As of: March 2011

BMU Flyer: Renewably mobile
Marketable solutions for climate-friendly electric mobility

Global traffic growth is intensifying oil-distribution conflicts and, combined with the resulting rapid rise in emissions, endangering the effectiveness of climate policies. Although electric drives are highly efficient, they will only help fight climate change if the power they use is renewable.

Germany has set itself the target of having a million ve- hicles with electric drives on the road by 2020, and six million by 2030. Up to now, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) has allocated more than 100 million to promoting innovation projects run by over 70 partners. The programme is successful and will receive further funding until 2015. All the projects share the vision of making the electric car a marketable environmental innovation. For one thing is clear: a new technology that is clean but unattractive to the consumer is unlikely to be successful. At the same time, more and more consumers also want attractive vehicles to have convincing environmental features. This is a strategic question, not only in terms of ecology but also of economics: only if electric cars have a real environmental advantage will the market also take off. It is this design challenge that we are taking on.