From ZEDU-1 to Eterna and HOLON Mover

The second edition of IAA MOBILITY will once again feature numerous innovations. Here are three of the most exciting new products to be unveiled at IAA MOBILITY. 

ZEDU-1 - apparently the world's most environmentally friendly car   

In cooperation with the car manufacturer HWA, DLR has presented a revolutionary vehicle, the Zero Emission Drive Unit - Generation 1 (ZEDU-1). The focus was on the development of a completely emission-free road vehicle.  

Electric vehicles, for example, are environmentally friendly but not completely emission-free. The reason for this is that abrasion from tires and brakes produces fine dust and microplastics. With the ZEDU-1, DLR has found an innovative solution to this problem.    

The traditional disk brake has been replaced by a multi-disk brake that is integrated into the electric motor instead of the wheel. This innovation allows almost all the braking energy to be recovered. But this isn't the only innovation. The wheel housing of the ZEDU-1 is designed to create a vacuum while riding. This ensures that tire wear is collected at a specific point. A blower unit, similar to a vacuum cleaner, then extracts these particles and passes them through a filter system. The result is that the vehicle's exhaust is filtered.   

In tests at 50 km/h, no tire abrasion particles were emitted. Even at higher speeds, emissions were reduced by an impressive 70 to 80 percent compared to conventional cars. The ZEDU-1 could therefore represent a significant step towards truly emission-free road traffic.    

The  sustainable car concept  “Eterna” 

In the Netherlands, the average car ends up in the scrap yard after just under 20 years, according to the industry organization Auto Recycling Netherlands. The TU/ecomotive student team at Eindhoven University of Technology has found a way to extend the life of cars and ultimately reduce the total CO2 emissions during the production process by a third. Their proposal: to build the vehicle from two separate parts and treat them as two separate life cycles. This would involve designing the vehicle so that certain parts can remain in the vehicle rather than being recycled at the end of their life cycle. In this way, significant savings can be made throughout the production process, as the TU/ecomotive student team calculated in their sustainability report. The result is the modular car Eterna.    

Eterna is expected to save 20 tons of CO2 in total production costs compared to an average car. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of CO2 that 800 trees remove from the atmosphere every year. Overall, this means a reduction of CO2 emissions during the manufacturing process by about one third.   

To achieve this, the vehicle will consist of a base for long-term use and a replaceable lid. The base contains long-life components such as the ladder frame, batteries and engine. The replaceable top contains shorter-life materials such as interior fabrics and safety features (e.g. digital side mirrors and cruise control).   

The idea behind the concept is to inspire the automotive industry to think differently about how cars are designed and used to promote more efficient use of materials.   

At IAA MOBILITY, the team of students from TU/ecomotive will present their concept. It's not the first sustainable car concept for TU/ecomotive. Last year, the students made headlines with ZEM, their sustainable electric car that uses a special filter to capture more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it emits.   

Holon Mover   

Cognizant Mobility is also presenting a world first at IAA MOBILITY: the Very Enhanced Road Assistant. The new artificial intelligence (AI)-based system uses the example of the autonomous mover HOLON, which was developed in cooperation with Cognizant, to show what a driver assistance system of the future could look like. The AI will be used in particular in fully autonomous public transport or people movers, filling the gap left by the loss of human contact.   

For example, the Very Enhanced Road Assistant will be able to provide driving information and interact with passengers on a personal and individual basis. In the future, the system will also be able to detect medical emergencies and thus ensure greater passenger safety. The self-driving system uses various sensor technologies such as laser scanning (LiDAR), radar and cameras. In the future, AI will be used as an intelligent driving companion in vehicles of all kinds, not only in public transportation or people movers, and will realize a variety of business cases - from sales to after-sales.    

The HOLON Mover, which incorporates the AI system, is one of the world's first autonomous movers (Level 4) developed to automotive standards. In the future, the Mover will be used for on-demand services such as ride-pooling, ride-hailing and normal scheduled services. For example, the prototype of a driverless bus has already been presented by the Hamburg Hochbahn. The company plans to deploy up to 10,000 autonomous vehicles in the city by 2030. The vehicle is expected to have a range of around 290 kilometers and pick up all passengers at their front door - fully automatically, without a driver.