Mega Impact

Countries around the world are passing laws to cut their emissions drastically. Alongside China, several countries have declared their intention to be climate-neutral; most envisage this by 2050, China by 2060. The targets have sent out a signal to many sectors – including the automotive industry. ElringKlinger shares this vision of climate neutrality and plans to make the Group carbon­-neutral by 2030. Through its products, the Group is seeking to help reduce (or ideally prevent) emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbons, and soot particles, thereby playing an active part in the shift to “green mobility”.

According to forecasts by the United Nations, almost 70 percent of the world population will be living in urban environments by 2050 – a trend that is having a direct impact on inner­-city mobility, with congested roads and high levels of air pollution the consequence. The deployment of driverless electro-shuttles known as robotaxis, however, has the potential to minimize traffic jams and emissions; intelligent networking will enable the needs-­based, sustainable, and efficient transport of people and goods. Through its systems expertise in battery­-powered drives and its intelligent lightweight construction concepts, ElringKlinger is already shaping the mobility of tomorrow in its capacity as a development partner.

In purely mathematical terms, this means that as things stand, we would need three planet earths to cover humanity’s resource consumption between now and 2050. Since we only have one earth, though, there is no escaping the fact that we will need to utilize renewable resources if we are to stay mobile in the future. Hydrogen will be a fundamental element in tomorrow’s mobility, provided energy from renewable sources is used to produce it. In the vehicle itself, an electrochemical process in the fuel cell will directly convert hydrogen and oxygen from the air into electricity and water. With its low temperature fuel cell stack, characterized by its high power density and dynamism of power delivery, ElringKlinger already possesses the drive technology to facilitate low­-emission mobility.