We're starting to see electricity displacing traditional energy sources everywhere and really faster than I expected to see.
November 1, 2022
Fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine have powered the global economy for more than a century, but the future will be electrified. As the world adopts ambitious goals to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions, engineers are racing to commercialize electric alternatives to the vehicles and machinery that we use every day. TE's Davy Brown, vice president and chief technology officer for Transportation Solutions, focuses on the acceleration of the energy revolution and how TE is contributing to the transition by co-creating with customers. As the world becomes increasingly electrified, it's crucial to understand how cases of electrification are increasing and potentially changing life over the coming decade. Related concerns include range anxiety, infrastructure upgrades, and the engineering and technical skills needed to build and manage an electrified future.
Read – and listen to – an interview with Davy Brown.
What are electric alternatives and how can these help combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions?
There's a significant number of them, and I touched upon a few of them in the post. So those that spring to mind: Electrified vehicles or EVs cars, commercial transports, agricultural machinery, trains, aircraft systems, industrial automation. So a lot of those that were already familiar with and also some new critical opportunities and exciting new areas like EVTOL or flying taxis. So a pretty wide range and that that range will continue to grow.
There’s one that springs to mind and that's autonomy. So think about that in the context of things like self driving capability in cars. There's really no reason why autonomy is not possible in a petrol or gas powered vehicle would be in an EV or electric car. But the shift to electric vehicles and the electrification of cars is probably the largest wholesale overhaul we've seen in the architecture of a car for well over 100 years. And that transition and that transformation is creating additional space for new systems and vehicles to support all of the sensors and processing that's required for autonomous operation. But if I take it away from cars for a moment, autonomy starts to impact other applications which are being electrified.
A good example would be AGVs or automated guided vehicles. Think about these as mobile robots, which are used for moving material around a factory. AGVs themselves are actually not particularly new. They've been around for over 50 years and until recently they relied on fairly rudimentary technology, like following a line painted on the floor or perhaps some magnetic tape on the floor of a factory to guide them to their destination. But if we look at the current generation of AGVs, autonomous operation allows them to sense the environment around them. So it makes them really fast to deploy. It allows them to deal with situations like obstructions and their pathway. And it also improves our safety by them, allowing them to sense the environment, particularly when they're close to other human operators in a factory. So again, that's an example of something that doesn't need to be tied to electrification. But I do see these two technologies maturing at similar rates.
What factors are preventing broader adoption and advancements happening at scale when it comes to electrification?
First of all, there are some significant advancements that have got us to where we are, but there certainly are a number of challenges that really need to be overcome to continue to drive the adoption. I think the first one that springs to mind would be charging infrastructure, and probably the second one would be battery technology, but let me tackle those in order. Many of the things that we just talked about, are battery powered and therefore they require some sort of charging infrastructure, whether it's an AGV in a factory, like I just talked about, a car, or a commercial vehicle. They all still require the ability to be charged between operations. When I think about the the most commonplace electrification we come across today with EVs, the phrase range anxiety crops up frequently when we talk about it. And, I'm starting to hear another phrase increasingly used, and that's charge anxiety. So not only is there the concern as you're plotting your course in your electric car between charging stations, but when you get there, are the chargers all in use? Are they compatible with your car? Or is it actually out of service and you can't even use them, increasing that anxiety to how are you going to be able to make it to the next stop or to the next charging station?
I think the cost to charge or the charge to charge is something that we need to think about. We've seen adoption of EVs, certainly by many early adopters based on the lower cost to run, but with increasing electricity prices is it always going to be the case that it's cheaper than using a petrol alternative? So certainly some challenges there around the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Let me go back into the factory for a minute. So thinking about factory equipment again, consider an AGV or a mobile robot. In that environment, downtime is a real problem. So fast, reliable charging is essential to operation. New approaches like a “little and often” approach where the batteries are regularly topped up will likely be adopted. And in larger applications, think about battery powered trains, buses, lorries, trucks or aircraft. If you think about these large equipment applications, you need an entirely new infrastructure to support the sort of fast charging they required.
