Extended lifetime of road Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) (2ZERO Partnership)

Opened

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

Horizon Europe (2021-2027)

Programme Description

Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

HORIZON-CL5-2025-04-D5-04

Call

Extended lifetime of road Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) (2ZERO Partnership)

Summary

Currently, the value of a vehicle is mainly determined by its mileage and age, underestimating the actual residual value.

However, the true residual value of a BEV and its components should contribute to the implementation of circular economy (CE) strategies beyond classical shredding, such asreuse, remanufacturing and recovery of valuable materials.

The residual value is determined by ageing and degradation during the use phase, repair and maintenance measures, vehicle operation and also by the specific CE design.

Detailed Call Description

Consequently, prospective/prescriptive maintenance strategies, repairability and upgradability of vehicles must be addressed in relation to actual ageing and degradation of a component as part of upcoming CE strategies (including 9R approaches) to ensure longer (in terms of higher residual values) and more sustainable lifetimes of road BEV without over-sizing components and/or increasing the use of raw materials.

This topic focuses on the road BEV electric drive components relevant from a system integration point of view where high combined operational loads are to be expected, on the thermal management systems as well as on power electronics. The ageing and degradation of pack and module level is included whereas the battery cell level is excluded.

Proposals are expected to address all the following aspects:

  • Analyse holistically the ageing and degradation of relevant, critical BEV functions and relevant sub-systems (excluding battery cells), that determine the Vehicle Lifetime and residual value under the aspect of functionality, safety and economic considerations (e.g., through correlating real-life operational loads with observed degradation and ageing effects);
  • Develop tools and methods to assess, measure and predict ageing and degradation of relevant sub-systems (e.g. modelling combining multi-physical models describing ageing/degradations and vehicle operation and applying AI approaches, non-invasive evaluation to describe ageing and degradation over lifetime, multi-physical testing to accelerated occurrence of realistic ageing and degradation phenomena, use of novel sensors for measuring ageing and degradation in an electric drivetrain, etc.);
  • Develop extended lifetime concepts and assess lifetime extension measures for BEV ensuring high residual values including right-sized design, operation, maintenance, refurbish and repair, by e.g. definition of prospective maintenance strategies, implementing ageing / degradation models into the design, advanced control strategies to minimise operational loads contributing to ageing and degradation phenomena including sensor technologies to obtain real-life operational data;
  • For all relevant, critical components, follow the “digital product passport” approach, to achieve maximum traceability;
  • Data management for operational loads, maintenance, and repair measures;
  • Validation and demonstration of concepts and designs for higher residual values (less aging and degradation under operational conditions) appropriate to the TRL level via a full physical demonstrator of all components of the electric drive-in representative laboratory environment.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Call Total Budget

€7.00 million

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

100%

Expected EU contribution per project: €7.00 million

Thematic Categories

  • Energy
  • Environment and Climate Change
  • Other Thematic Category
  • Research, Technological Development and Innovation
  • Transport

Eligibility for Participation

  • Businesses
  • Central Government
  • Educational Institutions
  • Legal Entities
  • Private Bodies
  • Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
  • Semi-governmental organisations
  • Services Providers
  • Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Eligibility For Participation Notes

The following exceptions apply: subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.

A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects.

Call Opening Date

06/05/2025

Call Closing Date

04/09/2025

National Contact Point(s)

Research and Innovation Foundation
Address:
 29a Andrea Michalakopoulou, 1075 Nicosia, P.B. 23422, 1683 Nicosia
Telephone: +357 22205000
Fax: +357 22205001
Email: support@research.org.cy
Website: https://www.research.org.cy/en/

Persons to Contact:

Mr. Christakis Theocharous
Scientific Officer A’
Email: ctheocharous@research.org.cy

Mr. George Christou
Scientific Officer
Email: gchristou@research.org.cy