Page 19 - MetalForming Magazine February 2023 - Metal Forming for the Automotive Industry

EVS WILL GO AS FAR AS
Batteries Take Them
A timeline reveals the ups and downs in the development and implementation of battery electric vehicles (EVs) and points to one key truth:
As battery technology goes, so go EVs.
BY LOUIS A. KREN, SENIOR EDITOR
The timeline of EV development how to most easily make that wheel las-Joseph Cugnot in 1769 to build a
turn. For eons, people and animals were the means. No doubt the idea popped up among the toilers that a better way must exist. Leonardo da Vinci thought so, and in 1478 he sketched it out—a concept for a self- propelled cart. In da Vinci’s mind, some sort of spring contraption would pro- vide the power, though to this day we haven’t been able to make the details of his drawing work. So it went, until the Industrial Revolution and the har- nessing of steam.
The necessities of war, specifically the need to move armaments over ter- rain, led French military engineer Nico-
comprises two centuries of
blood, sweat and tears, with elec- tricity as the main vehicle mover gain- ing, then losing momentum. For sure it’s on an upswing, with investment, promises and R&D—and hype—in overdrive. How long before the EV wave crests, then falls, is anyone’s guess. Or will it fall? We don’t know the answers yet, but a look at the history shows that battery performance and capability, along with the performance and via- bility of competing technologies, will have the main say.
I’d imagine that since the invention of the wheel, humankind has pondered
steam-powered tricycle for hauling artillery. He quickly found major dis- advantages to steam power: massive weight for the machinery, lack of a ready water supply and the need for rest time to allow the steam to rebuild. Steam soon would become the method for moving cars along tracks, but offered no ideal solution for roads.
However, thanks to Ben Franklin and his kite, and the work of many oth- ers, thinking evolved into ways of har- nessing electricity, leading English sci- entist Michael Faraday to invent the electric motor in 1821.
In the minds of many, electrification
16 MetalForming/February 2023
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