Mobility: Resource-efficient Production - Emission-free Driving

Staying mobile and producing without overburdening the environment is the claim of the InnovationCampus Future Mobility (ICM) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Stuttgart. Almost 300 researchers are working in more than 60 projects and 40 institutes on electric motors without rare earths, new manufacturing technologies, and self-learning software systems for vehicles. The ICM is one of the largest initiatives on future mobility and production in Germany. Initial solutions developed at the ICM show that economic success and ecological responsibility are not mutually exclusive, but can even complement each other. Some of them have been presented on October 12, 2022 at the "Future Mobility Open Labs" at KIT.

"Baden-Württemberg is helping to shape the transformation to sustainable and resource-conserving mobility: By combining the two research-focused universities KIT and University of Stuttgart in the InnovationCampus Future Mobility, we are creating an attractive research environment. Bright minds from the scientific community will come together here to provide the foundations for tomorrow's mobility and production technologies through excellent interdisciplinary research," says Baden-Württemberg Minister of Science, Research and ArtsPetra Olschowski. "The InnovationCampusFuture Mobilityis a research flagship where building blocks for a climate-neutral future are being developed."

The path taken so far, joint successes, and the future of the ICM were presented at the event by Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice-President for Transfer and International Affairs at KIT, and Professor Peter Middendorf, Prorector for Knowledge and Technology Transfer at the University of Stuttgart.

Material-saving and maintenance-free Electric Motors

"We cannot shape a sustainable and livable world without technology. Laying the foundation for this is the task of science. This is also the core of the mission of ICM," says Professor Albert Albers, Head of the Institute IPEK, KIT's Institute of Product Engineering. Prototypes of novel electric motors already exist: "Reluctance motors do not require permanent magnets and rare earths. This makes them very sustainable and resource-saving," says Professor Nejila Parspour, Director of the Institute of Electrical Energy Conversion at the University of Stuttgart. "Today, however, these machines are not yet used in vehicles because of their lower power density. The ICM is therefore developing ways to increase the speed of the motors, , while keeping the torque high and the losses at bay." Another field of research: Electrically excited motors. Unlike permanently excited rare-earth motors which are used in nearly every vehicle, these motors promise higher efficiencies at medium to high speeds which means more range for battery-powered vehicles. Currently, these machines are still prone to wear; energy is transferred to the rotor shaft via slip rings which wear out over time and need to be replaced. At the ICM, researchers are working on a maintenance-free inductive energy transfer that can make this type of motor suitable for series production for the broad mass of vehicles on the market.

Self-learning Vehicle Fleets