The New Materials That Are Shaping The Future Of Mobility

Dr Shankar Venugopal, Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra correlates the discovery of key input materials with the future of mobility.

- Dr Shankar Venugopal

Sustainable mobility is a key growth enabler for fast-growing economies like India. The future of sustainable mobility is being shaped by a combination of technology and business model disruptions. The convergence of electric, connected, autonomous vehicle technologies and the shared mobility business model has the potential to create sustainable mobility options for the future. These new technologies are growing exponentially in their performance and are fast becoming affordable. Leveraging these disruptive technologies and building innovative products are of strategic importance to companies and countries that wish to lead the development of sustainable mobility for the future.

The adaption of electric mobility in India will greatly accelerate when (a) the Electric Vehicle (EV)’s range improves sufficiently to remove the range anxiety of customers (b) the initial cost of acquisition of EV reduces to match the price of ICE vehicle (c) the batteries can be charged easily and quickly. As the battery pack contributes to about 40 per cent of the price of EV and determines the range of the EV, it is a key sub-system of the EV both from a performance and price perspective. The advantage of an EV arises from (a) high energy conversion efficiency and (b) the elimination of vehicular tailpipe emission.