More and more electric cars Boom for Battery manufacturer

Status: 06/17/2021 10:13 a.m.

The growing number of e-cars on the streets is causing the battery market to grow strongly. One EU country in particular can catch up significantly with its Asian competition.

From Oliver Feldforth, MR

For years it was talked about, now the boom in electric mobility really seems to be there. Electric cars are very popular at a leading Frankfurt dealership. One seller says that what is delivered to him can also be easily sold.

The electric cars have contributed to the fact that the corona pandemic could not harm the battery market in Germany. Last year there was an increase of 35 percent. “Above all, the volume of the market for lithium-ion batteries has increased enormously,” says Christian Eckert from the Central Association of Electrical Engineering and Electronics Industry ZVEI. Overall, this segment grew by 63 percent. And that is mainly due to electromobility.

The recycling rate should increase

A battery is only as green as the material and the electricity used to make it. Even the electric car is only as green as the electricity with which it is charged. When it comes to battery recycling, German industry is on the right track, said Christian Rosenkranz, Chairman of the ZVEI Batteries Association. The recycling rate for classic batteries is 80 to 90 percent, while it looks worse for lithium-ion batteries, which are in increasing demand. The industry wants to achieve a rate of 65 percent in four years.

Environmentalists see a need for action. “It is not only in Germany that we have to set high social and ecological standards for the production of batteries,” says Benjamin Stephan from Greenpeace. “The car manufacturers are responsible for this, but politics must set clear rules for all companies.”

Poland leads the way in Europe

Germany imports batteries. The manufacturers from Europe overtook the Asian competition for the first time last year. In Europe, Poland is the leading producer, in Asia it is China, according to Christian Eckert from the ZVEI.

And electromobility will continue to grow. Volkswagen sees it that way too. The car manufacturer plans to set up six battery cell plants of its own in the next few years. According to Ralf Brandstätter, head of the Volkswagen brand, by 2030 at least 70 percent of all new Volkswagens in Europe should be electric vehicles, in North America and China more than half.

Solid-state batteries as the technology of the future

The decision as to which drive for cars comes after the classic combustion engine seems to have been decided for the time being. “The battery-electric drive is the most efficient and significantly more economical than fuel cells and combustion engines,” said Benjamin Stephan from Greenpeace. “With the same amount of renewable electricity, a car with a fuel cell can only go half as far as a battery-electric one.”

In the case of car batteries, solid-state batteries are to replace lithium-ion technology. It does not require cobalt, which under questionable circumstances is mainly extracted in Africa. For environmentalists, electromobility is only part of the necessary turnaround in traffic. And so Greenpeace is also calling for a change in mobility towards an intelligent transport system in which bicycles, buses and trains play a bigger role

Missing computer chips Short-time work at VW and Daimler

Status: 16.06.2021 10:23 a.m.

Time and again, the production lines in car plants stand still – the manufacturers refer to the industry-wide shortage of chips. Now it hits Volkswagen and Daimler again. When will the situation improve? From Angela Göpfert, tagesschau.de There will be stoppages in the coming week at the VW main plant. In the Tiguan, Touran and Tarraco production as well as in the Golf production in the late and night shifts, the Wolfsburg switch to short-time work. In the Daimler plants in Bremen and Rastatt, short-time work is already the order of the day. The reason is once again the industry-wide shortage of chips.

06/08/2021

Interruptions cost billions

It is nowhere near the first time that the shortage of semiconductors has slowed automakers’ production. It was not until the end of May that the VW luxury subsidiary Audi at the Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm locations suffered production interruptions. BMW had been hit a few weeks earlier. The Ford plant in Cologne is also affected. The German auto industry is not alone with its problems: The US auto giant Ford calculates charges of around 2.5 billion dollars this year due to the lack of chips. The problems in the automotive industry have consequences for the entire economy. Just today, the researchers at the Munich Ifo Institute lowered their forecast for the growth of the German gross domestic product this year from 3.7 to 3.3 percent. To justify this, they also referred to bottlenecks in the delivery of intermediate products such as semiconductors.

Improvement in the third quarter?

It could take a few more weeks for a change for the better. According to experts, the automotive industry is heading for the lowest point. “We are facing the toughest six weeks,” said Murat Aksel, VW Board Member for Purchasing, recently in an interview with the “Handelsblatt”. The situation should improve again in the third quarter. Competitor Daimler also expects an improvement in the second half of the year. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) also estimates that the situation should ease from July.

Around four million cars less

Because of the lack of chips, automakers worldwide produced 1.4 million fewer cars in the first quarter and 1.6 million in the second quarter, the BCG experts calculate. For the entire year 2021, the failures are likely to amount to four to six million vehicles.

05/04/2021

The consulting firm Alix Partners in Munich estimates 3.9 million cars. This corresponds to a value of non-produced cars of around 91 billion euros.

