Step-by-step Electrification

Excerpt

Despite all the prophecies of doom, the internal combustion engine will remain an essential component of vehicle powertrains at least in the medium term, in particular if we look outside Europe's borders. In most of the world's emerging economies and across entire continents, including Africa and South America, it will be many decades before all the vehicles on the roads are electrified, if indeed this ever happens. However, people in these countries will not allow themselves to be deprived of the advantages of individual mobility that have been taken for granted in industrialized countries for decades.Solutions are therefore needed that can be implemented worldwide. On an international level, the gradual electrification and defossilization of mobility and transport can only happen with the help of hybrid powertrains. For this reason, the ongoing development of internal combustion engines, which will, of course, have to be electrified in the future, remains one of the key tasks, with the aim of increasing their efficiency even further. …