Interestingly, for for EVTOLs, which is probably one of the applications I'm most excited about, we're now seeing the first dedicated ground infrastructure being being built to support them, so called vertiports. So these are locations with clear access to the skies. But these vertiports, as they profilerate, will require new, very high capacity connections to the electricity grid to support the sort of power requirements to rapidly recharge an EVTOL.
And this is the second one I'd like to talk about is battery capacity technology. If I compare lithium ion battery technology to petrol, petrol has energy density of somewhere between 50 and 100 times higher than a lithium ion battery. Now we are seeing new battery chemistries like lithium-sulfur, zinc-iron, and aluminium-air. All of these are environmentally less harmful, but they also have improved energy density. So we are improving that density, but we're still a long, long way to close that energy density gap that we see with oil-based fuels. And so that will continue to be a challenge as we look at a number of these potential applications that are moving to moving away from petrol to electric propulsion.
What can engineers do differently when developing architectures that must transfer all of this power from an electric source into core systems?
This energy density is obviously a significant challenge. And when you think about, again, 50 to 100 times less energy dense, you can see that if you're trying to create similar performance, it creates a very, very heavy piece of infrastructure. So one of the most important things that we can do is to look at where else in the system we can reduce weight. If you look at the design of electrified systems today, there is a lot of focus on reducing size, weight, and power components. Now, size, weight, and power will be familiar to many listeners. That's a phrase that we've used in the aviation industry for many, many years, and it's been a major design consideration in aircraft since the Wright brothers first took to the air. But that consideration, size, weight, and power is rolling down into many, many other electrified applications to reduce that weight, to improve the efficiency and to improve the runtime or the range.
A second one closely associated here is around safety. And to improve the efficiency of electrified systems, we've seen the voltage increasing almost year over year. Current EVs and aircraft are typically around about 100 volts. But to improve efficiency, we see this growing rapidly to a thousand volts and beyond. And of course with this comes increased safety concerns. So system designers require components in their systems that can handle these new power requirements regardless of where the system is going to be deployed, if it's on the ground, in the air, or on the water.
What role TE is playing in helping engineers resolve these challenges?
A lot, actually. We are investing a lot of our development time and focus on novel new materials that will both reduce the weight of product and also improve the electrical performance in high voltage systems. In addition to advancing material science, we're also producing new high performance versions of key system components like relays and contactors. And these are electromechanical systems that are really critical to the the operation and safety of an electrified system.
What differentiates TE’s approach to partnering with OEMs on customized solutions for electrification?
At TE, we do something a bit different that is a really key part of the value that we create with our customers and that is our engineer to engineer relationship. We regularly co-innovate and co-design with our customers to create solutions that solve their toughest problems. Something that we're continuing to grow within our organization is more system architecture capability, and that will allow us to continue to work closely with our customers to help them define things like their overall power distribution, and from there bring that information back into our organization to work with our advanced development teams to help develop solutions for future generations of electrified systems.
How can TE solutions help OEMs address market expectations for sustainable performance that also meets safety and reliability requirements?
You just touched upon a couple of things there - safety and reliability. Safety and reliability are key requirements that have been placed on our products forever. And it's something that our customers have really come to trust us for. So when I think about that, safety and reliability has always been a key consideration in the design of our products. But the other one you mentioned was sustainability, and sustainability is joining those two very well-established core requirements as a new core requirement. And this has been a real focus for our engineers over the last number of years where in addition to improving the performance of the materials we use and the products we produce, we're also looking at how we can reduce the environmental impact of our products.
We have initiatives running across the organization, everything from looking at how we can reduce the amount of material that we use in our products through to advanced research activity developing bio-based alternative materials which have got lower environmental impact. So that that third requirement of sustainability has really accelerated importance over the last couple of years. And we expect to see that continue to grow as our customers demand more sustainable products and their solutions.
What's being done to sustainably generate the power needed to run commercial and industrial machinery?
