Lightweight and eco-designed components for electric vehicles

The European Union's LEVIS project (H2020) is engaged in the development of the technology pillars that will allow industries to design and produce the lightweight,cost-effective and sustainable components of the electric vehicles of the future.

It aims to develop lightweight components for electric vehicles using eco-design and circular economy approaches. The LEVIS consortium - made up of industrial partners and research centres from seven countries - plans to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of producing these components in the three selected demonstrators.

The last LEVIS consortium meeting took place last February at the facilities of one of the project partners, AIMEN Centro Tecnológico (Porriño, Pontevedra), where the progress in the development of the different demonstrators selected within this European project were analysed: a suspension arm, a battery box set and a steering column carrier group.

Leartiker is responsible for the development of the battery module that houses the cells. A component based on a recycled polymer structure that integrates the bus bar and monitoring to ensure the correct functioning of the battery. In this sub-component Leartiker is working together with the project partners Mersen Electrical Power, CEA-Liten and Privé (Progettazione Ricerca Ingegnerizzazione Veicoli Elettrici). Leartiker is also collaborating on the development of the steering column support together with TOFAS and AIMEN Centro Tecnológico.

Since the LEVIS project began (February 2021), the dissemination of the initiative has been a constant among the partners that make up the consortium. Thus, there have been countless events and seminars related to sustainability and the automotive industry in which this project, which is part of the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme, has been presented.

Dissimilar material adhesion test.

Following this dissemination work, Blanca Lekube, project coordinator at Leartiker, will present the results of the study on improving multi-material joints at the Adhesive Bonding 2023 international conference, which will take place this week in Oporto. This work has been carried out in conjunction with Tofas, Aimen and Itainnova, with the aim of replacing the metal material currently used in steering column support parts with a multi-material combination of steel and composite.

Circular economy and eco-design

The EU’s transition to a circular economy will contribute significantly to achieving climate neutrality by 2050 as proclaimed by the European Green Deal. In the EU’s new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe, vehicles are highlighted as one of the sectors with high consumption of resources and high potential to apply circular economy principles.

This project addresses the design of electric vehicle components in a circular way, adopting eco-design and taking into account the full life cycle of the components. To achieve this, the project has developed and tested the iEDGE (integrated Eco-Design Guideline and Evaluation) toolkit, which has helped to better guide the decision-making process in the early design phases of the LEVIS demonstrators. Work is also being carried out on different reuse and recycling strategies for the end-of-life of the developed components. All these aspects will be considered for the life cycle and cost analyses, which will serve to validate the improvements that LEVIS innovations will bring to the electric car.

Next steps

The consortium is preparing to successfully tackle the final phase of the project. To this end, it will meet at the end of September in Turkey, with the intention of defining the final steps in the application and validation of the technologies and materials developed in the final prototypes.

More information: www.greenvehicles-levis.eu

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#GreenvehiclesLEVIS partners:

ITAINNOVA · Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón
Marelli
Mersen | Electrical Power
Privé S.r.l. - Production Research Industrialization Vehicle Electric
Yesilova Group
TOFAS
AIMEN Centro Tecnológico
CANOE - Le Centre Technologique Nouvelle Aquitaine Composites & Matériaux Avancés
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
CEA-Liten
Cenex Nederland
Steinbeis Europa Zentrum
Leartiker