„E-cars are not clean at all, as their emissions already occur at the power plant“.

Common statement to be seen in quite a lot of magazines these days. Prejudice which could be clarified with another question? What if the E-car driver charges only with eco-power or solar power ideally from own production? Big advantage of the E-car – when operated from the private home – is its flexibility in the point in time, when charging starts.

Schiefer denominates the E-car as the night storage heater of the new century: save the grid stability and own money by charging at oversupply.

AtTrack managing director Schiefer spans a wide spectrum with his arguments. He asked his audience which one of 2 solutions appears to be superior for them:

You ride 12 km by bicycle or use your latest state of technical car.

And the answer is a question again: depends on the food of the bicycle rider. Should he prefer roast beef over vegetables,… his CO2 balance sheet could be up to threefold higher compared to the use of the combustion driven car.

Are there other low hanging fruits for a responsible individual to save CO2 in his private field:

  • The Bundesverband der Lungenärzte assumes that all open chimneys feeded by wood emit in Germany as much pollutants as the whole vehicle population and recommends to buy ovens on latest standards with catalysts and replace the old technology on a short note.

E-Mobility will appear – that is the strong impression, Schiefer has on that behalf.

But long vehicle lifes and long keeping cycles of the existing vehicle population and a high price of batteries for E-vehicles makes it difficult to provide quick wins and expand the market massively on a short note.

The path to pure electric driving would be plastered by a multitude of high performing hybrid cars.

Picture source:        Dr. Günter Renz
Literary source:       Ratgeber ‚Heizen mit Holz‘, Umweltbundesamt 2012

On July 23 the „Symposium Elektromobilität“ will take place in Ostfildern near Stuttgart. Our CEO, Dr. Ulrich W. Schiefer, will present new insights with his presentation „Car2Drive or Drive2Car?“.

The first time after more than 120 years Automobile History, the industry needs to take care for more than one motor and propulsion method in the same vehicle. And this inherent complexity is superceeded by the mixture of both types of propulsion called hybrid.

The importance of package quality is evident. Missing excellence on that behalf causes heavy and inefficient vehicles. The good news within all the constraints, is the opportunity of taking care for both breeds from the very beginning.

But this needs the knowledge about the use of every possible driveline at the point in time when people draw the vehicle’s first lines. On the other hand, a purpose design for the different drive types provides massive package and weight advantages.

Dr. Schiefer will emphasize both hurdles and opportunities for the vehicle design with different drive types.

We look forward to your visit.

 

At the 5th of May 2015 AtTrack MD Dr. Ulrich W. Schiefer has given a speech at the Lightweight Innovation Day of the “Leichtbauagentur BW” at the Messe Stuttgart. The title was “Pack Donkey or Donkey’s Pack?”

The Key Messages have been:

  • Typical automobiles can carry about 30-50 % of their empty weight as payload (to be seen in the appending payload/empty weight portfolio)
  • Therefore automobiles behave significantly worse on that behalf than any other man/load bearing vehicles (truck, helicopter, motorcycle …)
  • In particular single-track vehicles such as motorcycles and a new species of light vehicles (i.e. AtTrack TG 700 …) perform on a significantly higher level, in bearing between 80-90% of their empty weight as payload.
  • Interestingly there is neither customer preference nor attention for the payload, even though it is a basically important quality factor for any means of transportation.
  • Probably this is also the key reason for OEMs not to put so much emphasis on this aspect of vehicle quality.

Schiefer has no doubt, that automotive engineers should pay significantly more attention onto payload beyond just focusing on empty weight.

He sees this to be a fundamental requirement for lifting lightweight design of vehicles onto a new level of quality.

Dr. Ulrich W. Schiefer, MBA, 26.5.2015

 

leichtbau diagramm