As we talk about electric powered worlds, we can see the improved sustainability. That's very obvious to the end user of electrified equipment. But of course, we do need to think about where that electricity is sourced from. And the one thing that's clear in a more and more electrified world is that we're going to require more and more electric to power an increased range of devices. How do we generate and distribute electricity globally is changing.
Most countries, if not all countries around the world, are increasing the percentage of electricity that comes from renewable sources, thereby reducing dependence on coal, oil, gas, etc. And this is this is possible. I mean, a great example is Norway. Norway led the world for many years and still continues to lead the world with the adoption of renewable energy sources. And I believe something over 98% of the electricity in Norway today comes from renewable sources. But few countries are anywhere near this level. So as we look at this transition to renewable energy, our teams are supporting our customers globally as they build out completely new infrastructure, supporting wind, solar and other renewable generation sources.
A second consideration is this transition to renewables, of course, requires other changes to the grid infrastructure. The first thing is that the unpredictable generation characteristics of most renewable energy sources mean that we need to store energy somewhere in the network. Of course, we only generate solar when during the day, when the sun shining, we only generate wind based when there's wind, etc. So this requirement for storage is really something new and something that utilities need to embrace. And I think a second consideration here is that with more homes and businesses generating electricity locally, the grid is changing from a very uni-directional flow, which traditionally was the utility provides power to the consumer to a more bi-directional flow with spare power often being sold back to the utility.
This change is actually very large for the utilities and it requires electricity providers to monitor their infrastructure, to understand the network load across their grid. And this is really a huge change to our electricity grids, which for over 100 years have been passive and are becoming smart infrastructure today.
What engineering limitations and economic factors might affect how OEMs approach electrification over the next five years?
The biggest limitation that I see is around talent. And we've just talked about a range of completely new applications using new power levels with new safety requirements, new architectures, new materials. So a lot is changing to support this electrification. And as I look at that, the skills that many engineers globally today have are just not what's required to design the systems of the future. As I think about that, universities, employers, and individuals, we all need to invest in developing the required capabilities and skills to respond to these evolving technical needs.
We're starting to see electricity displacing traditional energy sources everywhere and really faster than I expected to see. For example, most times you go out in your car today on a journey, you see an electric vehicle. That's changed dramatically over five years. I had to buy a new chainsaw a couple of months ago. I bought an electric chainsaw. I mean, we're seeing this electrification trend is moving really, really quickly. But in many instances, as I think about the electrified versions of an application, it's a compromise. So today, an electric vehicle range is a concern in factories. We talked about charging time.
So it's taken equipment out of commission for periods of time for charging. Commercial electric vehicles tend to have less pulling power. Electric aircraft can't fly as far or for as long as conventionally powered versions. So I think about those compromises. And when I think through to maturity, the next phase of maturity, in my view, is when we see those compromises disappear, when we think about the performance, the cost, the reliability of the electrified systems, they will be better than the systems that they're replacing. And by the way, that's going to happen at very different rates. We're already seeing very, very widespread adoption across the automotive industry. But to see comparable performance and to see displacement and heavy applications like international air travel will take a lot longer, probably 50 years or more.
What do you find most thrilling in being a part of the electrification evolution?
I'll tell you what I'm not thrilled about. I'm a I'm a huge fan of classic British sports cars, and I'm very sad to see the demise of the petrol-powered sports car. But what am I thrilled about? Some of these new applications are very exciting. I'm thrilled that in its very small number of years, I'll be able to take a flight on the EVTOL, and I'm really excited about that becoming real. If I guess if I zoom out for a moment and think about us at TE, we're really thrilled to be able to continue to collaborate with our customers globally to develop the sort of solutions that will power this new electrified and much more sustainable future.
Did you enjoy this interview? Read the source article.
As the world adopts ambitious goals to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions, engineers are racing to commercialize electric alternatives to the vehicles and machinery that we use every day. At TE, we are working on the front lines to solve these challenges.