Lessons from the shortage of chips

The car manufacturers have long since learned their lessons from the shortage of chips: They are carefully reviewing their supply chains and are not only expanding their warehousing for chips. After all, the supply chains have thinned out after a pandemic for more than a year, even for important intermediate products, for example in the chemical industry.

06/07/2021

Security of supply is suddenly a priority again after years of just-in-time delivery. Chip manufacturers are also taking strong countermeasures and are pushing ahead with expanding their capacities at full speed. In Germany, the new high-tech chip factory from Bosch ensure regional supplies.

Misjudgments as the cause

But how did it come to that? Where does this lack of chips come from, which is currently keeping the auto industry and its employees in suspense? With the outbreak of the corona pandemic, demand for cars collapsed and chip manufacturers cut their production plans.

05/31/2021

When the demand for new vehicles suddenly increased surprisingly in the summer of 2020, chip manufacturers such as Infineon or NXP were overwhelmed by the demand. The current chip shortage is therefore based on a whole series of misjudgments – on the part of car manufacturers and suppliers, but also on the part of chip manufacturers. The lack of chips also shows that the auto industry did not come through the Corona crisis as badly as feared.

By Christoph Arnowski, BR A high proportion of electricity from coal, insufficient range, too few charging points – all this makes many people doubt the electric car. Also the Ingolstadt engineer Roland Gumpert. That is why he has developed a completely new electric drive concept that works without a charging cable and still enables a long range – and with which the car can be refueled as easily and quickly as a petrol or diesel. The technical core is a methanol fuel cell. If these are fed with climate-neutral methanol, their cars will run without greenhouse gas emissions, says Gumpert: “We can install this concept in any car, in a Polo with 50 hp or in a long-haul truck with 40 tons,” says the engineer. “We are vastly superior to normal battery cars.”

“Father” of the Audi Quattro

Gumpert isn’t just anyone in the automotive industry. For decades he worked successfully for Audi – most recently as Marketing Director for the joint venture between VW and Audi in China. At the beginning of the 1980s, as head of Audi Sport, he and his rally drivers brought four world championship titles to Ingolstadt. The basis was the Quattro drive, which was considered a technical sensation in 1980. For the first time, an automobile manufacturer built a permanent four-wheel drive into its street car. Gumpert is considered one of the fathers of the Quattro drive.

Billions invested in electromobility

Now, at the age of 76, Gumpert wants to show it to the entire industry again – with his own small company. He wants to prove that his car with a methanol fuel cell is better than any electric car with a large battery and charging cable. But politics and industry are so far not interested in Gumpert’s idea. Is it because you have agreed on battery-electric e-mobility and have invested billions in developing it? “Germany can only achieve the EU’s 2030 climate target with a high proportion of electric cars,” the Association of the Automotive Industry VDA shares BR policy magazine controversial on request with. All other options are “not available in ‘mass production’ until then”. Audi expresses itself similarly. The Ingolstadt-based carmaker did not even respond to Gumpert’s invitation to take a look at his concept. Compared to the BR explains a company spokesman: “Electromobility is by far the most efficient way to decarbonise and achieve CO2 fleet targets. Audi is therefore concentrating on battery-electric mobility.”

This is how the methanol fuel cell works With the drive concept, cars do not fill up with hydrogen, which is technically complex and expensive. Instead, a mixture of methanol and water is put into the tank. This is as uncomplicated and quick as possible with gasoline or diesel. This mixture is only heated and broken down into its components in the car itself. The oxygen and carbon dioxide escape into the air. Because climate-neutral methanol is used, there are no additional greenhouse gas emissions. The fuel cell converts the hydrogen from the methanol into electricity, which runs the electric motor.

For the first time, engineer Roland Gumpert implemented his drive concept in the Nathalie sports car – a two-seater coupé with 550 hp and a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. The fuel cell produces enough electricity in the car to be able to travel at speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour. If you want to drive faster, the battery supplies the electric motor with the additional energy required. If the speed drops below 130 km / h, the fuel cell not only supplies the driving current, but also recharges the battery at the same time. In this phase, the car drive needs less electricity than the fuel cell produces. If the vehicle comes to a complete stop, all the electricity from the methanol fuel cell flows into the battery.

If the battery is empty, the car can continue to drive, but at a maximum of 130 km / h – and as long as there is methanol in the tank. Gumpert specifies the range of the car as around 800 kilometers.

“The train left”

The Ulm management consultant Arnold Lamm also believes that the battery-electric car will prevail. “The train has left, you can’t stop it,” says Lamm. As an engineer, he worked for Daimler for more than twenty years. At the end of the 1990s, the Stuttgart-based car manufacturer opted for a drive with a methanol fuel cell, but the company did not achieve the breakthrough it had hoped for at the time. Lamm’s conclusion today: “Technically it works, but then as now I consider this system to be far too complex, too expensive and too time-consuming for a mass market.” Engineer Gumpert disagrees. His drive works: in the prototype of the “Nathalie” he built, a 400,000 euro super sports car that he plans to produce in a small series next year. And the same in an E-Smart that he has converted. His system is competitive: “We know for sure that we can get there with mass-produced products in terms of cost. Our system, including the battery, is ultimately no more expensive than a battery-powered car,” says Gumpert.

