成本显著降低。我们的假设是，通过增加车辆的使用寿命相对于生产成本/碳，我们可以为CAV的整个生命周期实现更好的经济和环境结果。我们认为，这会带来更高的制造成本和车辆重量--这与当前的汽车设计趋势恰恰相反，后者倾向于低制造成本(因此低使用寿命)设计。这是一种新的乘用车设计方法，可能更类似于商用车设计方法。这种新的乘用车设计方法在商业上也是有意义的。随着乘用车从消费品向资本资产的转变，CAV车队车主的主要购买驱动因素将是每公里经济成本[GB/公里]和寿命碳排放[gCO2e/公里]，这两项都将在本研究中得到优化。我们将考虑顶级车辆概述，然后继续相当详细地探索车辆动力总成。动力总成(动力总成、电机、逆变器、电池)是最昂贵和碳密集型的限制车辆寿命的部件，因此这是我们分配最大项目努力的地方。

This project will reduce the ecological and economic costs associated with the ownership of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs).CAVs are widely anticipated to disrupt the future of transportation -- with estimations of adding up to £62Bn in economic growth to the UK economy by 2030\. This is driven by intense interest surrounding the introduction of high-utilisation mobility solutions, such as Shared Mobility and Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Ecological and societal impacts are also widely predicted, with decreased congestion, increased leisure time, more urban space (due to higher vehicle utilisation), and reduced emissions.This future will only be realised if our new vehicles provide a net economic and ecological advantage over existing mobility solutions, something which is not necessarily guaranteed given that additional driverless equipment may negatively impact vehicle efficiency, production cost and production carbon. \[see appendix 2, exhibit A1\]In this study we will benchmark existing passenger vehicles based on their lifecycle economic \[£/km\] and ecological \[gCO2e/km\] cost. Then, by means of a trade-off study, we will propose a novel vehicle design which achieves significantly lower lifecycle costs compared to the best existing benchmark.Our hypothesis is that by increasing vehicle service-life relative to production cost/carbon, we can achieve much better economic and environmental outcomes for CAVs across their lifecycle. We see the trade-offs for this being higher manufacturing costs and vehicle weight -- exactly the opposite of current automotive design trends which favour low build cost (and hence low service-life) designs. This is a novel approach to passenger vehicle design, and is perhaps much more akin to a commercial vehicle methodology.This new approach to passenger vehicle design also makes sense commercially. As passenger vehicles transition from consumer goods to capital assets, key purchasing drivers for CAV fleet owners will be economic-cost-per-km \[£/km\] and life-carbon emissions \[gCO2e/km\], both of which will be optimised in this study.We will consider a top-level vehicle overview then proceed to explore the vehicle powertrain in quite some detail. The powertrain (Drivetrain, Motor, Inverter, Battery) is the most expensive and carbon intensive life limiting vehicle component, so this is where we allocate the largest project effort.