Learn about the breakthrough innovations enabling the electrification of everything
We're starting to see electricity displacing traditional energy sources everywhere and really faster than I expected to see.
November 1, 2022
Fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine have powered the global economy for more than a century, but the future will be electrified. As the world adopts ambitious goals to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions, engineers are racing to commercialize electric alternatives to the vehicles and machinery that we use every day. TE's Davy Brown, vice president and chief technology officer for Transportation Solutions, focuses on the acceleration of the energy revolution and how TE is contributing to the transition by co-creating with customers. As the world becomes increasingly electrified, it's crucial to understand how cases of electrification are increasing and potentially changing life over the coming decade. Related concerns include range anxiety, infrastructure upgrades, and the engineering and technical skills needed to build and manage an electrified future.
Read – and listen to – an interview with Davy Brown.
What are electric alternatives and how can these help combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions?
There's a significant number of them, and I touched upon a few of them in the post. So those that spring to mind: Electrified vehicles or EVs cars, commercial transports, agricultural machinery, trains, aircraft systems, industrial automation. So a lot of those that were already familiar with and also some new critical opportunities and exciting new areas like EVTOL or flying taxis. So a pretty wide range and that that range will continue to grow.
There’s one that springs to mind and that's autonomy. So think about that in the context of things like self driving capability in cars. There's really no reason why autonomy is not possible in a petrol or gas powered vehicle would be in an EV or electric car. But the shift to electric vehicles and the electrification of cars is probably the largest wholesale overhaul we've seen in the architecture of a car for well over 100 years. And that transition and that transformation is creating additional space for new systems and vehicles to support all of the sensors and processing that's required for autonomous operation. But if I take it away from cars for a moment, autonomy starts to impact other applications which are being electrified.
A good example would be AGVs or automated guided vehicles. Think about these as mobile robots, which are used for moving material around a factory. AGVs themselves are actually not particularly new. They've been around for over 50 years and until recently they relied on fairly rudimentary technology, like following a line painted on the floor or perhaps some magnetic tape on the floor of a factory to guide them to their destination. But if we look at the current generation of AGVs, autonomous operation allows them to sense the environment around them. So it makes them really fast to deploy. It allows them to deal with situations like obstructions and their pathway. And it also improves our safety by them, allowing them to sense the environment, particularly when they're close to other human operators in a factory. So again, that's an example of something that doesn't need to be tied to electrification. But I do see these two technologies maturing at similar rates.
What factors are preventing broader adoption and advancements happening at scale when it comes to electrification?
First of all, there are some significant advancements that have got us to where we are, but there certainly are a number of challenges that really need to be overcome to continue to drive the adoption. I think the first one that springs to mind would be charging infrastructure, and probably the second one would be battery technology, but let me tackle those in order. Many of the things that we just talked about, are battery powered and therefore they require some sort of charging infrastructure, whether it's an AGV in a factory, like I just talked about, a car, or a commercial vehicle. They all still require the ability to be charged between operations. When I think about the the most commonplace electrification we come across today with EVs, the phrase range anxiety crops up frequently when we talk about it. And, I'm starting to hear another phrase increasingly used, and that's charge anxiety. So not only is there the concern as you're plotting your course in your electric car between charging stations, but when you get there, are the chargers all in use? Are they compatible with your car? Or is it actually out of service and you can't even use them, increasing that anxiety to how are you going to be able to make it to the next stop or to the next charging station?
I think the cost to charge or the charge to charge is something that we need to think about. We've seen adoption of EVs, certainly by many early adopters based on the lower cost to run, but with increasing electricity prices is it always going to be the case that it's cheaper than using a petrol alternative? So certainly some challenges there around the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Let me go back into the factory for a minute. So thinking about factory equipment again, consider an AGV or a mobile robot. In that environment, downtime is a real problem. So fast, reliable charging is essential to operation. New approaches like a “little and often” approach where the batteries are regularly topped up will likely be adopted. And in larger applications, think about battery powered trains, buses, lorries, trucks or aircraft. If you think about these large equipment applications, you need an entirely new infrastructure to support the sort of fast charging they required.