Advantages especially on long journeys?

Also from the point of view of the car expert Lamm, the technology “in this configuration is definitely worthwhile to be further promoted”. However, he sees opportunities above all in trucks that have to cover long distances. Here it could have advantages over pure hydrogen vehicles and electric trucks. So should the federal government be interested in e-cars with methanol fuel cells? At least Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer knows the concept. Gumpert was already in Berlin two years ago with his “Nathalie”. Scheuer seemed pleased. But does a 400,000 euro sports car really help in the fight against climate change? The minister sent engineer Gumpert back to Ingolstadt with homework: he was supposed to prove that his drive concept also worked in a small car.

Political tailwind for converted Smart?

In fact, Gumpert converted an E-Smart on behalf of the ministry. Since then, the car has driven 15,000 kilometers – without any problems, without a charging cable, just refueled with green methanol. However, all attempts to inform Scheuer about this failed for months. Emails from the company with the request to present the Smart in Berlin initially went unanswered. Upon request from Controversial said the ministry that methanol fuel cell systems were “not a mass-market solution”. In the meantime, the Federal Ministry of Transport has also contacted Gumpert. “We’re finally out of the drawer,” says the engineer. “We have been forgotten and apologized and will soon give us an appointment for a video conference.” So is the small company from Ingolstadt still getting some political tailwind? Engineer Gumpert continues to hope so. So far he has been pretty much alone with his vision of an electric car with a methanol fuel cell that can be refueled very easily and that continues to drive even with an empty battery.

From Steffen Wurzel, ARD studio Shanghai A battery factory in Changshu, just under 100 kilometers north of Shanghai. The Chinese e-car company Aiways has the batteries for their electric SUV called U5 assembled here. Robots put the individual parts together on a conveyor belt. The battery packs have a capacity of up to 63 kWh, which means that Aiways cars can travel 400 kilometers according to the manufacturer. Only a few workers stand on the conveyor belt. Most of the work steps run automatically, explains senior engineer Wu Lunbin. “It currently takes nine minutes and 44 seconds to make a battery pack for a car,” he says. “But we will continue to expand our production capacity, that will further increase the pace.”

Lots of bankruptcies and takeovers

In addition to Aiways, the other Chinese electric car start-ups are also self-confident. Of the original hundreds of small companies, around ten have remained after bankruptcies and takeovers, which have now actually brought market-ready electric cars onto the streets. They are called, for example, Li Auto, Xiaopeng, World Champion and Nio . Even if the sales figures of these companies are still very low compared to the established, international large car brands: The e-car start-ups have shaken up the car market in China, says Zeng Zhilin, founder of the Shanghai management consultancy LMC Automotive. “These e-car start-ups are digital through and through. They are brave and dare to sell their cars and use new technologies,” says Zeng. “E-car start-ups like Nio combine classic car technology and new software in a way that traditional corporations cannot.”

“Most difficult market ever”

In the affluent cities along the Chinese coast, the hip electric SUVs from the startup companies are already part of the normal street scene. So far, only a few have dared to go abroad, more precisely to Europe. The Shanghai company Aiways, for example, is trying. It also sells its off-road electric sedans in Germany for just under 30,000 euros if you include the state e-car bonus. “We want to start our business from Europe because that is the most difficult market ever,” says Aiways company founder Fu Qiang. “If we survive in Europe, we can do it anywhere. And with that we show our customers within China: Look here, we have what it takes to sell our products in Europe – we build high-quality cars.”

Aiways founder Fu Qiang wants to sell his cars in Germany over the Internet. Image: Steffen Wurzel Entering the German market is complicated for new car manufacturers: There is fierce competition, high price pressure, and German customers are not considered to be keen to experiment. And: It is time-consuming and expensive to set up a Germany-wide sales network. Aiways simply bypasses the latter point: The Shanghai company sells its cars in Germany online and through a consumer electronics chain that otherwise sells televisions and computers.

Cooperation with workshop chain

For inspections and repairs, Aiways customers are referred to the nationwide active workshop chain Auto -teile-Unger, ATU for short, explains Aiways company founder Fu Qiang. “ATU has enough locations in Germany. They don’t need any new equipment or new mechanics for our cars. The only thing they need is precise instructions on how our cars are serviced.” As far as the number of new cars produced is concerned, the e-car start-ups are catching up, but they are still far behind the established, large car manufacturers. Aiways plans to sell at least 10,000 cars outside of China this year. For comparison: the Volkswagen Group sold around 4.2 million cars last year – in China alone.