The Evolution of Electric Mobility Charging Infrastructure: A Look into the Future
How can e-mobility be made even more user-friendly, simple and suitable for everyday use in the future? Over 150 students from 10 countries have been tackling this question over the past six months. Engineering and design students worked in mixed teams to develop innovative solutions that will revolutionize the charging of e-vehicles in the future. The resulting solutions could not be more different, but they were all very impressive.
The Task
“Inspire your customers to switch to e-mobility by designing innovative urban charging solutions. “
There are currently promising approaches in research and development for e-mobility solutions. These include wireless charging systems that can be seamlessly integrated into everyday life and solutions for mobile charging to reduce range anxiety. The objective is to develop user-friendly, sustainable concepts that are economically and ecologically viable. The challenge for all teams was to develop innovative urban charging solutions that would motivate customers to adopt e-mobility. In particular, the objective was to persuade the second and third wave of customers—i.e., those who have thus far been reluctant or dependent on publicly accessible charging infrastructure—to adopt e-mobility. To develop comprehensive solutions, the students focused on different regions, including San Jose, Munich, and Shenzhen. As part of the market research process, the regional characteristics were analysed. It is essential to understand who the residents of the region are, how they travel, and what their requirements are. Additionally, the students conducted a thorough examination of the current state of the charging infrastructure. They examined customer charging behavior and the amount of energy required at specific times and locations. To direct the development of the solutions, the students employed design thinking.
The Design Thinking Process provides a guideline on how the problem can be viewed. There are five elemental steps – Research, Definition, Ideation, Making, and Testing. The goal is to focus on the customer and his human needs and finding a solution that satisfies those.
''The opportunity to complete such a project in an interdisciplinary team across different time zones not only benefits students in their studies, but also prepares them for their future careers ."
Prepare for the Future
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The process of designing a new, innovative concept is completely new for the students since most of the regular classes do not focus on project work, are not combining knowledge of different courses and do not teach competences that become important in worklife, like discussing ideas, having meetings and working with a deadline. Still, all those capabilities are helpful when starting a job for both, the students and the companies.
If you, as a company, are interested in joining a community, which sculptures tomorrows design and engineering education, on a global level and are willing to support this process make sure to follow the IDEEA page on LinkedIn. Become part in building a platform for academia, students and industry to meet, exchange ideas, foster collaboration and make new friendships!
The results of the groups impressed the jury. Each team identified different problems and thus found other solutions. In addition to a presentation, many teams also designed and built an initial prototype or an illustrative model. Through the presentation, it became clear that the students put a lot of thought into the process of finding solutions, really wanted to understand the problems of the users and develop products adapted to the users’ circumstances. In addition, everyone learned what it means to work online in a collaborative way with other people and across different time zones. The resulting challenges were mastered. Overall, it was a very successful project. A big thank you to everyone who helped make this years project a success!
The planning for next year has already begun and it is exciting to see what it will bring! Interested in participating? More information will be published on this side soon.