Interestingly, for for EVTOLs, which is probably one of the applications I'm most excited about, we're now seeing the first dedicated ground infrastructure being being built to support them, so called vertiports. So these are locations with clear access to the skies. But these vertiports, as they profilerate, will require new, very high capacity connections to the electricity grid to support the sort of power requirements to rapidly recharge an EVTOL.
And this is the second one I'd like to talk about is battery capacity technology. If I compare lithium ion battery technology to petrol, petrol has energy density of somewhere between 50 and 100 times higher than a lithium ion battery. Now we are seeing new battery chemistries like lithium-sulfur, zinc-iron, and aluminium-air. All of these are environmentally less harmful, but they also have improved energy density. So we are improving that density, but we're still a long, long way to close that energy density gap that we see with oil-based fuels. And so that will continue to be a challenge as we look at a number of these potential applications that are moving to moving away from petrol to electric propulsion.
What can engineers do differently when developing architectures that must transfer all of this power from an electric source into core systems?
This energy density is obviously a significant challenge. And when you think about, again, 50 to 100 times less energy dense, you can see that if you're trying to create similar performance, it creates a very, very heavy piece of infrastructure. So one of the most important things that we can do is to look at where else in the system we can reduce weight. If you look at the design of electrified systems today, there is a lot of focus on reducing size, weight, and power components. Now, size, weight, and power will be familiar to many listeners. That's a phrase that we've used in the aviation industry for many, many years, and it's been a major design consideration in aircraft since the Wright brothers first took to the air. But that consideration, size, weight, and power is rolling down into many, many other electrified applications to reduce that weight, to improve the efficiency and to improve the runtime or the range.
A second one closely associated here is around safety. And to improve the efficiency of electrified systems, we've seen the voltage increasing almost year over year. Current EVs and aircraft are typically around about 100 volts. But to improve efficiency, we see this growing rapidly to a thousand volts and beyond. And of course with this comes increased safety concerns. So system designers require components in their systems that can handle these new power requirements regardless of where the system is going to be deployed, if it's on the ground, in the air, or on the water.
What role TE is playing in helping engineers resolve these challenges?
A lot, actually. We are investing a lot of our development time and focus on novel new materials that will both reduce the weight of product and also improve the electrical performance in high voltage systems. In addition to advancing material science, we're also producing new high performance versions of key system components like relays and contactors. And these are electromechanical systems that are really critical to the the operation and safety of an electrified system.
What differentiates TE’s approach to partnering with OEMs on customized solutions for electrification?
At TE, we do something a bit different that is a really key part of the value that we create with our customers and that is our engineer to engineer relationship. We regularly co-innovate and co-design with our customers to create solutions that solve their toughest problems. Something that we're continuing to grow within our organization is more system architecture capability, and that will allow us to continue to work closely with our customers to help them define things like their overall power distribution, and from there bring that information back into our organization to work with our advanced development teams to help develop solutions for future generations of electrified systems.
How can TE solutions help OEMs address market expectations for sustainable performance that also meets safety and reliability requirements?
You just touched upon a couple of things there - safety and reliability. Safety and reliability are key requirements that have been placed on our products forever. And it's something that our customers have really come to trust us for. So when I think about that, safety and reliability has always been a key consideration in the design of our products. But the other one you mentioned was sustainability, and sustainability is joining those two very well-established core requirements as a new core requirement. And this has been a real focus for our engineers over the last number of years where in addition to improving the performance of the materials we use and the products we produce, we're also looking at how we can reduce the environmental impact of our products.
We have initiatives running across the organization, everything from looking at how we can reduce the amount of material that we use in our products through to advanced research activity developing bio-based alternative materials which have got lower environmental impact. So that that third requirement of sustainability has really accelerated importance over the last couple of years. And we expect to see that continue to grow as our customers demand more sustainable products and their solutions.
What's being done to sustainably generate the power needed to run commercial and industrial machinery?
