Fleet customization as the next step in the electrification of mobility – a case study

Abstract:

In times of climate change e-mobility is expected to play a major role in future society. Air-polluted cities would profit from emission-free electric vehicles. Nonetheless, they meet low acceptance at the moment. Dominating the public opinion customer´s needs do not corre-spond with electric vehicle´s state of the art. Therefore, only low quantities are fabricated resulting in high production costs. This this paper focuses on the production of electric vehi-cles based on modular components and a modern product architecture development process guaranteeing economic attractiveness. A comprehensive case study is conducted. Following the idea of modular structured vehicle derivatives the conflict between economies of scale and individual customer requests is addressed. Introducing the StreetScooter technology platform an approach focusing on an equal-partner network as the key to fast engineering and customers oriented services is presented. Entering the market under the premise of a fleet customer oriented approach - perfectly suited given restricted driving ranges and pro-jectable routes - electric vehicles stand the chance of greater production volumes and positive publicity. This results in reduced production costs, whereas the product´s degree of maturity and consequently public acceptance rises.