P-MOB Objectives

This proposal addresses the development of key enabling technologies for Light Electrical Vehicles having embedded photovoltaic (PV) on the body. The P-MOB project aims to break the link between the growth in transport capacity and increased demand on oil, fatalities, congestion and pollution. On an average day in South EU the proposed vehicle is aiming to exceed 20 km/day by solely utilising solar energy.

Amongst the novel opportunities (or challenges) the automotive sector will face in the future, will be the following:

Mobility needs will increase some 35% per decade for at least 3-4 decades. The habits and needs of young drivers, in advanced societies in particular, are changing. However, whilst it is recognised that new models of mobility may be on the horizon, the size of the new economies is such that the current global trend will continue for several decades.
The number of megalopolis is increasing and most of the traffic will be urban.
Urban centres are increasingly congested and/or closed to traffic; 1% of our GDP is wasted in handling congestion.
Mobility is ultimately dependent on invariants, such as i) people move one hour a day with an average speed that has remained relatively constant (since it was first measured in 1923) in the range 35-40km/h; ii) people tend to relate mobility to a mental freedom and, according to the US Bureau of transportation, as much as 90% of the ‘km driven’ are with a single occupant.
In Europe alone, a million additional cars are on the road every 50 days and, globally, the number of vehicles is projected to increase from 900 million in 2007 to 2200 million by 2050.
Emerging markets primarily require low cost and environment compatible vehicles.

The P-MOB project addresses the above challenges by proposing:

a novel concept of fully-electric personal mobility addressing the needs of urban mobility whilst also encompassing characteristics suitable for extra urban mobility;
reduced system complexity (a common car can have more than 50 processors, actuators and sensors) with a focus on the key essentials;
advanced systems integration including:
- thin film solar cells;
- e-motor and electromagnetic torque control of the wheel;
- integrated power-energy management;
- distributed battery-supercapacitor packs;
- technologies to facilitate ‘sell-buy electricity’ by adaptable vehicle to grid connections.

Mobility is currently based on hydrocarbons, whether from fossil fuels or those combustible from renewable (liquids and gases) sources. Most continents including Europe still have an increasing dependence on primary energy. Moreover, from a European perspective, there is also a comparable relevance on the growing dependence on raw materials, such as aluminium and steel, with accurate market projections and forecasts being severely hampered by global economic instability.

Nevertheless, concerns about the use of primary energy remain dominant, while user expectations also demand increased safety, and reduced noxious and green house emissions. For instance, expectations are for less than 40,000 fatalities in Europe in 2010 with the aim of less than 100 fatalities per million vehicles in 2015.

The main objective of the project is a radical reduction of energy consumption, raw materials, CO2 and noxious emissions of vehicles by a) presenting a vehicle with low weight and an optimal electrical drive train, and an extremely low aerodynamic drag characteristic, b) massive use of solar energy harvesting by the adoption of embedded photovoltaic energy generators, c) connecting the vehicle bi-directionally to/from the grid.

Welcome to the P-MOB EU project website