Spring Semester 2019, ETH Zurich (HG D 22) or https://zoom.us/j/558338954

Flyer (pdf)

14 March 2019, 11.15-12.00

Jana Plananska, PhD candidate at University of St. Gallen

Customer acceptance of electric mobility: Vehicle purchase process understanding for a more efficient EV promotion in Switzerland

In order to fulfill Swiss energy and climate goals, the share of electric vehicles (EV) within its total fleet has to rapidly increase. Despite extensive support measures, especially in the form of public sector incentives, only 1.17% of newly registered cars in Switzerland in 2017 were electric. Nudging techniques are seen as a promising alternative to promote EV purchases in Switzerland. Nevertheless, to propose the most efficient ones, the underlying reasons for the low share of EVs have to be understood. For that, a state of the field analysis followed by an online survey on vehicle purchase process in Switzerland were undertaken. Their results above all show that car dealers have both primordial role on the vehicle purchase process as well as represent a key barrier to EV sales. Consulting a plurality of information sources has been however concluded to increase the likelihood to consider an EV purchase. Based on these and other results, the presentation suggests potential nudging interventions for policy makers to increase EV sales.

Download slides or view talk on ETH Video Portal

25 April 2019, 11.15-12.00

Lukas Küng, PhD candidate at ETH Zurich

Passenger cars and the 1.5°C climate target: the role of propulsion technologies, CO₂ limits and real-world energy demand

To stay within the 1.5°C climate target, the global CO₂ emissions after 2018 should not exceed 383 Gt. Proportionally distributed, this relates to about 109 Mt for the Swiss passenger cars, which implies the need to reduce current emission levels rapidly to zero. Reducing demand has the advantage of fast implementation, but is limited in reduction potential. As long as individual motorized transportation exists, the only way to reach zero emissions is through technological change. But which technologies hold the largest decarbonization potentials? The talk presents results from the SCCER Mobility Strategic Guidance project, which show the role of powertrain electrification. After having identified the desired technologies, the challenge is to introduce them into the national fleet to stay within the CO₂ budget. A tool for policy maker to promote alternative technologies are emission limits for new passenger cars. The question is: Are the current limits stringent enough? Furthermore, these limits address type approval values, which are known to differ from on-road operation for conventional cars, but also for alternative technologies. Results from a conducted field study with alternatively propelled cars will be shown and an approach how to estimate this emission gap, which is relevant for the CO₂ budget.

Download slides or view talk on ETH Video Portal

23 May 2019, 11.15-12.00

Michael Striednig, PhD candidate at PSI

Potentials and limits of evaporative cooling for polymer electrolyte fuel cells

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) allow an energy-efficient and emission-free conversion of regeneratively produced hydrogen to electricity and show the potential to achieve low cost in mass production. Even though state-of-the-art PEFCs reach system efficiencies above 60%, a substantial amount of heat has to be rejected to the environment. Conventional cooling approaches aim at transferring the waste heat to a liquid coolant that flows through dedicated cooling channels. This yields high heat fluxes from the cell to the coolant and ensures a uniform temperature distribution but requires a thick and complex design of fuel cell stack components (i.e. bipolar plates). As a novel concept, evaporative cooling does not require separate cooling channels and is therefore capable to reduce the fuel cell system volume, complexity and cost by up to 30%. In this webinar, the potentials and limits of evaporative cooling are elucidated and suitable operating conditions as well as the impact on fuel cell performance and system complexity are discussed. Finally, a feasible operating window for evaporative cooling is proposed.

View talk on ETH Video Portal

If you don’t have access to the ETH Video Portal, please contact Kirsten Oswald.

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