Electrification in the automotive industry: effects in remanufacturing

Abstract

The automotive market is changing. For many years, cars with internal-combustion engines were dominant. Recently, more cars with alternative drive trains have become available, and their market share has increased, a trend that has had an effect on the remanufacturing industry for automotive parts. This paper aims to describe and evaluate the challenges and opportunities in the coming years for the remanufacturing industry as a result of the increasing number and share of electric vehicles. Both theory and empirical data have been used to meet this aim. From theory, the two different drive train concepts of the internal combustion engine and the battery electric vehicle are described, along with the major differences from a remanufacturing standpoint. These differences and effects are described, evaluated, and fully or partly confirmed by industry experts. The results show that future market actors are unset today, less space-consuming machinery parks will be needed, major investments into knowledge and equipment (especially for testing) will be required, and the necessity to handle different kinds of end-of-use/life solutions, especially the recovery for the electric vehicle battery packs, will be a challenge. As future development is still uncertain, the authors recommend that market actors investigate the challenges and opportunities highlighted in this paper and watch future developments carefully.

A Review of Circular Economy Research for Electric Motors and the Role of Industry 4.0 Technologies

“…In common with many other energy conversion and propulsion components, the main steps in the repair/remanufacturing operations for an electric motor are: collection of the returned products, primary inspection and sorting, disassembly, inspection and grading, fault diagnosis and prognosis, reconditioning and repair, testing and final assembly and the controlled disposal of materials (if required). A simplified process of the remanufacturing of parts of an electric motor has also been discussed by Casper and Sundin [27]. Low-voltage induction motors are the mainstay of numerous industrious operations, and despite being rather mundane machines with modest performance, their sheer number in service ensure that they are of enormous importance in many industry sectors.…”

Automotive Body Shop Design Problems Using Meta-Models Considering Product-Mix Change and Reconfiguration Strategy

“…The data used for validation comprised two types: one contained 288 design experiment points, which were used for developing the meta-model; the other contained 45 points selected randomly from ranges (−1-1) and (−2-2) in Table 3. In Table 8, the absolute percentage error (APE), which is the index for measuring the difference between the simulation and meta-model results, is defined as shown in Equation (8). In the case of random points ranging from (−2-2), the maximum difference was relatively greater than those of others.…”

“…In general, different cars with similar body framing and similar operations enable a mixed-model production by changing jigs, fixtures, and welding robot programs automatically [5]. As the demand for eco-friendly (low carbon) cars such as hybrid cars or electric cars is increasing, most automotive companies are obliged to change the layout concept of their body shops [6][7][8]. In general, they produce both hybrid cars and internal combustion engine cars (we refer to it as an engine car) in the same body shop because both cars can share the same body platform.…”

“…For a hybrid car with front-wheel drive, engine, motor, and transmission are installed in the front area of the car body (engine room), whereas the battery pack and fuel tank are typically installed in the rear area of the car body. However, in an electric car, a flat battery pack is installed on the entire underbody to account for weight balance [7,8]. Hence, the underbody structure of an electric car differs from that of an engine car by its fully enclosed, smooth underbody (known as the "skateboard platform").…”

Model of a prototype vehicle powered by a hybrid hydrogen system

“…The introduction of increasingly stringent emission standards and growing public awareness are causing significant changes in the automotive market. For decades, the dominant powertrain in the automotive industry was the internal combustion engine (ICE), but today it is increasingly being replaced by an electric drive [1][2]. In 2017, the 100000 new electric vehicles (EV) sold mark was crossed for the first time.…”