As we talk about electric powered worlds, we can see the improved sustainability. That's very obvious to the end user of electrified equipment. But of course, we do need to think about where that electricity is sourced from. And the one thing that's clear in a more and more electrified world is that we're going to require more and more electric to power an increased range of devices. How do we generate and distribute electricity globally is changing.
Most countries, if not all countries around the world, are increasing the percentage of electricity that comes from renewable sources, thereby reducing dependence on coal, oil, gas, etc. And this is this is possible. I mean, a great example is Norway. Norway led the world for many years and still continues to lead the world with the adoption of renewable energy sources. And I believe something over 98% of the electricity in Norway today comes from renewable sources. But few countries are anywhere near this level. So as we look at this transition to renewable energy, our teams are supporting our customers globally as they build out completely new infrastructure, supporting wind, solar and other renewable generation sources.
A second consideration is this transition to renewables, of course, requires other changes to the grid infrastructure. The first thing is that the unpredictable generation characteristics of most renewable energy sources mean that we need to store energy somewhere in the network. Of course, we only generate solar when during the day, when the sun shining, we only generate wind based when there's wind, etc. So this requirement for storage is really something new and something that utilities need to embrace. And I think a second consideration here is that with more homes and businesses generating electricity locally, the grid is changing from a very uni-directional flow, which traditionally was the utility provides power to the consumer to a more bi-directional flow with spare power often being sold back to the utility.
This change is actually very large for the utilities and it requires electricity providers to monitor their infrastructure, to understand the network load across their grid. And this is really a huge change to our electricity grids, which for over 100 years have been passive and are becoming smart infrastructure today.
What engineering limitations and economic factors might affect how OEMs approach electrification over the next five years?
The biggest limitation that I see is around talent. And we've just talked about a range of completely new applications using new power levels with new safety requirements, new architectures, new materials. So a lot is changing to support this electrification. And as I look at that, the skills that many engineers globally today have are just not what's required to design the systems of the future. As I think about that, universities, employers, and individuals, we all need to invest in developing the required capabilities and skills to respond to these evolving technical needs.
We're starting to see electricity displacing traditional energy sources everywhere and really faster than I expected to see. For example, most times you go out in your car today on a journey, you see an electric vehicle. That's changed dramatically over five years. I had to buy a new chainsaw a couple of months ago. I bought an electric chainsaw. I mean, we're seeing this electrification trend is moving really, really quickly. But in many instances, as I think about the electrified versions of an application, it's a compromise. So today, an electric vehicle range is a concern in factories. We talked about charging time.
So it's taken equipment out of commission for periods of time for charging. Commercial electric vehicles tend to have less pulling power. Electric aircraft can't fly as far or for as long as conventionally powered versions. So I think about those compromises. And when I think through to maturity, the next phase of maturity, in my view, is when we see those compromises disappear, when we think about the performance, the cost, the reliability of the electrified systems, they will be better than the systems that they're replacing. And by the way, that's going to happen at very different rates. We're already seeing very, very widespread adoption across the automotive industry. But to see comparable performance and to see displacement and heavy applications like international air travel will take a lot longer, probably 50 years or more.
What do you find most thrilling in being a part of the electrification evolution?
I'll tell you what I'm not thrilled about. I'm a I'm a huge fan of classic British sports cars, and I'm very sad to see the demise of the petrol-powered sports car. But what am I thrilled about? Some of these new applications are very exciting. I'm thrilled that in its very small number of years, I'll be able to take a flight on the EVTOL, and I'm really excited about that becoming real. If I guess if I zoom out for a moment and think about us at TE, we're really thrilled to be able to continue to collaborate with our customers globally to develop the sort of solutions that will power this new electrified and much more sustainable future.
Did you enjoy this interview? Read the source article.
As the world adopts ambitious goals to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions, engineers are racing to commercialize electric alternatives to the vehicles and machinery that we use every day. At TE, we are working on the front lines to solve these challenges.
Learn about the breakthrough innovations enabling the electrification of everything