Deep Dive: Hardware Developments and Opportunities in The EV Market

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Today’s Deep Dive: 🔋Hardware Developments and Opportunities in The EV Market🚌

Hardware Developments and Opportunities in The EV Market

Following last week’s deep dive into the electrification of vehicles in various terrains, it is strikingly evident that the development of EVs is constantly growing. Plenty of entrepreneurs have already started pursuing the art of electrification, whether for the sake of cost efficiency, product reliability, or the lessening of negative impacts on the environment.

We delved into the pursuit of EVs by three businessmen, Duncan McIntyre of Highland Electric Fleets, Mitch Lee of Arc Boats, and Gregory Davis of Eviation Planes, and explored their personal goals as electric vehicle developers as well as how they have managed to achieve said goals.

As part of an industry that has only recently gained popularity once again, EVs are blooming quite swiftly and at an exponential rate in the market, more so. Though this is the case, there are plenty of areas in the industry that still require improvement to further push efficiency, including batteries and hardware.

Similar to many other industries, having areas in need of improvement means there are gaps in the market that more entrepreneurs and businesses can fill in, which can drive the industry to reach an even better state in quality.

Power in Battery

One of the few issues many entrepreneurs in the EV industry have stumbled upon is the amount of power required to ensure great performance. As briefly discussed last week, charging is an aspect quite difficult to maintain effectively, even for personal electric cars. And so, it can be imagined how tricky the management of battery systems would be for vehicles of various terrains, such as boats, school buses, and planes.

The technological advancement of battery cells achieved by the development of personal electric cars has definitely helped create a base for other electric vehicles to follow, but different terrains also mean different design criteria. For instance, the life cycle of a battery required for boats, buses, and planes would most definitely be distinct. It could be due to the difference in frequency the vehicles are used or due to the standards each separate industry requires.

When it comes to the aerospace industry, planes are constantly being used, going back and forth from one state or country to another, and so you may need to change batteries every two to three years to ensure you’re performing proper mandatory maintenance. There may be certain certifications and standards required for plane batteries as opposed to boats, for example.

When it comes to boats, you may never reach a point where you have out-cycled the useful life of a battery due to how seasonal the use of boats can be. It is possible that no matter how often you use a boat, its usage would not exceed vehicles in the auto or aviation industry, and it could be charged every time the boat is unoccupied, with the few charging methods Arc Boats have managed to come up with and develop.

Though also used on land, similar to personal electric cars, batteries for school buses would also require different criteria. According to McIntyre, similar to boats, a change in battery packs as frequent as one for planes would probably not be required for school buses because school bus fleets are only on the road at approximately 9% percent of the hours in a year and sit idle 91% of the time.

This grants both boats and buses the opportunity to charge their batteries often, as opposed to replacing them. Different from Arc Boats, however, Highland Electric Fleets makes use of renewable energy sources by charging on a grid level.

Charging Networks

Charging on a grid level means the school buses adopt a system where they backflow power from their fleet of batteries to power grids. When power grids absorb electricity from the car battery, it pushes power back to the grid.

By adopting this system, the buses are required to charge only at the right times, or the grid’s operating cost would be too expensive. McIntyre sees this as an issue that should be solved smartly, by developing better utilities and policies for wholesale energy.

From an aviation point of view, Davis has also come up with ways battery technology can be improved, with one of his ideas being a secondary storage of energy. The typical turnaround for an airplane is as follows: you load passengers, take off, travel for an hour or more, land, offload passengers, offload baggage, and repeat the cycle. Before the cycle is repeated, planes typically get half an hour of resting time, giving time for fast charging.

Davis views the non-existence of such fast-charging systems as a gap that entrepreneurs or businesses can fill. With fast charging technologies now available not only for our tiny smartphones but also for personal electric cars, its development is no longer impossible. One company that has attempted to build fast megawatt chargers for electric planes is Swiss-based ASEA Brown Boveri (ABB).

Aside from fixed fast-charging stations placed at airports, Davis also poses the idea of mobile charging, for instance, traveling trucks with a battery bank of sorts specifically designed to charge aircraft vehicles.

Innovation For The Future

The three electric-positive businessmen believe that there is still a sort of perception amongst people that new tech isn’t going to be reliable or that electric fuel costs with all sorts of utility bills would be far more complicated to handle. And though this perception may not be far from true, it is not impossible to create simpler customer-facing systems.

The fact that the market for electric vehicles exists means there are still customers to satisfy, and though the industry is filled with many challenges, said challenges shouldn’t stop entrepreneurs from trying to become an expert in the industry.

It is easy to imagine EVs replacing gas-dependent vehicles in 10 or 15 years, and so, by focusing on satisfying customers and thinking outside the box, thinking of solutions to problems that may not exist now but will exist once EVs dominate the streets, sea, and sky, entrepreneurs can become part of the gap in the market that needs to be filled.

Click here for part three of this Deep Dive series!

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