Material substitution in electric vehicle manufacturing : comparing advanced high strength steel and aluminum

In electric vehicle production, the high cost of battery manufacture motivates investment in energy efficient and lightweight vehicle designs. A common lightweighting strategy is to substitute Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) or aluminum in place of traditional mild steel. Aluminum is a lighter weight than AHSS, leading to greater reduction of battery and motor costs. However, it is more expensive to manufacture the vehicle body using aluminum compared to AHSS. This thesis is an attempt to answer the question of which material is less expensive from a total vehicle cost point of view, and how that might change as technological learning affects the various vehicle subsystems. A fully designed vehicle with an Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) body serves as the basis for an aluminum "comparator" design.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Burd, Joshua Thomas Jameson.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard Roth.

• Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122162

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122162