Heavy-duty vehicles account for about 25% of EU road transport CO2 emissions and about 6% of total EU emissions. In line with the Paris Agreement and Green Deal targets, Regulation (EU) 2019/1242 setting CO2 emission standards for HDVs (from August 14, 2019) forces the transition to a seamless integration of zero-emission vehicles into fleets. In line with the European 2050 goals ESCALATE aims to demonstrate high-efficiency zHDV powertrains (up to 10% increase) for long-haul applications that will provide a range of 800 km without refueling/recharging and cover at least 500 km average daily operation (6+ months) in real conditions. ESCALATE will achieve this by following modularity and scalability approach starting from the β-level of hardware and software innovations and aiming to reach the γ-level in the first sprint and eventually the δ-level at the project end through its 2 sprint-V-cycle. ESCALATE is built on the novel concepts around 3 main innovation areas, which are: i) Standardized well-designed, cost effective modular and scalable multi-powertrain components; ii) Fast Fueling & Grid-friendly charging solutions; and iii) Digital Twin (DT) & AI-based management tools considering capacity, availability, speed, and nature of the charging infrastructures as well as the fleet structures. Throughout the project lifetime, 5 pilots, 5 DTs and 5 case studies on TCO (with the target of 10% reduction), together with their environmental performance via TranSensusLCA will be performed. The ultimate goal is to develop well-designed modular building blocks with a TRL7/8 based on business model innovations used for 3 types of zHDVs {b-HDV,f-HDV,r-HDV}. Furthermore, 3 white papers will be produced, one of which will contribute defining the pathway for reducing well-to-wheel GHG emissions from HDVs based on results and policy assessments.

While Fully electric vehicles (EV) have zero tailpipe emissions and are seen as a key solution to meeting the European Fit-for-55 target of reducing CO2 levels in 2030 and climate-neutrality by 2050, much more can be potentially achieved if the global market uptake of innovative EVs is accelerated. The ZEV-UP project aims to address this urgent need by developing modular, cost-effective, and user-centric EVs for both passenger and goods transportation. Leveraging innovative design and engineering techniques, ZEV-UP vehicles will be tailored to meet the specific needs of users in both developed and emerging markets, ensuring high levels of user acceptance and market uptake. Key innovations include a base L7e BEV model that is designed respectful of affordability and can be upgraded and adapted for various purposes and needs, including commercial applications and higher-value passenger vehicles. By optimizing vehicle components for reduced material usage and enhanced structural properties, the project will achieve lighter vehicles with increased autonomy and minimized environmental impact. ZEV-UP will also develop digital-twin models to improve vehicle development efficiency and reduce validation costs, as well as designing charging capabilities compatible with a variety of regional power systems. Novel business and usage models, such as Battery as a Service, will be explored to maximize the benefits and impact of the L7e BEV platform. User-centric design, informed by market research and field interviews in both established and developing countries, will be a central focus of the project. Additionally, ZEV-UP will develop a proliferation model to assess policy intervention scenarios and strategize for short- and long-term BEV uptake in various markets. By delivering these key results and adhering to its objectives, ZEV-UP will accelerate the transition to sustainable urban mobility and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector.

ALBATROSS addresses the needs of European Electric and Hybrid-Electric passenger vehicle market by overcoming driver concerns relating to battery range and anxiety, cost, long-term reliability and excessive charging times. ALBATROSS will develop an integrated approach based on smart batteries combined with lightweight designs. Using innovative cooling technologies, we will achieve pack temperature range 5-40°C (30-40°C under ultra-fast charging), with 200Wh/kg, increase driving range to 480km and reduce charging times by 25%. Advanced sensing and control, as a part of a flexible advanced Battery Management System, will be utilised on-vehicle and using the cloud to conduct remote maintenance and troubleshooting ensuring safety even at these high energy densities. Using advanced analytics will enable the State of Health and State of Safety to be continuously and accurately measured. The system will be validated on-vehicle under real world, extreme environmental conditions. ALBATROSS represents a pan-European EU consortium of world leading organisations that are looking to commercialise these technologies of European origin. The coordinator (Yesilova) has a global presence in the automotive market and the consortium is strengthened by organisations that are part of the global Fiat-Chrysler, Ford and Mercedes-Benz groups as well as European SMEs with world leading technologies.

SELFY will increase CCAM ecosystem’s safety, security, robustness, and resilience by researching and developing a toolbox made of collaborative tools which main pillars are: (i) situational awareness, through collaborative perception and monitoring; (ii) data sharing, advanced processing for detection of malicious events and decision-making; (iii) resilience, increased ability to adapt and respond to cyber-threats and cyber-attacks; and (iv) trust, including guarantees regarding privacy, confidentiality, integrity and immutability of data in a collaborative CCAM environment. SELFY tools can operate individually and/or cooperatively with other tools, generating a distributed global solution, where SELF-protection, SELF-response and SELF-recovery decisions will be managed locally or globally as appropriate for any given cyber-attack, malicious activity or hazard, extending the Operational Design Domain (ODD) In Europe, 50 million connected cars are expected in circulation by 2026, and EU regulations requires for cybersecurity certificates for vehicles. In this scenario, SELFY long term impact is grounded on a value proposition that is OEM and/or vendor agnostic, thus facilitating adoption at all stages of the value chain. Additionally, the consortium involves all necessary stakeholders for co-creating a sound and comprehensive CCAM solution: including OEMs, road operators, traffic and infrastructure management, researchers, and policy-makers. SELFY expected outcomes include 5 traffic and infrastructure management organizations adopting the SELFY toolbox, which will benefit of a >90% effectiveness rate in detection of vulnerable vehicles and security breaches and an increase of >75% off the mitigation rate at demonstrated in TRL6 by the end of the project.

ECOHYDRO aims to develop a new energy efficient filament winding process of hydrogen storage tanks using recyclable materials. We will improve the thermoplastic acrylic resin for in-situ polymerization, which has been used for wind energy and marine applications so far, for the high-speed filament winding process by optimizing the UV polymerization of the resin and developing new filament winding tools and equipment. Especially, we will develop multi-functional resin with fire-resistance, thermal insulation and self-healing capacity which are expected to enhance the safety of hydrogen storage, and hybrid tows to reduce microcracking. We will develop a recycling technology to recover 100% of carbon fibres and resin from hydrogen tanks after their end-of-life. These recovered materials will be used for the rewinding process for new tanks manufacturing. This recycling and rewinding technology will contribute to significant reduction of the cost and of carbon footprint of hydrogen storage tanks. To improve the safety and durability of hydrogen tanks, a new structural health monitoring technology via sensor integration into the tanks in service life, will be developed in combination with data science using AI algorithm. These sensors embedded into the tank during the manufacturing process will be used to monitor the soundness of filament winding process in real time to improve the yield ratio. The developed technologies will be validated by four different types of industrial demonstrators (TRL4) using either compressed gas hydrogen storage cryogenic liquid hydrogen storage, such as aboveground station, tube trailor, truck and bus, and aviation. The industrial partners of ECOHYDRO (Tier 1, end-users) will validate the demonstrator development and prepare a future plan for a higher TRL (4-8) development in terms of the KPIs. Dissemination and communication activities will be performed in relation with other EU projects as well as general public and scientific community.